There is news that kito and jambo will leave the zoo next year to got to Valencia in Spain. Also there is zola pregnat for a late januray birth or early Feburay and a aardvark baby expected any day now to mum oq there has also been the arrival of a baby spider monkey 8 penquins have joined the collection aswell and numerous of Squirrel monkeys born aswell as a baby anteater and dose anyone know how many cheetah the zoo has
Rhinowise it is noteworthy that several AI exercises have been going on with the rhinos at Colchester. Simba has been used as a sire donor for the second Budapest AI attempt with resident female Lulu. As male Simba has not been able to do the job naturally, in late November 2007 young S.African female Cynthia at Colchester was inseminated using frozen semen from Simba. This went quite well, all under supervision of the IZW people from Berlin. A second attempt on the other young female Emily was due in early December (when next she would be in heat). Fingers crossed this will lead to successful births in 2009!
Colchester Zoo News: Colchester Zoo reveals plans for its next mutli million pound development! Colchester has announced its latest big-money plans. It is going to be a tropical hall with new species to Colchester. There is going to be an underwater crocodile tunnel as well! Some sad news though, the female Amur tiger has lost a new litter of cubs Colchester Zoo News: Colchester Zoo is very sad to announce that Anoushka, the rare Amur tiger has lost her litter of cubs.
sad news about the tigers - but cant wait till the new exhbit ! gonna be great under-water crocidle tunnel wow - just cant wait for the feed talk !
I have to hand it to Colchester- most zoos just wouldn't give out this sort of information for fear of critisism even when it is just a fact of life...
is zola being kept alone in the house as when i have seen pictures theres one feamle elephant in the house anyone confirm ?
they posted this on their webiste dosent look hopefully but u never know : Keepers have been on a round the clock watch for the long awaited arrival of Zola the elephant’s baby after a 22 month gestation. However, after Zola’s previous pregnancy ended without success in 2003, keepers are cautious about the outcome this time round. Please be assured as soon as we have some news this story will be updated.
What species of endangered croc is Colchester to acquire? The ultra modern orang exhibit is up and running by summer 2008 and will house up to 4 orangs (press release Colchester Zoo). Normally, zoos let it be known well in advance what exhibits they are building and which M.F. numbers they are looking for. Any chance that pure-bred Sumatran female Djambe will soon after acquire a mate to breed with and 1 more female companion?
My money would be on them getting some of the young Morelet's from Cotswold. Based on nothing more than the fact that they're available and the Colchester house seems to be Neotropical-themed.
Got to agree with you their as at the moment they still need homes for at least 7 of them some have already moved on to private breeders and some more are due to move shortly to a private zoo in the U.K.
This house has been under construction for a very long time- about three years it seems. They do say in the section about this exhibit that they intend to add another pair of Sumatrans when its complete( this is also on EEP recommendations) but I don't yet know which individuals they might be. Djambe lived in Twycross for many years but comes from a well-represented Europe line ( I can't remember which without looking...) and due to EEP recommendations has never been bred from but there's no other reason why she couldn't have (at least one) a baby at Colchester with a purebred male though. One possible suitable-aged male partner already in the UK is 'Padang' at Chester Zoo- where he is now surplus. A female would have to come from Europe I think, as only Chester and Jersey have Sumatrans in UK and there is no suitable-aged surplus female.
Can not understand why now Cotswold has achieved major breeding success with an endangered croc species, their offspring are being distributed among private breeders only. I would wish that with this species now would be the most favourable time to make business of setting up an EEP sponsorred breeding programme for Morelet's crocs (perhaps with an in situ link up to recovery efforts in their native Mexico). Do you know which private breeders have received these and under which terms are they being loaned out?
This issue really brings up a wider one about a distinct lack of crocodilian facilities in the UK (maybe europe?). Now the occasional breeding success of an endangered crocodile isn't so uncommon, we are rapidly realising that fairly large groups of offspring, which suddenly make a large percentage of the captive population related, will grow up to be large, adult crocodiles that are expensive to maintain and cannot all just be housed together. This is why you have zoos like drusillas with an incredibly small enclosure for their dwarf crocodiles (the pool is smaller than most garden ponds). That is subjective of course, but if you go and see it you'll maybe understand my point. Where do you put all those offspring you successfully bred? It kind of puts to shame Noah's ark zoo farm who opened a new exhibit for two baby north american alligators they had aquired, as well as all the tropical house type collections with spectacled caiman. Until now, only a few collections have had decent facilities, the new exhibits at paignton, chester, cromer and colchester will hopefully start a trend in better housing for crocodilians. Remember Colchester have the only slender-snouted crocodiles on show in the UK, maybe they will be moved to the new exhibit also? Are captive-bred crocodilians relatively easy to release into the wild? For all the expense of new exhibits, 'farming' endangered crocodiles in their native countries seems to do the trick with breeding, rather than it being a rare event as with western european zoos.
It may well have something to do with the fact that they are all owned by private collectors and only the fact that Cotswold got them together on long term breeding loan that,its been possible to breed from them,i know some of the private keepers but not all not sure under what terms they have been sent out under.
OK, that makes it look a lot more favourable. It is high time that zoos and private zoo keepers come to a good cooperation in breeding endangered species. The realisation that imports are finite and that we do need to breed the species in our care if we are to avert a worldwide biodiversity crisis. I wish that more reptilarians would follow this wonderful example (I know a Fiji banded iguana group from which individuals have entered the zoo community). Hopefully, the sire and dams can be re-bred soon and augment the captive Morelet's group. It would be nice to set up a cooperative agreement with the Mexican authorities on in situ conservation and cooperation with the Guadalajara or Puebla Zoos.
Colchesters two female aardvark have been given ultrasound tests and both are found to be pregnant. Puq is in the early stages of pregnancy and Oq could be due anytime soon. This is great news for the European studbook, but surely we are getting to the point where we are needing fresh blood in the European programme.
