Common Hippopotami in Australasian Zoos – News, History and Discussion

Common Hippopotami in the Australasian Region
Hippopotamus amphibius​

I am wanting to find out more about the Common Hippopotami in our region, past and present.
There is a limited amount of information on the internet, including some historical information on other ZooChat threads (old zoo specific news threads etc.) but I thought it’d be good to consolidate this information in a thread for this species, since it has and continues to, generate a fair amount of discussion in the Australia and New Zealand forums.

Here are some links I have found useful:

https://vdocuments.mx/common-hippopotamus-husbandry-guidelines.html

http://www.izn.org.uk/Archive/391/WEB391.pdf

Both contain information on individuals within our region, including a section of the studbook in the final pages of Common Hippopotamus Husbandry Guidelines. The studbook in the first link is dated 2006, the article in the second link is dated 2011, so information (especially regarding Tipperary Station) in the second document should be regarded as the most accurate as it is a revision of the studbook.

This is a link to some information I have found on the Common Hippopotami held at Auckland Zoo:

https://www.zoochat.com/community/threads/common-hippopotami-at-auckland-zoo.467422/

Please use this thread to contribute information you might have about the current or past population of this species or to ask any questions you may have.

 

Common Hippopotami at Werribee Open Range Zoo

The founder of the Werribee Open Range Zoo herd is a male named Harold:

Harold (M)
Born at Taronga Western Plains Zoo 07/03/1978
Arrived at Werribee Open Range Zoo 30/10/1984
Died at Werribee Open Range Zoo 12/05/2014

Harold bred with a female (Studbook Number 1012) to produce a female calf:

Primrose (F)
Born at Werribee Open Range Zoo 01/12/1990
Still at Werribee Open Range Zoo 04/05/2018

Harold and Primrose have two surviving calves:

Tulip (F)
Born at Werribee Open Range Zoo 01/01/2003
Still at Werribee Open Range Zoo 04/05/2018

Lotus (F)
Born at Werribee Open Range Zoo 28/03/2008
Still at WerribeeOpen Range Zoo 04/05/2018

Harold bred with a female (Studbook Number 1057) to produce a female calf:

Brindabella (F)
Born at Werribee Open Range Zoo 09/12/1990
Still at Werribee Open Range Zoo 04/05/2018

Harold and Brindabella have one surviving calf:

Pansy (F)
Born at Werribee Open Range Zoo 18/11/2013
Still at Werribee Open Range Zoo 04/05/2018

Additional notes/info:

The current population of 0.5 is kept in two groups: Primrose, Tulip and Lotus in one group; Brindabella and Pansy in the other.

Brindabella’s dam was born at Adelaide Zoo to Albert (1965) and Susie (1967-2017). Does anyone know further details on the dams of Primrose or Brindabella?

In addition to Tulip and Lotus, Primrose has had two non surviving calves. One was born in May 2002 and died at the age of two weeks after Primrose accidentally crushed it. Does anyone know details on her other calf that died?

In addition to Pansy, Brindabella has had two non surviving calves. One was born in February 2001 and was killed by Primrose at the age of 15 months in May 2002. The other calf was stillborn in August 2011.

 

I believe there are only two males left in the region both at TWPZ now (correct me if wrong) so unless importation happens in the near future things are looking a little bleak for them. Its a real shame it has gotten to this level with our majors zoos where we stand to lose a species which has been in the regions collections for many years its going to be a real blow to the large open range zoos if they disappear, I hope not!

 

There are currently three bulls in the region, Albert (1965) at Adelaide Zoo; and Happy (1985) and Mana (1996) at Taronga Western Plains Zoo. All three are proven sires.

The Common Hippopotamus Husbandary Guidelines, listed above, state that "it is likely the male Hippo is fertile throughout life." At 53 years, this maybe be pushing it for Albert. If the initiative had been taken to place Albert with a younger female 10-15 years ago, this may have resulted in offspring however.

Importation is currently not possible and unless that changes, the future of the population relies soley on the success of the breeding success of the two younger bulls in the region and the remaining cows/calves, many of which they are related to.

 

The question I have is why has one of Dubbos males not been sent to Werribee where there are potentially 5 breedable females? We know that all we’ve got is the stock that’s currently here, why are we stuffing around wasting breeding years?

 

I fully agree with you here as this is something I've often wondered.

Mana and his mate Cuddles (who is unrelated) are a successful breeding pair, having produced two surviving calves in 2014 and 2017. In my opinion, these two should be kept as a pair as it's obviously working.

Like you say, there's no reason the other bull, Happy, can't be sent to Werribee Open Range Zoo. The females there are distantly related to him, but the only other female at Dubbo of breeding age is his half sister, so the females at Werribee are better genetic matches.

Perhaps Taronga Western Plains Zoo are hoping to retain Happy to breed with Kibibi and Kendi when they are older, but given the fact they won't be breeding for several years, Happy could be loaned to Werribee in the interim surely?

 

It is a little hard to follow any Hippo "plan" of what is going on with them if there really is a plan at all?.Also since importation has not been allowed why the zoos holding Hippos did not buy up the animals that were at the Mareebra zoo a few years ago apart from a female which was obtained by Seaworld that ended up at TWPZ and since bred all the others were exported to Bali not to mention the Pygmy Hippos being exported with them as well what a waste when they could of been included in the Australian collections!. It appears a bit short sighted!

 

Just a point of interest with Hippos I had read today, It was stated there could be up to 60 or more now feral in northern south America with one appearing to have made it up to one of the beaches in Mexico no shortage there it would seem

 

At least one of the pygmy hippos was acquired also from Mareeba (if memory serves correct the male at Melbourne). Its worth remembering that hippos are very long-lived creatures that seem quite capable of breeding well into old age. That said, whats happening now with common hippo is the same "bare minimum" attitude that resulted in the current dismal pygmy hippo population - with last hope potential breeding pairs kept separate until the old age with no contingency allowed for unexpected deaths etc. Its all rather nonsensical, but thats zoos for you. You don't actually need to create an expensive-to-maintain insurance population when you have most people (indeed themselves) fooled that they already do just that.

 

I believe some years ago the zoos in Australia that held Pygmys never moved around any of them until years later as they must of considered them to old for breeding?, then after some were paired up surprised they got babies, they seemed of been another species within our zoos that fell down between the cracks. I agree about the nonsensical part but that maybe OUR zoos not to many others outside the region

 

I think you'll find the situation isn't much better in other parts of the world. American zoos care no more for critically endangered lion-tailed macaques then Australian zoos do for sun bears. In my belief its stems from a delusion that "inspiring" people to "care" about animals has a greater value to conservation than it seems to have in practice and a very engrained and last (two) century expectation by those in charge of what a zoo is.

Its a sorry situation. And I think there is a valid argument to put forth that in fact zoos only give a false sense of security to the public instead of spurring a real change of mindset.

 

Wait, is Primrose a Harold’s daughter?

 

I tend to disagree with that there are many zoos around the world which are doing a outstanding job breeding many animal species and increasing there overall population, our problem in this country is we cant import many species that are inbred where zoos in the USA and Europe can import and export. Our zoos have been for some years now phasing out a lot of species and still want the public to come visit take Tarongas planned exhibits instead of having a collection of species that would be found together as in nature they would put one species in there and call it an Asia rain forest or African forest, one only has to look at the start stop again efforts with some species of some of our zoos over the years to see its an half ass whim, I have lost count of the number of species that were brought in and bred only to see them pushed out the back door after a few years this is not a good way to run any zoo I believe

 

This is found in Zoos( not all but many) all around the World. Sometimes referred to as 'species fatigue'. The Zoo brings in a species with great fanfare but not long down the line they jettison them again. Connected with this is the mechanism of 'fashion' for zoos- certain species become 'in vogue' for a while, say a decade or so, during which more and more zoos keep them, and then they slowly become unfashionable again. I don't think this has much to do with what visitors want to see either as its not from popular request that many of these species join or leave the collections.

 

That may well be the case but in a nation which has only a handful of large zoos the problem works out worse overall as the collections of species are much smaller than they would be in Europe or the US

 

Pardon my anemone guys, but could we restrict our posts to the topic of Common Hippopotami in the Australasian Region, in this thread about Common Hippopotami in the Australasian Region.

We're getting a bit off track with discussions about feral Common Hippos in South America, Pygmy Hippos in the region and generalised comments about the declining diversity of species in zoos (as accurate and unanimous as your opinions are).

 

Yes, Harold (born 1978) is the father of both Primrose (1990) and Brindabella (1990) as well as being the father of all their offspring (0.3 surviving).

Why they didn't swap Harold for Happy or Mana (still related but not as closely) instead I don't know. As others have pointed out though, the diversity of genetics in the region is low due to the inability to import so beggers can't be choosers and we have to make do with what we can I guess.

Others may disagree, but I'd rather see related hippos breeding than no breeding at all in the region.

Preventing inbreeding in hippopotami was never a high priority back in the day (as was the same for other species). Kabete at the Auckland Zoo sired Snorkle and Faith, who he then went on to produce calves with.

 

To be clear, hippos have not been banned from being imported into Australia, as birds effectively are. A far as I am aware, it is basically a matter of getting the required paperwork in order,

 

How laborious would this process be? Surely it'd be worth some our region's zoos importing some new lines.

 

From what I've read in another forum on here, ZAA are slowly going through the process of obtaining the Import Risk Assessments for both hippos and giraffe, however I'm not sure which they have decided to undertake first.

They have just completed the bovine IRA (having just of Nyala from South Africa via New Zealand) which took a number of year to get sorted, so to give a rough estimate I'd have to say at least 3 years until we can import hippos and, depending on which IRA is done first, may have to wait until after the giraffe IRA.