wouldn't it be great if perth was successful in their breeding, I would fly to perth just to see a baby elephant. Jai
they are cute, but they can be nastly litle things. i like big elephants, but have been slapped and chased and growled at by too many of the little ones....
http://www.lee.greens.org.au/campaigns/Elephants.html go to this link it has a weird pic about a taronga santuary
Thats crap, the elephants are being recued, but yes maybe all the circus elephanst could be retired at Dubbo
look honestly, i don't know if you could say that they are being "rescued". we don't actually know anything about the past life of the animals other than a few comments regarding that once a couple of them where working the streets of bangkok. i assume this happend before the animals were sold to a tourist camp. thailand does not log its own forests anymore (instead it buys timber from laos!) so i doubt any elephants actually work in the logging industry in thailand. they may not have such a bad life in in their homeland....
i rsakon retire them to dubbo, think burma would b able to act with more elephants, no female she has seen since early 90's
Australia Zoo elephants If it is true that there are over 100 acres for the elephants at Australia Zoo ( and having been there a few years ago , and saw diggers in action , I am sure that it is really that big ) I think that this is really something to their credit . I still have great difficulty grasping Tarongas idea that they will have 5 elephants in their new enclosure . And as much as the new enclosure is heaps better than the previous one , I still struggle with the idea of more than 2 elephants in city zoos . I mean , what will happen when they breed , and then there will be more than 5 elephants ? It is a pity that Orana Park and Werribee wont have elephants . ( But I can understand Oranas reasoning )
taronga's reply......... i agree with everything that lady said from the zoo. i have said before on this website that allegations that the zoos have a vested commercial interest in these animals seems a little absurd when they are not-for-profit organisations. taronga's ceo has in the past made the tongue in cheek comment that if he was a stockbroker he wouldnt be buying shares in elephants and its pretty true. on burma, she came from a circus where she attacked her handler which is why she cant be taken out of her exhibit and apparently heman has always been an aggressive animal. finally, the 5 year old male was originally supposed to be going to auckland to breed with their burma, who i beleive is 22???????? so if they hadnt withdrawn and gung? now 5 but probably 6 by the time he would have arrived, had taken another 6 years to mature (and if the import hadnt been so delayed) there still would have been a window of opportunity for him to breed with her. as for the elephants in open range zoos i guess that if the zoos in the future are going to have any elephants at all we needed to get them here first. it makes sense for australia's most 'resource rich' zoos to begin the program, in the same way that they have with gorillas i guess, bongos and other animals which are regional priorities but cost alot to import the founding animals.??????????
glyn, actually assuming that auckland's burma is 22 (i think shes a bit older than that now) and that she would be in around 30 by the time breeding would have been attempted - it would be quite likely that she would have been infertile by then. remember that melbournes female is 30 and sterile, most likey due to not being bred earlier. teens and 20's seems to be the window of opportunity that zoos have to breed their female elephants or run the risk of having their reproductive systems shut down. besides if auckland was originally to take the male, how was taronga originally planning on breeding their animals? seems strange that for a consortuim of 3 zoos that wanted to breed elephants - two (at varying stages) made the decision they could do so without a male! ARAZPA is trying to start up an elephant breeding program. and auckland zoo is a member of ARAZPA. if auckland doesn't want to breed their female then i think they should offer their elephants to someone who does - send them (as i wouldn't dare split em up) to melbourne or perth. or get a move on with the AI - why have i heard nothing more on this?
well it would be good, maybe they popose to get heman ai'd after the females ariival, no dout all male about will be to swap genetics. as for the other females in nz, are they still sterile?
Auckland elephants I understand that there was some possibility with the younger elephant A few weeks ago I emailed the zoo on this very question , but have not had response . I will post their reply when I get one
i dont know why you have not heard anymore about this-taronga's original plan was to use ai and you may still be able to browse the website and find this info. if you do remember that far back auckland was originally part of the syndicate...the whole reason i added question marks throughout my earlier post was perhaps to illustrate my reservations about the original import proposal, which would have seen gung go to nz. i just dont think he would have been mature neough to breed with burma before she got too old. a few years ago now perth zoo and auckland did enter into an agreement which could have seen perth's bull breed with burma, but i beleive those plans were sidelined when the import was proposed, though we all know thats fallen through. as for mek-kepah in all likelyhood she wont conceive but yuska the gorilla was also beleived to be infertile after mzuri was born, that was until yakini came along, so theres hope. (not much, but perhaps being in a herd environment might just stimulate her reproductive tract )
Zoo_Boy i have wondered about the fertility possibilities with heman - he is very old but if elephants are like humans it is not an impossibility if they used electro-ejaculation (and eh, if ya don't already know what that is - you don't wanna!). it would be good to utilise his genetics, however i doubt the zoos will bother trying with him and therfore it will either be bong su or putra mas who will be providing seamen for auckland. if thats the case i wonder if or why not that plan is already in the works - they don't need to rely on the other elephants arriving for that! that said, i have heard from a melbourne elephant keeper that it would be very difficult to transport seamen accross the tasman. they have no idea if it would survive the journey - even if it involved a very costly and well co-ordinated effort. AI has been sucessfully performed with elephants before, but it is not very reliable and not a very established technique. i think its a shame that auckland have bailed out to be honest. but if they are going try it they better get a move on!
I read on the net a few days ago that Whipsnade zoo in the uk sent semen ( Asian elehpant) to a zoo in Isral and was AI, and had resently gave birth to a heathy baby and few weeks ago.
yes i agree with you, they should try, there is a german team who has had a fair bit of sucsess with AIs, from what i understand they seem to travel worldwide doing these AIs in zoos. Also there is a team in Canada who have been doing AIs as well with results.
well the problen with transporting, ne importing semen, is the fact it is under the same importation reguirments as a whole animals, eg, if we wanted to breed warthogs, we could inject all the requirments into a domestic pig, but we carnt import eggs nor semen due to quarritine, i was asking many questions on this with the rhinos, and this was the respnce i was told
well diseases and stuff can b passed from parent to young, and due to basic biology, babies are made from sperm and eggs lol. so it is the same applying principals
