That is certainly true - although our zoo, in common with most Aussie zoos, also has a very good representative collection of Australian fauna.
From a New Zealand point of view, while there are a few native bird parks, most are off the tourist trail, the only real exception being Rotorua's Rainbow Springs, which is definately geared towards international tourists. When Te Wao Nui opens at Auckland Zoo, this will give the zoo an opportunity to target international visitors, as the only decent NZ fauna display in our largest city, and the primary entry/exit to NZ for international visitors.
No NZ zoos have currently or recently held cassowary, and they are not mentioned in any of my historic guides etc either. It is possible that they may have been kept at Auckland or Wellington Zoos in the past, although it is unlikely they have ever been held anywhere else.
Well alright then, I would say that currently Hamilton Zoo wins on bird collection, especially its waterfowl: 14 species of swan, goose and duck, certainly more than any other zoos. It also has a great NZ wetland exhibit, and an excellent native aviary - at one stage the biggest in the southern hemisphere (not sure if thats still the case). Its also really innovative: first walkthrough weka enclosure, Antipodes parakeets in walkthrough, etc. So definately the best native collection and display of any of the zoos, but may be surpassed by Auckland's Te Wao Nui development. They don't have kiwi, which is a bit of a let down. They also have the best parrot collection (18 exotic species), but are lacking pheasant diversity (just one species). A couple of the aviaries are also of a very low standard, and need to be replaced. Wellington is definitely the worst at the moment, seems to be losing bird diversity chronically. Auckland has a great collection (by NZ standards), and probably the country's best bird exhibit: the walkthrough Australian aviary (rainbow lorikeet, musk lorikeet, king parrot, crested pigeon, (until recently nutmeg pigeon , and zebra finch).
^ | | I agree with that, Hamilton is pretty good - especially for the size of the zoo... I expect Auckland to exceed it after this September... Looking forward to Te Wao Nui now, it's been a long time coming - they closed the Aviary and Aquarium a long time ago, 2+ years...
While cleaning out my stuff I uncovered an old list of birds in NZ aviculture that I compiled years ago, so here are a few more species to add to the list. I will note that apart for the ruddy shelduck I haven't seen any of the following species with my own eyes in NZ - hence the reason I forgot them on the original list - and some are extremely rare (the golden conures and yellow-collared macaws in particular you could probably count on the fingers of one hand). *Ruddy shelduck (probably no longer found in NZ) *Kalij pheasant *Citron-crested cockatoo *Musschenbroek's lorikeet *Violet-necked lory *Red-capped parrot (= pileated parrot) *Meyer's parrot *Yellow-collared macaw *Golden conure (= Queen of Bavaria's conure) *Double yellow-headed amazon *Yellow-naped amazon *Blue-fronted amazon *Blue-crowned conure (I forgot it even though I have a photo of one in the gallery! -- http://www.zoochat.com/394/blue-crowned-conure-aratinga-acuticaudata-30675/) *Yellow siskin *Blue-capped cordon-bleu *Dybowski's twinspot *Red-headed finch (= Aberdeen finch) *Green avadavat (= green strawberry finch) *Rufous-backed munia *Madagascar fody I deliberately left off red-vented bulbuls on the original list as well because while they used to be found wild in the northern North Island they were eliminated long ago by DoC (by 1955). I have heard it rumoured they are still found in private hands here but I think it is unlikely. There were confirmed reports of at least two wild birds in Auckland in 2006, but these are generally thought to have been the result of ship escapees rather than local escaped birds. It has been illegal to import them since the 1960s and they are classified as an unwanted organism in this country. In the stock-list for 1990 at the back of the Auckland Zoo history book "A Tiger By The Tail" is included red-whiskered bulbul which may or may not be a misprint for red-vented bulbul (red-whiskered bulbuls could have been imported from Australia where there are wild populations but I wouldn't have thought MaF would have really approved of that -- but on the other hand they shouldn't have had red-vented bulbuls either!).
Musschenbroek's lorikeet still in New Zealand. I would know several European lorikeet breeders that would love to get fresh blood-lines. They became very rare here. Also Pileated are very rare. They're doing ok but the founding stock is very small.
I would hazard a guess that the Musschenbroek's are amongst the countable-on-one-hand species; certainly they would be amongst the rarest of the lorikeets in the country. When bird imports were permissable it seemed like so many importers simply brought in one or two pairs of new species as novelties/money-makers/call it what you will, with no thought to the actual future of the species in NZ aviculture (ahem, much the same as NZ and Australian zoos seem to do with new species!). Hence the precarious status of several parrot species here. The last legal import, as far as I know, was shut down by MaF due to the birds testing postive for some form of disease not yet present in NZ and the birds were all ordered either destroyed or returned to place of origin. Amongst those birds was one pair of red-bellied macaws, new to NZ aviculture to my knowledge, and also Derbyan parakeets, likewise not then found in NZ. The birds were all officially destroyed .... except that a few years later young Derbyans started appearing on the local market and now they are quite commonly seen for sale (albeit still expensive). The red-bellied macaws never resurfaced. Malabar parakeets were (to the best of my knowledge) not found in NZ prior to the import ban coming into effect but now are as available as Derbyans. If you ask bird-keepers about smuggling they deny all knowledge, but NZ is so well-known as a laundering ground for Australian parrots and reptiles (if it is "bred in NZ" it can be legally exported to other countries), and people are fairly often intercepted at the airports with eggs on their person; Jurong Bird Park has been the recipient of many parrots from NZ smuggling attempts (I don't know if this is still the case, but the eggs are sent to Jurong to be hatched so species can be determined before prosecution).
A big shame and one of the species that has an ok population now in Europe is the Musklorikeet, which arrived through imports from NZ.
I just went to Willowbank yesterday and here is their (on show) bird list. It doesn't look as impressive written out in list form as it did in my head, but when you're actually at the park it seems like a good amount of species for the size of the place. I've put the number of males vs females if I know it (e.g. 2.4 means two males and four females), otherwise I've just put a single number (i.e. I would put 4 rather than 0.0.4 for the simple reason that while I don't know what sex those four birds might be, the staff at Willowbank probably do) and sometimes I've just had to put general wording such as "several" or "quite a few". *Ostrich (one male, by the name of Bubbles!) *North Island brown kiwi (I don't know how many birds there are as most of them are in outside breeding pens; there are quite a lot of them though) *Great spotted kiwi (part of the Operation Nest Egg (ONE) programme so the number of eggs/chicks on site varies from zero upwards; however there is also one adult female off-display [there was a male which had come from Otorohanga to form a breeding pair but he died not long after arrival]) *Okarito brown kiwi (included in ONE as per above) *Haast brown kiwi (included in ONE as per above) *With regards to the ONE programme at Willowbank this article from January Willowbank bursting with kiwis - news - the-press | Stuff.co.nz has a photo of a line-up of kiwi chicks there (showing Haast kiwi, little spotted kiwi, great spotted kiwi and Okarito kiwi). Very cool. In January of this year there were 60 kiwi of various species at the park. *White heron (1) *White-faced heron (3?) *Black swan (2 that I think are part of the captive collection but they are common wild birds as well) *Mute swan (3 I think) *Domestic goose (a few) *Cape Barren goose (several) *Mallard (lots of wild, half-wild and captive ones in varying degrees of domestication!) *Muscovy duck (seem to be quite a few, also muscovy X mallard hybrids) *Carolina wood duck (a few) *Mandarin duck (a few) *Paradise duck (several) *Brown teal (at least a couple of pairs. There used to be a pair in the Kiwi House years ago which was great as this species is nocturnal and they were very active in there. Now they are in an outside aviary and never seen) *Campbell Island teal (at least one. Again, nocturnal. On my last three visits I've seen one in the aviary every time -- but never any on any previous visits!) *Grey teal (wild ones) *NZ scaup (wild ones) *NZ falcon (0.1) *Domestic turkey (lots) *Helmeted (domestic) guineafowl (quite a few) *Domestic fowl (lots and lots!) *Blue peafowl (lots) *Golden pheasant (at least 1.2) *Silver pheasant (at least 1.1) *Lady Amherst's pheasant (at least 1.1) *Himalayan monal (1.2) *Red-legged partridge (these used to be in the Alpine Aviary but I haven't seen any for a while) *Japanese quail (several) *Buff weka (several) *Pukeko (these are everywhere! I expect they are all just free-loaders after the food hand-outs but at least some may be injured or hand-raised birds) *Takahe (1.1) *Domestic pigeon (dozens of domestic doves) *Barbary dove (lots) *Crested pigeon (quite a few) *NZ pigeon (quite a few) *Greater sulphur-crested cockatoo (one or two) *Leadbeater's cockatoo (I think just one) *Eastern rosella (several) *Indian ringneck (lots in various colours) *Blue and gold macaw (1.1) *Kea (5 or 6 I think) *South Island kaka (1.1) *Yellow-crowned kakariki (several) *Red-crowned kakariki (several) *Little owl (at least 2) *Morepork (at least 2) *Sacred kingfisher (1) *Rook (1)
Wellington Zoo's on-show bird list from yesterday's visit (as far as I saw): ostrich emu North Island brown kiwi little blue penguin Australian pelican brolga domestic guineafowl Himalayan monal domestic chickens Cape Barren goose Derbyan parrot sun conure red-fronted macaw cockatiel red-crowned kakariki kea greater sulphur-crested cockatoo NZ pigeon Australian crested pigeon emerald dove (green-winged pigeon) tawny frogmouth morepork sacred kingfisher I know there are North Island kaka off-display (they breed them for release, and I saw one from a distance in off-show aviaries on the far side of the old giraffe paddock), and there's at least one NZ falcon in an off-display aviary visible from by the sun bear enclosure. There should be white heron and little black shag on-display but their aviary was being renovated. The entire Bird Valley section is blocked off now (it is in the area that will become the NZ area), and most other aviaries around the zoo are now gone as well. So, from 2008 there has been a big decrease in on-display bird species (from 31 down to 23). The only new species from the 2008 list are little blue penguin, sacred kingfisher, red-crowned kakariki, cockatiel and domestic guineafowl. Bear in mind this is one of the four major NZ zoos and is situated in the capital city. They boast of trying to become "the best little zoo in the world" -- they're going the right way towards turning it into a little zoo at the rate of species loss here. This really is one of the poorest NZ zoos for birds now (for example, just compare their bird list to that of Willowbank in the previous post, and Willowbank is a small regional zoo).
You have missed a couple of species from your list though Chlidonias, Rainbow Lorikeets and Buff-banded Rail were both on display in the cockatoo aviary. But yes, it is pretty sad bird-wise at Wellington, especially the waterfowl - no ducks! I hope these are not lost from the collection for any great length of time. I was looking at a 1948 Wellington Zoo guidebook earlier today, it says they have several hundred varieties of bird, including: -Emu -North Island Kiwi -Many species of waterfowl (Mute Swan, Russian Geese, Australian Pelican and Pukeko specifically mentioned) -Australian Eagles -Turkey Vultures -Other smaller predatory birds -Twelve varieties of Pheasant -Peafowl -Demoiselle Cranes (apparently Wellington Zoo is the only place in the world to have bred this species at this time) -Ten Parrot species -Seventy+ varieties of Pigeon (specifically Nicobar and Bronzewing) -Many Finches (Zebra Finches) -Little Blue Penguin -Rockhopper Penguin -Crested Penguin (donated by Admiral Byrd following his last Polar Expedition) A six-sided aviary is also described, with over one hundred varieties of bird. Quite impressive sounding really, although presumably many of the 'varieties' are bred mutations. Even so, it is sad to think just how many species have been lost from New Zealand zoos.
Didn't Wellington have any antipode kakarikis on display in the past? And are there still any of this species on display in any park in NZ?
They used to have Antipodes Island parakeets (C. unicolor) many years ago. They can be still be seen though at various other zoos, eg, Hamilton and Orana
Ah, I did not see them in there. I did wonder too if the other cockatoo species were in there as well but not visible? One could presume that the birds still in the Bird Valley aviaries will come back on show at some point, but really I don't think there's much even left there. On the other hand I would hope that there will be a big increase in species on display in the native area when it's completed.
Yes, I hope so. Unfortunately the plans only show one mixed aviary, so I'm not expecting a big increase, probably just kaka, kakariki, kereru and kingfisher. Possibly the banded rail too. Theres a fair bit of open water around though, so we might get some wing-clipped ducks there...
It is disappointing how much of the NZ area is going to be taken up with farm animals and a walk through deer paddock
Just back at the zoo today, and there's a red-tailed black cockatoo being used in the Amazing Animals show in the Wild Theatre (along with that otter you saw behind it, and a serval). Still didn't see the rails or lorikeets in the cockatoo aviary but did see the bats this time.
Yesterday I went to a place that opened to the public fairly recently, Parrot Ranch near Levin in the North Island (about 1.5 hours north of Wellington). It’s basically a parrot breeder’s property that has been opened to bring in some extra cash, with the addition of a few zoo-licence species (namely cottontop tamarin, black-capped capuchin and Madagascar day gecko). It’s only open by way of a one-hour tour which is a bit annoying because you don’t have the luxury of going at your own pace. Also I’ve started keeping bird lists at the zoos I visit for the specific reason of putting them in this thread, and when you’re visiting a private property with many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rare birds you do feel a bit dodgy going around noting down what species there are on the premises! I therefore tried doing so sneakily, which probably made me look even more suspect! Their pamphlet claims that they have “the largest selection of exotic bird species on exhibit in New Zealand”, so I was expecting a bit more but that’s publicity spin for you. I did enjoy the visit though; I saw a couple of birds I hadn’t seen in life in NZ before; and I’d recommend it if you were passing that way and liked parrots (although I personally don’t like breeders’ aviaries, most of them being basically empty boxes of mesh and metal with a couple of perches). The following list is of the species I saw, with a few notes, but there will be a few others that were missed for a couple of reasons. One: we weren’t shown all the aviaries (for example I specifically asked if they had any pure military macaws and was told they had one, but we never saw the aviary it was in); and two: the young chap showing us round was pretty gormless and seemed incredibly bored with the whole affair – on several occasions he would give a vague wave of his hand at a row of smaller aviaries and say “there’s lots of rainbow lorikeets in those” and walk on, and when I naturally went in for a closer look there would be a pair of barrabands here and a group of lovebirds there etc). There was a sign for white-tailed black cockatoo but none of that species on display. [note that the numbers mentioned below refer only to what I saw; there were probably more individuals of most species than what I saw] *Cape Barren goose (just one I think) *Australian shelduck (I saw one randomly walking past as we were leaving) *domestic guineafowl (just one I think) *domestic hens and bantams (lots wandering around) *Lady Amherst’s pheasant (just one male I think) *Chinese painted quail (several in one aviary) *Rainbow lorikeet (lots and lots of pairs) *Scaly-breasted lorikeet (a couple of pairs) *Red-tailed black cockatoo (two pairs) *Galah (one pair) *Greater sulphur-crested cockatoo (a few) *Citron-crested cockatoo (quite a lot; I counted about ten? This is a very rare bird in NZ) *Leadbeater's cockatoo (= Major Mitchell's or pink cockatoo) (just one pair) *Moluccan cockatoo (= salmon-crested cockatoo) (just one bird; very rare in NZ) *Umbrella cockatoo (= white cockatoo) (maybe three or four? Again, very rare in NZ) *Little corella (a few) *Eclectus (only saw two but I’m sure there were some other pairs as well) *Superb parrot (= barraband) (one pair) *Red-rumped parrot mutations (I only saw three in their aviary) *Budgerigar mutations (small flock) *Red-crowned kakariki (small flock) *Yellow-crowned kakariki (small flock) *African grey parrot (a few pairs) *Timneh grey parrot (a few pairs) *Masked lovebird mutations (small flock) *Indian ringneck mutations (a few) *Scarlet macaw (at least a couple of pairs) *Blue and gold macaw (just two: one was paired with a military macaw [I didn’t see these ones] and the other was paired with a military x blue and gold hybrid) *Military macaw (just one, paired with a blue and gold macaw [I didn’t see these birds]) *hybrid military x blue and gold macaw (called “miligold macaws” here) (I counted about eight; one was paired up with a pure blue and gold macaw) *Sun conure (a few pairs) *Peach-fronted conure (a couple of pairs) *Nanday conure (a couple of pairs) *Maroon-bellied conure (a few pairs) *Green-cheeked conure (a couple of pairs) *Yellow-crowned amazon (quite a lot; the guide said the owner really liked amazons) *Yellow-headed amazon (a few pairs) *Tui (one old hand-reared bird in a very small cage) *Canary (small flock)
