How many purebred Rothchild's giraffe are in Australia approximately? If I understand correctly, Makulu (1999) at Hamilton Zoo is the only Rothchild's bull in a New Zealand accredited zoo, while Orana has three Rothchild's cows?
I don't know currently, but about 15 or so. I haven't been keeping track of giraffe births and deaths lately. All but one in the region descend from Orana's animals and are horribly inbred. The exception is Melbourne's female (imported in 1997 from the Netherlands), who has of course produced young herself with Orana-descended animals. Given the way generic animals have been added to "pure" herds such as at Orana, and now this mixing at Mogo, I'd say the ZAA has finally just decided to mix them all together anyway.
I guess with such a small population of purebred Rothchild's, maintaining pure herds would neccesitate excessive inbreeding if new imports are not impossible so with that in mind I agree the decision to mix all giraffes is the right one. I guess they will serve as an ambassador species that delights the customers, but serves no direct conservation purpose . So in terms of the history of Orana...Orana had a male and (two?) females that produced several female offspring including Misha and Marama (sent to Perth) and three females that remained at Orana and bred with a new male, Harold?
mixing the giraffes together is the best thing (if only because the Rothschild's in the region probably wouldn't be suitable for breeding into any other pure Rothschild's population elsewhere). They are never going to be anything other than display animals anyway. It is irritating, however, how the zoos deliberately frame press releases to imply otherwise. Anyway, that aside, Orana had the original pair imported in 1982 and the first-born daughter of that pair also bred with the male - so one male and two females. After the death of the original male another was imported from Chicago in 1994. Of the Orana-bred animals which ended up as Perth's breeders, female Misha went straight to Perth, female Marama and male Armani went to Melbourne and later to Perth (all in different years, not as a collective herd).
I agree. It especially irritate me when they say how any male giraffe born is vital to the breeding programme when so many end up in bachelor herds and were never intended for breeding. Thanks for that information. I'd always assumed Misha and Marama went to Perth together but Marama going later would explain why Misha had multiple calves with their male, Anthony, and Marama had only one. Sounds like history repeated itself with the father/daughter mating with Nathalie's daughter, Zuri (1997), the first female calf of Harold remaining at Orana and breeding several times with him.
To continue to cultivate a culture of hybridising a highly threatened giraffe species (!!! - given new taxonomy / genetics) is somewhat bizarrely puzzling. All the more so as alternatives exist to get a representative group of pure-breds by import thru 3-rd party states.
the Rothschild's giraffes in Australasia are in the same situation as Rothschild's giraffes in North America. They are not considered to be reliably pure because they originated from North America (except for the one female from Rhenen) - and, as with all the North American ones, they are listed in the studbooks as either "retic/roth" or "generic".
Didn't realise that Misha and Marama were full Orana sibs. Also thought they came together prior to opening of Savannah display. Reason for difference of births however is more to do with Misha being a top-notch mum and Marama being the opposite + not showing much interest. Her calf was hand-raised. Suspect PZ tried to get her mated again, but to no avail.
Just checked the studbook. Misha (31/07/90) arrived at Perth Zoo October 1991 Marama (19/12/91) arrived at Perth Zoo October 1993 Celeste was the mother of Sarita, Misha, Anthony and Nathalie Sarita was the mother of Marama and Zabulu Misha and Marama are half sisters through their father, Jaffa.
Does anyone have an idea of how many giraffe there are in Australia? It came up tonight in conversation I am thinking allot! Maybe 100-150.
Plus 19 in New Zealand: 0.3 at Auckland 0.2 at Wellington 0.5 at Orana 3.0 at Keystone 6.0 at Hamilton So around 90 in Australia and New Zealand/Australasian Region.
With the number of smaller regional zoos in Australia now obtaining and breeding Giraffes one would expect their numbers to get a boost over the next few years!
Hamilton Zoo has only ever kept bachelor herds. They acquired two male giraffe in the early 1990s, who both died a few months after arriving. Since the late 1990s, they have acquired six surplus bulls (currently aged 11 to 19 years). They have the largest giraffe enclosure out of the New Zealand zoos so I think it's likely they will be given the oppotunity to import females and breed once 5 of the 6 males have passed on. Auckland Zoo have bred giraffe for a number of years. They kept pairs through the 60s and 70s and started a breeding herd in the 1980s which included four breeding females at one stage. After a 8 year hiatus, they resumed breeding in 2002 and for the 15 years that followed, produced several calves. They always had at least two breeding females. Their breeding bull died this year which means they will need to import a new male for breeding. Orana imported a new male for breeding a few years ago, but he died within a year of arriving. Wellington are in a similar situation. They imported a new bull, but he died a couple of years, also at a young age. I'm not sure if either plan to import another bull anytime soon (my guess is not in the near future as Orana now have a large number of females) but I would be surprised if Auckland Zoo didn't.
It also doesn't help the giraffes in New Zealand are all closely related either. Zabulu (1998-2017) is the father of 1/3 giraffes at Auckland Zoo; the brother or father of 5/6 giraffes at Hamilton Zoo, the brother of 3/3 giraffes at Keystone, the father of 1/2 giraffes at Wellington Zoo and the brother or father of 4/5 giraffes at Orana Wildlife Park. The giraffes in New Zealand not directly related to Zabulu are siblings Ndoki (Hamilton), Rukiya (Auckland) and Zahara (Wellington), and Tunu (Orana) and Kiraka (Auckland). Rukiya and Kiraka each have two daughters each to Zabulu still in NZ, and Tunu is the mother of Zabulu's youngest half sibling (born 2012)., also in NZ. Artifical insemination of Kiraka at Auckland Zoo with any of the six males at Hamilton Zoo could be a viable option.
The breeding program for giraffe in ZAA / Australasia region is in somewhat of a mess. I remain the opinion that it is a dead end strategy to breed up hybrid / exhibition only giraffe with no conservation value whatsoever. The same failed strategy is adopted by pretty much 3/4 the North American SSP giraffe TAG (save for the pure-bred stock of Tanzanian Giraffa tippelskirchi), but where pretty much everything flung under reticulata/rothschildi is a mixed batch (and which it was not at the outset). I thus remain convinced the only way forward where both could contribute to ex situ conservation breeding is to stop all production of hybrids .... Amen! Not that it is now about the happen. The Sydney/Taronga stock is mixed camelopardalis/giraffa/tippelskirchi plus a few additional bloodlines from the mixed bag SSP reticulata/rothschildi (not totally watertight as they threw all generic into this mix, even the purebred rothschildi and reticulata stock in NA / SSP). It all went wrong way before the ill fated Honolulu Zoo imports - which were effectively all hybrids -. The Orana Park stock was pure-bred rothschildi at the outset (the Rockton - ALS founders were derived from UK's Woburn Safari Kenyan rothschildi imports). The imported half-sibling pair (which shared the same sire) were bred to one-another. To be fair they tried their luck with a new import in 1991 (a male ex Fota Wildlife Park ex Ireland), however he never made it to adulthood and reproduction. The real rot started when they imported the Chicago Lincoln Park male in 1994 which was listed as a reticulata/rothschildi ..., but effectively was a hybrid of sorts. From then on it became increasingly precarious. I still have to look at the Auckland and Melbourne founder stock in more detail and follow back the bloodlines to the founder stock.
The Chicago male was pure Rothschild's. He came froma different import to the bulk of the retic-roth giraffes in North America. It was much more recently than that when hybrid animals were merged into the Orana stock. To quote myself from here: giraffes in New Zealand "the original Orana animals were a pair from Toronto Zoo (Canada) imported in 1982 - it was the Auckland herd which was descended from Honolulu animals [not Rothschild's]. The Orana pair were half-siblings and were already horribly inbred when they were imported - if they had been given banjos they would have known how to play them by instinct. The pair had the same father and that male was also the father of the two mothers; the stock was descended from 1.3 animals (which were all sired by the same male) originally imported by the African Lion Safari (Canada) from Woburn (UK); and the Woburn group was itself descended from 1.3 wild-caught animals imported from Uganda in 1968. The American studbook lists this Canadian line under the Retic-Roth banner and so it is not entirely clear that they are even pure Rothschild's to begin with, although the Ugandan origin suggests they should be. Orana bred multiple calves from the original pair, and there was also one calf produced between the male and his first-born daughter. The original male died in 1991, and in 1994 they imported a new male from Chicago (not descended from the Canada line) who bred with some of the original pair's daughters and with his own daughters. More recently they have placed hybrid animals within the herd as well. So all the Orana Rothschild's giraffes are from three founders. Orana also imported a female from Melbourne in 1987 who disappeared (not sure what happened to her, whether she died or was sent elsewhere, but she never bred) and a male from Perth in 1991 after the death of the original male (this male died within about seven months, without breeding, and then they imported the 1994 one from USA). I think both of these animals were originally bred at Orana anyway - or were not actually Rothschild's - because all the Rothschild's in Australia were bred at Orana. The only other Rothschild's imported into the region appears to be the Melbourne female from Ouwenhands Zoo in the Netherlands in 1998/99. All others in Australia came from Orana's hillbilly herd."
