Hi all First time on zoo chat. About to get 3.0 Gorillas and have a 6000M2 enclosure and want info on mixed species with Gorillas. Would like to intro congo buffalo 1.1. What do you think? Does any one have any more info on sitatunga with gorillas at valencia bioparc. especially sex ratio. As we are going to be a batchelor group this may lead to some issues with mixed species. Any chat welcome. Cheers Kudu.
Is this for Werribee Zoo? I think it would be great if they could go on display together. If there was an area seperated by a moat that the buffalo could cross but the gorillas can't then the buffalo would have a chance to escape.
Hi kudu To be honest: not a very promising combination. Due to their (especially in comparison to sitatungas...) large weight and tendency to wallow, the buffalos are soon going to turn your exhibit into a mud hole. And as the example of the congo buffalo-mandrill mix in SDZ showed, combing potentially quite aggressive large hoofstock with primates isn't a good idea. Alternative: sitatungas and/or smaller primates such as mangabies, vervet monkeys, guerezas...or, if the combination at Frankfurt is successful, Drills/Mandrills(?).
When did San Diego mix mandrills and buffalo? I recall the infamously ugly Congo buffalo exhibit in the Ituri Forest once also held Allen's swamp guenons, but never the larger and more aggressive mandrills????
@reduakari: I got this story from an American colleague; according to him, they seemed to have tried this combination once, but soon had to seperate them as the buffaloes didn't like the way the mandrills behaved torwards their calves...Next time I'll meet him, I'll ask him when exactly that took place.
Somebody told me, the buffalos killed a mandrill, and the mandrills a buffalo calf, I don't know, if this is true. But it sounds very realistic to me. I would not try to mix congo buffalo with gorillas. @Sun Wukong. Frankfurt is keeping Drills. The new outdoor exhibits are finished now, so I think, they will begin now to mix the gorillas with the drills. But maybe, the gorilla group is still seperated, I don't know.
At Bioparc one of the gorillas enclosures was shared by gorillas , mangabeys, owl-faced monkeys and sitatungas and they seems going well. Actually the bachelor group share the enclosure with talapoins, (I see this one time) and the breeding group with mangabeys, the sitatungas come back to his former exhibit.
6000m2 is relatively much space for 3 gorillas and 2 buffalo. Most depends from personalities of individual animals. If you provide many hiding opportunities for gorillas all over the area, it may succeed. BTW - how big is gorilla island at Apenheul?
As observed before this particular combo does not seem to work well. Candidates smaller primates, sitatungas, .... perhaps bongos?!!! It is imperative that we learn by our successes and failures and also publicise them (in order to enable others to not do the same).
