Yes Bruce is still there, sorry, I meant ‘probably’ (?) too late for him to breed with any new imports?
I would keep your eyes peeled else where for exciting Australasian arrivals in the UK in the next year or so
Bruce being an unknown subspecies/potential subspecies hybrid means that, even if they did want to breed him, they would be advised against it...the echidnas Hamerton have received are New Guinea ones.
Might be...although there does seem to be a push to breed New Guinea ones in Europe, but that’ll be more down to availability/their regular importation by Czech animal dealers than anything else (much harder to get some from Australia). Believe out of the 15 holders of echidna in Europe only one has a confirmed Australian subspecies and that’s Planckendael. Duisburg and Frankfurt’s pairs are, like Bruce, unknown ssp/potential subspecies hybrids, and every other zoo in Europe (Berlin TP, Halle, Donnersberg and Rostock in Germany, Prague, Plzen and Protivin in Czechia, Pairi Daiza, Budapest, Wroclaw, and Hamerton) has New Guinea.
With all these New Guinea imports I wonder how long till we see Long-beaked Echidna popping up somewhere outside Indonesia/PNG/Australia.
I've always said it would be nice for Bristol to go back into keeping Echidna - they could have done something interesting with the former Zona Brasil greenhouse, and incorporated some of the outdoor area. By today's standards, none of the indoor exhibits in Twilight World are big enough to hold multiple Echidna.
As well as recent hatchings of scarlet ibis and the still-incubating barking owls, Hamerton have announced that they have hatched their first-ever galah. The chick, now a few weeks old, is being reared by its parents - its mother was imported from Hunter Valley Zoo in New South Wales and its father from Darling Downs Zoo in Queensland. More information can be found in the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
A couple of pieces of news from Hamerton: - First is the confirmation that the new wombat joey is a female, as was suspected. More information can be found in the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire - A species that arrived in February has been announced. An Australian marbled gecko (Christinus marmoratus) that stowed away in luggage from tourists holidaying in Perth is now living in the Zoo's education unit. It is thought to be the only one of its species in a European zoo. More information can be found in the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Another new Australian species! Is it even surprising at this point? Hamerton keeps becoming more and more interesting and I'm really hoping we keep seeing more and more rarities from down under coming in.
Whilst I hope so too, the more pressing matter is for Hamerton to simply stay afloat as it is surely! I feel that expansions of most/all zoos will have to wait a while.
I could have mentioned that the recent nice weather would have meant that we would have had our new Bear 'Meadow' open this very weekend - had we been able to retain and pay the builders. As it stands we have traced and plugged the leak in the largest pool, and I am finishing the last fencing and concreting works myself with materials that were either in-hand on lock-down or have been donated. The opening should now be in a few weeks and of course will have to be 'virtual' - for the moment! Luckily the bear's are doing great on simple foods donated by visitors and supermarkets, and although it has cost a lot of (borrowed) money, by our standards anyway - the whole project is outdoor and very simple in its build, management and running costs.
