Some age related winter deaths reported on the Hamerton Facebook page - binturong 'Mrs B' who was at least 20 years od , 10 year old maned wolf brothers Zorro and Perro .
From a loss comes a bright lining..... something of a openly-known secret has now been revealed on the Hamerton FB page. So, the male is currently onshow and by the sounds of it, both will be onshow once the enclosure to hold them is available! The female, incidentally, arrived at the collection last June, and has been offshow since - although that did not stop a certain individual from spotting it last year and including it in his cat challenge total! Nice photograph of the male is on the FB page.
I hope this works! I should have attached my best picture I could get of the female when I visited last year. She was situated in an enclosure between the Raccoons and the Cheetahs and it was only by chance that my step daughter had spotted her while we were stood watching the cheetahs.
http://www.zoochat.com/499/canadian-lynx-358043/ link to picture for anyone who can't see the one in my previous post
Decided to make a visit today, as i was looking after my girlfriend's 5 year old all day. I've never been on a bank holiday before, but all i can say is - never again! Only ever been in the week before & never seen more than 30 visitors, but today it was packed. We got there just before 11 and there must have been 4-500 in the 2 queues, which stretched back well into the 3rd car park! It was a great day for the zoo, probably 1500-2000 people there, but it was too busy & the noise probably resulted in several of the no shows: Oncilla, giant anteater, eastern aardwolf, maned wolf, bengal slow loris(up to 30 people in that hut on occasions!) and black howler monkey. Even the ring tailed lemur didn't appear until mid afternoon. Highlights were : seeing both Canadian Lynx, 2 seperate Jaguarundi, a Southern Aardwolf very briefly. 2 pairs of collared lemur have had young recently, only saw one youngster though. Also saw 5 of the most active Sloths that i've seen in a while. Classic moment from a mother to child ' look at the meerkats' .... They were coati! Someone else read the sign & told child they were coyote. It looks like work is still ongoing to give public access to the tayra and rusty spotted area, the paths are there and there is a lot of rolled up fencing lying around. Looks like the zoo got it right with the white tigers after all, both the new ones were outside. They were the first thing my girlfriend's daughter told her mother about and she bought one in the gift shop!
I visited today and my experience was very similar to above (no Canadian Lynx or Aardwolves for me though but I did see the white Coati and "honeycomb" Raccoon) -I've never seen the place so rammed. Most bizarrely is that I also heard someone calling Coatis Coyotes. Actually that might be the second most bizarre moment -I swear I heard a man tell his child that Yellow Mongoose laid eggs.
I think coatis=coyotes is probably quite common for people reading the signs. I have heard it here in NZ (a few decades ago when there were still coatis in NZ!). Someone first said they were raccoons, which is a good guess I must say, but then someone else read the sign and said "no, they're coyotes".
The new tiger house which has been under construction for much of the past year has now officially opened, according to the collection FB page.
One of the old oncilla cages was signed Rock Cavy, but I didn't actually see them. There are Swamp Cavy in the roe of cages next to the aardwolf, just along from the pudu/tortoise. Other observations from today: They seem to have moved on a bit with dismantling the old wooden cages that held the viscacha- the sign said the lynx enclosure will be built there. The black-backed jackal area is now very overgrown & little chance of seeing them. The signs are still there for them. New signage up for the new tayra/oncilla/rusty spotted cat/aardwolf development, which should be open soon. Oncilla now offshow temporarily in this area. Several no shows disappointingly: Bengal Slow Loris, Cassowary, Pudu, Maned Wolf, Serval. All signage remains though.
A new species to me . A google search notes also lists them as greater cavy - Cavia magna . ZTL does not list any others displayed in the UK .
According to the collection FB page, Hamerton has resumed keeping Red-Bellied Tamarin; a species which they last held in the early 1990s.
Rusty Spotted cat row I believe will be on show in the next few weeks, the canadian lynx complex is still under construction
Just a quick note of thanks to you, zootiger: you've shared some splendid photos with us recently from Hamerton. Very many thanks to you!!
A great first visit on Saturday, nothing major to report, except the birth of three Servals. Eastern and Southern Aardwolf made an appearance as did the Bengal slow Loris, which is a very nice species.
The Hamerton Facebook page reports that 'large' litters of cheetahs were born to Talli on 12.8.2014 and Clio on 4.11.2014 . A female cub from the first litter had to be pulled for hand-rearing for health reasons , a second male cub was also removed to keep her company .
visited today and it was very cold, did manage to see the swamp cavy though. The rock cavy didn't show themselves at all and according to a keeper they very rarely venture outside especially on a cold day like today. I was very impressed with their massive aviary's for the crane and vultures! makes such a difference to what they were in before.