It is quite incredible that a zoo the size of Hamerton is currently the only holder in the UK of more than 10 of its species or sub species of mammal and at least 3 bird species
Some news from last month that seems to have escaped mention on the thread. One of the black pademelons or Southern swamp wallabies has produced a female joey. This is the first female joey for this group of animals. More information is included on the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Visited yesterday. First time in a while so quite a lot of new stuff for me, but not much that hasn’t been mentioned here already. A couple of observations though - A lot of building work going on. Especially in the area surrounding the Outback Aviary. There’s no longer a cooks tree boa on show. Don’t know what happened to it, but the enclosure has been modified into a quite nice deserty enclosure. No mention of what for. There are what look like a species of hyrax mixed in the big enclosure with the rock lizards in the reptile house. Unsigned though, so not sure what exact species. And I can only caught a very quick look as one bounced into its bed. Overall the zoo was looking better than ever. My only real negative comments are that the sloth house is still in desperate need of an update, and I found the amount of repeating exhibits to be a bit disappointing. For a zoo with such a great collection, with so many oddities, I don’t understand why they would fill up relatively limited space by doubling up on so much. But that’s just a minor complaint.
Four new species have arrived from zoos in the Czech Republic at Hamerton. The first of these species to move on-show and be announced is the Bruce's yellow-spotted hyrax Heterohyrax brucei. According to Zootierliste these are the only ones of their species in the UK. More information on the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
I am going to have to make a trip over there over the Xmas break. Hopefully getting membership for Xmas, too, which is handy!
Male Cheetah, Crunch, has moved to Tier Park, Nadermann, Germany to become a breeding male. Hamerton Zoo Park
Some further changes to the animal roster have been announced: The coatis have left the collection and their enclosure is being converted to house collared lemurs returning from Cotswold Wildlife Park, who have decided not to keep the species any more. Enclosures near to the meerkats are now home to two pairs of Sumatran white-bearded civets Paguma (larvata) leucomystax, the only ones of their species in the country. They are now on-show and starting to explore their enclosures. More information is included below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Hamerton have gone all out with new species/subspecies this year! All of those brilliant marsupials, Javan binturong, barking owls, Johnstone's cassowary, new civets... What else can they pull out of the bag?
Two young Southern pudu born at Hamerton are moving to other zoos across Europe. The eldest young male born in 2017 has been moved to Wuppertal Zoo to form a breeding pair; soon his sister will move to Reserve Zoologique de Calviac in France. More information is included below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
There have been a number of births among the park's marsupials recently: - The newly-imported Northern swamp wallabies have had their first joey, and the Southern swamp wallabies (the original group of swamp wallaby) have a second joey in the pouch. - The established groups of parma and Bennett's wallabies have produced lots of joeys; early in the new year fourteen parma wallabies will move to Belgium in exchange for red-breasted geese (a returning species) and magpie geese (a new species for the park). - Both the original stock and newly-imported groups of long-nosed potoroos have produced young. - The rufous bettongs, still living off-show, have also had their first joey born. More information is included on the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Excellent news about the marsupial breeding! I was there last weekend and didn't see any of the new young, but it's good to know Hamerton are reaping the rewards of investing in unusual creatures of late. Does anybody know which potoroos are which - I'm referring to the "original" stock and the recent Australian imports, listed on Zootierliste as the nominate subspecies - there are potoroos with the cavies and I saw another individual a few enclosures down towards the cranes; I take it the latter one is the P. t. tridactylus?
A friend of mine told me that when they visited a keeper mentioned that of the animals imported one male went in with the original group with the cavies. The rest of the imported group is in the other enclosure.
Prior to his registering on Zoochat, @Andrew Swales requested I post an answer to precisely this question on his behalf some months ago; I reproduce it below: Our original Swamp Wallabies (Wallabia bicolor) came from Texas via the Czech Republic, and look identical to those found in other UK and continental collections. They have bred, but only produced males so far. A slewed sex ratio is often an early sign of inbreeding – so we imported new blood from Queensland. Three animals came (1.2) and proved to be very different in colour and only just over half the size of the originals. All Swamps are nervous until settled in, and then become very bold. The new ones are still hiding most of the time which is why we missed them on 7th, so I have used an Australian photo on the web-site. All other pictures are of ours, and we will replace this one as soon as we get something suitable. We are using the names ‘Northern Swamp Wallaby’ and ‘Black Pademelon’ to differentiate the two. ‘Northern’ because they are, and ‘Black Pademelon’ because this is a commonly used name in the south of Australia. In other words, "Black Pademelon" is a regional name for the southern population of Wallabia bicolor - as Hamerton have stock from both this southern population (which, incidentally, is the form found elsewhere in Europe) and the northern population, they are using this name to make it clear they are distinct from the northern animals signposted as Northern Swamp Wallaby.
Although I've not yet visited Hamerton, it seems very progressive and vibrant and my kind of zoo. I love reading this thread and also their website is one of the best zoo sites of all, nicely illustrated with regular updates. Looking forward to a visit in the new year.
The great thing about the Hamerton news thread is that this year everything posted has been positive news! Nothing about species leaving, just new species arriving and most of them the only ones of their kind in the UK and in some cases only ones in Europe!
Yeah this collection has really caught my eye this year I definitely need to go as soon as I possibly can!