"Our new female polar bear, Victoria arrived on 25 March 2015. Please note - Victoria will be off show for the first few weeks to give her time to settle in to her new surroundings." It's almost 4 weeks since she arrived, so is she on show yet?
An e-mail from the park today; Victoria will be in her new enclosure and on view to visitors next week, probably nearer the end of the week. Our snow leopards will not be available to view until around June time.
Victoria has finally gone on show in her new home. Polar bear settles into new Highlands home - BBC News
From the blog; Meanwhile, at RZSS Highland Wildlife Park we have already had a few births. Given the seasonal nature of all the species at the park, we generally do not have any births between October and March, but now with the arrival of the warmer weather we have already started welcoming the first of our new-borns. Our Temminck’s tragopan has recently laid three eggs. These colourful birds are considered by many to be the most beautiful pheasant in the world because of their bright plumage. Our Japanese macaque has recently given birth, bringing the troop up to 22 individuals. The baby is quite small at the moment, but is having no problem clinging onto his mum. We have also had a takin calf born to one of our older females who appears to be doing well. The mother and her new calf, as well as her calf from last year, have been separated from the herd until the new youngster is a bit bigger. Lastly, our new male wolf, from Jarv Zoo in Sweden, is settling in nicely with our remaining female wolf. Our other wolves have been sent on to Longleat Safari Park, West Midlands Safari Park and a private wolf centre where they have been paired with individual males. Our new female wolverine from Boras Zoo in Sweden has been successfully introduced to our resident male and has been actively digging for and catching voles and field mice.
Would this be because of problems in the group, or relatedness, or sex ratios, or some of each perhaps?
@Pertinax, a natural wolf pack consists of 1 adult pair with their offspring only, so introducing a male wolf to several other wolves would not be a natural situation.
Yes, I see. If they need to introduce a new male, they can only pair him with a single female. Its interesting that wolf 'packs' are in reality family units comprising an adult pair + offspring. The books always used to refer to 'only the Alpha pair' in a pack breeding, in reality this presumably means just the adult pair and not their grown up offspring, which presumably themselves later leave in order to breed.
What kinda wolf species was here in the first place. Any additional info on the remaining female wolf?
2014 Annual report, animal inventory. http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/media/399382/00902-rzss-hwp-inventory-aw.pdf
Bukharan deer are hanging on a thread rather with only one female(3.1). There will probably be another birth about now/soon, but evidently the arrival of more females as was mentioned previously has not happened(yet).
It appears that the first Snow Leopard is already onsite - male, Shan (BJune2013) left Krefeld for the Highland's in April (source: Krefeld's Facebook page)
A piece from the blog, regarding the current situation with the European wolves; On the same day that our new female polar bear arrived from Denmark, another important carnivore arrived. Jax, a two year old male European wolf, arrived from Jarv Zoo in Sweden to be paired with our female wolf, Ruby. Most people think of wolves as quite social animals, which they are, but establishing a compatible wolf pack is far from straightforward, and if not done properly, the wolves can start to set-about each other with potentially fatal results. To enable Jax to be introduced to Ruby, all Ruby’s relatives had to be moved to other collections to create a suitably stable environment for the new pair to settle. The basis of every wolf pack is the alpha male and female, who are unrelated to each other, and their offspring. As they mature, some of the offspring will disperse out of the pack to find mates and start their own packs and sometimes older offspring are driven out if the home territory does not have enough prey to sustain the pack. In a captive situation, older offspring would be sent to other zoos to start new packs as space can become an issue, not food supply. Ruby’s parents were introduced to each other in 2010 in what was our new wolf wood, opened by the Princess Royal in September of that year. In 2012 they reared their first litter of three males and two females, one of which was Ruby. In 2013 they reared a litter of two males and two females bringing the pack size up to 11. In 2014 Ruby’s mother became ill and had to be put to sleep, but when one of the alpha pair is lost, the whole pack structure can collapse into a snarling, fighting mass as the hierarchy is disrupted and the fights for dominance begin. A new park called Wild Place was looking for a single sex group of wolves and so we sent them all the males to reduce the aggravation in our group and avoid any mating between relatives. This left us with the four young females. Three other zoos in the UK were looking to add European wolves into their collections, so the coordinated plan was for us to send Ruby’s three sisters south to be joined by young males from continental zoos. Four male wolves were imported, with one, Jax, coming north to us, to start a new Highland Wildlife Park wolf dynasty. After 24 hours in the adjacent off-exhibit enclosure and a suitable amount of observed interest from both wolves, the separating door was opened and the new pair was together. Initially Jax spent his time checking out the main enclosure whilst Ruby watched him closely. Because this new pack is just one male and one female in a large complex enclosure, there is no competition with others of the same sex and there is plenty of room to avoid confrontation. After a few weeks, all the signs indicate that we have a new bonded pair, and with some luck the next litter of wolf pups will be born one year from now. This piece was first published in the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald
Do all-male/single sex Wolf groups live harmoniously longterm without fighting? (I think Cotswold have had a single sex group for some while also though not sure which sex they are.)
