Bengal tiger Delhi has been put to sleep at the grand old age of 21yrs!!! He was put down on 28th February. What a great age for him to get to!!!!
95% positive that he was just non-subspecific. Delhi was born at Port Lympne to parents whose original captive ancestors came from private origin. So they could claim he was Bengal, but it's likely that he was in fact just a subspecies hybrid. The same goes for the 'Barbary lions' at both Aspinall parks, they can claim they're Barbary to their heart's content but if they are in fact an extinct in the wild subspecies, why are they only letting two animals breed?
Leaving a little window of possibility given John Aspinall's imports throughout the years, but yes I would probably agree with you.
To my knowledge Aspinalls have never imported any pure tigers from India. They went from the 'Bengal' tigers of mixed/unknown ancestry they held originally, to focusing on pure bred Siberians ( + now Sumatran) as the Indians(X) have slowly died out.
Took a trip to Howletts yesterday (20/06/20) and I have to say I thought they'd done well with the social distancing. You enter as normal but restricted to the left side of the shop and then follow a one way system to the left as you enter the park. They have stand off barriers in front of the first set of gorilla enclosures at the top of the park which could cause a bottle neck at this point but most people were being sensible. You then follow a figure of eight path past the elephants and round the bottom of the park through the woodland walk area and back up to the tigers / lions. You can then go back round or veer off round to the top elephant viewing area. The second gorilla area is completely shut with a sign noting that the 2 metre social distancing / stand off barriers are not possible in this area due the width of the path. Lemur walkthrough also closed. They have brought in extra toilets and all are manned by an attendant. There were of course people being dim - but you get that everywhere. In terms of animal news I'm afraid I don't visit often enough to know what is new but things I noticed: - Hand reared female tiger Arina now has access to two enclosures (following the death of a former resident) - they need to add some more signs explaining why she has a limp as a lot of ppl were commenting that the zoo should be attending to it. I thought she was actually more mobile than when we last saw her - and she gave me a few chuffs which is always nice! - Pallas cat enclosure and one other (newest one) in the woodland area are empty with signs saying due to Covid-19 they have not been able to move animals in. - The three youngest elephants were on excellent form playing together - strongly advise seeing them now if you can! Whole herd was together in the hilly paddock and hard stand area apart from the bull Coco who was out in the other paddock. - Various other youngsters have been born - lemur / langur / baboon all spotted. - We saw the delightful Damien rolling along in a buggy. I managed not to throw my shoe at him which I thought was very restrained.
More restraint than most of us - I can think of a good few people that want to throw more than just a shoe at him!
I thought the man was named Damian - John Damian Androcles Aspinall - or is this a fun poke at horror character Damien in The Omen? Well, thanks anyway for the nice review. Surprised that the Pallas cat enclosure was empty! Does this mean they no longer hold any?
The empty Pallas Cat enclosure is the one in the woodland walk. The other enclosure next to the lemur walk through was still signed for 2 last week, but I didn't see any
He is - it is just a typo. Yes - still signed but no sign of a pallas cat for us either in that enclosure. We did see the keepers going in to clean etc though so pretty confident they are there.
The breeding pair of Honey Badger (Tyson and Bee-Bee) moved to Safari Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic last week. Their daughter (Tembe) will also leave soon. She's being sent to Africa before eventually being released into the wild. Being a hybrid of course this is not a sensible idea, but of course this is Damian Aspinall we are talking about...
And to add to the hilarity, Damian has posted a video online where he rants about the fact other European zoos refused to have any part of this export and wouldn't send him their own Ratels to also send into the wild
Who is this guy? Not the first time I've read about his weird acts on Zoochat yet I don't know much about him
He's the son of the founder of Howletts and Port Lympne. He's also very anti-zoo (despite owning two) and is on a mission to send all of his captive bred animals back to the wild. Whether they are suitable for release (such as the hybrid Honey Badger) or not
It's one of the various recent posts to his Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/damian_aspinall/?hl=en Don't much want to sit through his self-important wittering again to find the precise one but it's one of the first clips I think, as he posted it about a week or so ago.
