but I gather you're basing your figure on the 6 in the initial post, which had a question mark after it. I haven't seen anything which stated the actual number imported so it could have been 6 total rather than 7. Perhaps.
I´ve no experience by doing this with reptiles but with birds we tried to slow down the aggresor by cutting away some of his ( or in some cases her ) wing-feathers and give the pair a large enclosure with several hidding-placed which should have however an entrance AND and exit so the 'attacted' animal had alway the possibility to escape. With monitors I can imagion to tape one of the for-legs against the body to slow-down the male and give them a huge enclosure. If he accept the female ( or maybe it would even be better to introduce 2 or more of them at the same time ) the tape can be removed, if not he of the female can be removed.
How to Train Your Dragon Lasers lead the way for the Komodo Dragon | Taronga Conservation Society Australia
Have just been reading this thread, and have a few questions: It states Cairns Tropical Zoo were sent two Komodo dragons, are these Kozzie (M) and Indah (F)? I'm confused as they arrived separately. Now Cairns Tropical Zoo has closed, where were they dispersed to? Is Australia Zoo's male Komodo dragon also part of this clutch? Does anyone know the names of Taronga Zoo's pair?
The male is called Naga, although I don't know what the female is called (he is the only one on display).
only the male was sent to Cairns at that time. The female didn't arrive until a year later (but I don't know where she came from). She is now at Australia Zoo. Australia Zoo's male came from Indonesia and has been there for almost ten years I think.
just looking into this a bit more. There were seven young ones imported from Los Angeles. At the time of the import there were already three adult dragons at Australia Zoo (2.1) and one at Taronga (1.0). The seven young ones went to Taronga (1.1), the Australian Reptile Park (1.1), Cairns Tropical Zoo (1.0), and Perth (apparently 1.1 - only the male was announced by the zoo, and the female was the one which then went on to Cairns the next year). I can find very little on the Australia Zoo animals, but they actually started with five (males Fatboy, Slim, and Ora; and females Lulu and Alice). As far as I can tell they were all imported from wild Komodo animals in about 1999? I have no idea what happened to them all, but the only one left now is Fat-boy. The female Indah from Cairns went to Australia Zoo after Cairns closed. [EDIT: this thread http://www.zoochat.com/24/komodo-dragon-79968/ says that the animals came from the Wyndham Crocodile Farm] Taronga's adult male (Tuka) died in 2015. Ballarat Wildlife Park got a male named Lava Claw last year but I don't know where from. I have a suspicion he may be the Cairns male Kozzie re-named but that is purely a guess. Indonesian dragon unveiled in Ballarat | The Courier
Thank you both for that info. I gather that Komodos are relatively easy to import into Australia? Do you know if New Zealand can import them from Australia, or the rest of the world? If so, it'd be good to see the New Zealand Zoos exhibiting this species. So we can assume the 4 out of the 5 original Australia Zoo Komodos have passed on, given that they don't appear to have been sent anywhere else. Maybe the two females were killed during introductions to males, as I hear this is unfortuantely quite common, and has happened at Taronga. I was reading somewhere that Tuka almost killed his second mate twice and it was reccomended that no further introductions took place. A change of management meant this decision was overturned or ignored and the third encounter was fatal for the female. Another source referred to the second mate arriving after the 'premature death' of his first mate. It almost implied she died of reasons unrelated to a failed introduction. Can anyone confirm either way, or provide details on any of these females?
yes, NZ can now import Komodo dragons. Auckland is likely to do so at some point. it's possible. I don't think it is likely they have been exported. They may have gone to somewhere else in Australia though (e.g. back to Wyndham, although that place closed down a couple of years ago now). I don't know one way or another. there's a book called "The Keepers And The Kept" about Taronga, and there's some info in there about the dragons. The female (only one is mentioned) was injured by the male and she died a year later. "The female suffered further injury, from which she never fully recovered, and died just over a year later."
I guess Taronga will look at swapping their juvenile female for an unrelated female to breed with Naga when they reach maturity. I've heard of female Komodo dragons reproducing asexually. I'm assuming this rarely happens otherwise they wouldn't risk male-female introductions? It would be good to see them at Auckland Zoo, hopefully the other three main zoos will follow. They're an impressive animal.
offspring produced parthenogenetically only receive genes from the mother, so it isn't the best idea to use it as a breeding technique (the babies aren't clones of her but they only get half the genes they would from a normal pairing, so they are not exactly diverse). Also in Komodo dragons, the eggs which are produced through parthenogenesis all hatch out as males due to the way their sex chromosomes work.
How interesting, I was wondering if the recent import of juveniles was from an asexual breeding situation, but it obviously wasn't if only males are produced. There was a high profile zoo that had such an event recently, but I can't remember which one... Edit: It was Chester Zoo in 2006 http://www.livescience.com/9460-female-komodo-dragon-virgin-births.html
Raja at Perth Zoo has just received an upgrade to his outdoor quarters. He appears to really like it as he has spent a lot of time there recently, despite the overcast weather. IMG_6401b by Iwerks posted 27 May 2017 at 10:33 PM
