Mansfield Zoo have welcomed 3 new baby bovines. 1 baby water buffalo, 1 baby watusi and most excitedly a baby bison!
Are you sure about watusi? They do have Texas longhorn which are reasonably common in Australia, while watusi would be in very small numbers, if at all.
It is a Texas Longhorn calf. I just had a look on the zoo's Facebook page where there is a post showing three photos of the calves and asking people to guess what they are. Presumably Jake just guessed it was a Watusi and posted that here. The other two calves are an American Bison and a Water Buffalo though.
Werribee used to have African cattle when they opened, and obtained them in Australia, so there is a chance some are around.
i noticed on a recent YouTube video of a families trip to Mansfield Zoo, there was a brief glimpse of a new professional looking aviary built between the funny looking owl aviary and the old original aviary that now houses rabbits and guinea pigs. Does anyone know what this new aviary holds? I cant find any details on their website or Facebook....
There are ( or were reasonably recently) around 15 Bos indicus (Ankole watusi) in Australia but are being crossed with Texas long horns.
Very exciting news for this small facility. Mansfield Zoo have announced that they will be acquiring Maned Wolves very soon. The zoo will house the only Maned Wolves in the state of Victoria: “Magnificent moonrise over Mt Buller, taken from the new Maned Wolf enclosure this evening. Wolves arriving soon!” Log In or Sign Up to View
Very exciting news. Hopefully the enclosure will be interesting for the visitors as well as the wolves. The photo on Facebook doesn't show much.
Victoria earthquake: Jumpy kangaroos the first sign of trouble as tremors hit Mansfield (theage.com.au) Small article about the earthquake near Mansfield yesterday
Mansfield Zoo have received two young female Maned Wolves from Altina Wildlife Park - the only ones of their species in the state of Victoria currently with the last ones being at Melbourne Zoo about a decade ago: "The maned wolves were a long time coming for the zoo, which anticipated their arrival in mid-2020. The young pair of females from Griffith’s Altina Wildlife Park ended up arriving 18 months later, in December 2021." Article: It takes a farm to feed a zoo - Country News
I visited Mansfield Zoo again yesterday, exactly 3 years since my last visit on ANZAC day 2019, and thought i would make a few comments and observations on what's changed in that time. Collection wise with new species, they've added Mained Wolves X 2, and Red tailed Black Cockatoos X 2, and additional animals of species they already had, they've gained a female Hog Deer (they bottle raised her, so she's very tame, but maybe not as confident as their stag) 3 X Rhesus Macaques from DDZ (M/FM pair and their M son) They're housed beside their 2 older sons that came down a few years ago. I was interested and pleased to see that they could have a large and dense tea tree growing successfully in their enclosure which give privacy and interest for them, otherwise it was just grass and lots of branches and platforms for climbing. Animals they've lost in the past 3 years include 1 capuchin monkey, i suspect a few common marmosets (i counted 6 but i seem to remember they started with 10) i suspect a few meerkats as well (i counted 7 but again i thought they started with 10 males) the turkey and Cape Barron Geese, Ostrich and American Alligator have also gone. There was a sign on the Alligator's enclosure saying he "off display" but the owner said in his Lion feeding speech, that he was at the Hunter Valley zoo due to some bungle up with Victorian government. They are planning to build a new enclosure beside the future tram café area. For the café, they obtained one of the old Melbourne trams, received approval from council for it to be used as a café, and then had the approval revoked and told they could only use the tram to eat in, but the food had to be served from a separate building.... so that hasn't opened yet. I noticed there wasn't many peafowl roaming around anymore, and the owner said they hadn't bred any this year and only 3 last year... i saw a fox run thru the zoo in broad daylight, coming from the entrance area, so i guess that explains why there wasn't too many free ranging birds. I was very pleased to see the new aviaries, 1 beside where their original aviary was, that only had 1 X Lady Amherst Pheasant and 1 X Indian ring-necked parrot. I would love for them to get Macaws or other Sth American parrots for here to tie in a country theme between the Marmosets and Capuchins. The 2nd new aviary is between the Masked Owls and the guinea pigs. This one is divided into 2, with a ring tailed possum on 1 side (unseen, assume it was in the log) and the other half for 2 X Red tailed Black Cockatoos. I would like to see them add more parrots to this aviary or a native pigeon etc to fill out the space. The Mained Wolves were very engaging, both girls were constantly walking around and exploring every part of their enclosure. I noticed the stand off fence had a small gage wire at the bottom, to deter snakes entering their space. Apparently Mained wolves in other zoos have died from snake bite, and the Mansfield Zoo have signs saying wild snakes live there so beware of stepping on them. They have planted around the outside of the main fence with low growing native plants, it would be nice if they could grow something other than grass inside as well - Pampas grass and agaves and peppercorn trees would all be good and appropriate. I didn't notice any signs on their enclosure, but the info signs are certainly an area they could improve on. Beside the wolves you can now walk up the hill to see the Red Deer and Texas Long horned cattle. They were all up close to the fence as they'd just had a round bale of hay spread out near the fence. The cattle were most impressive, with the older ones having huge horns and a nice mix of coat colors. The Red Stag was bellowing (sounded very similar to the lions roaring!) and chasing a few of his girls around. The younger spikers were keeping out of his way. I heard a family looking into the Cunningham Skink enclosure, one asked what a skink is, and 1 of the kids confidently said they're like a Skunk but don't spray the smelly stuff at you! I then pointed out the skink sitting on the log for them... Almost everything else was unchanged from my last visit, and i couldn't think of too many urgent improvements or changes that needed to be made. They were closed for a total of 11 months during covid and received no funding or assistance, but a keeper told me they used the time to finish various projects that had been on the sidelines for a while. I would like them to remove the random hand made sculptures or artworks that were sitting around, as they don't add to the experience and really look tacky in my opinion - and tidy up the gardens and landscaping and install new colorful & informative signs on every enclosure, these simple measures would really elevate the look of the whole place. As per usual, i certainly enjoyed myself, and ended up spending 4 hours there - 3 hours would have been heaps but i waited around to hear the lion feeding/talk. I will no doubt be back again in future, i think this was my 6th visit over 18 years.
I drove past this zoo yesterday and noticed at least 2 young bison calves amongst the group. They must have almost 10-12 bison now
