Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo News 2017

It is great to learn that new linkages continue to be made between both zoo organisation regions'. It makes total sense to include the ZAA in with EAZA's Snow Leopard EEP and vice versa so they can benefit from the large pool of animals up for exchange (and with good genetics). As similar exchanges from European zoos have happened over the last few years with both zoos in Japan and USA, it looks like the Snow Leopard might be or may already be) up for a global management program.

If I am correct next to Melbourne, snow leopards are at Mogo and Billabong Zoo, NSW?
Am I missing one or two (I thought that Taronga went out of them in 2015 ..)?

 

The National Zoo has a brother and sister.

 

Since the Snow Leopard was the "Leopard of choice" for the region its interesting how they appear to have dwindled down to such a low number in the last few years! One could believe this is another species where a lack in interest has taken place within the ZAA?

 

This is very exciting news, but can you please provide a link. I can't find anything about it anywhere - even on the Facebook page.

 

Thanks for this. There seems to be a few different Facebook pages for this particular zoo, and even a lot of info saying that Miska the snow leopard actually died as a cub - so no idea what that's all about (probably some half-baked story from the anti-zoo lobby). I'm still amazed that there has been no announcement from Melbourne Zoo about it yet though.

 

Lots of confusion comes out of this place- it was infamous for many years with huge doses of negative publicity-until earlier this year when a much publicised management upheaval set it on an improved and different(?) course. You can read all about its murky past on the various threads relating to it in the UK section of Zoochat. But since the changes it is markedly obvious that it has scarcely featured on the UK threads at all.

 

To be honest there have never been that many individuals with only Melbourne, Taronga and Mogo having imported animals. For whatever reason Perth and Adelaide have not shown any interest in Snows (both having kept Persians for many years), and now it looks like the now gone Persians will be replaced by Sri Lankans.

 

Wellington Zoo will hopefully continue with their plans to import them. They were supposed to acquire them last year but rennovations of the old sun bear enclosure (where they will live) has not yet started.

I guess it's down to the smaller zoos as usual. Mogo and Billabong Wildlife Park both have them of course.

In my opinion, Adelaide would be better off acquiring snow leopards than Sri Lankan leopards, that no other zoo in the region has.

 

I believe the plan is for a number of zoos in the region to acquire the Sri Lankans not just Adelaide

 

Darling Downs Zoo will also be receiving Sri Lankan leopards and has already started on the construction of their exhibit with a pair supposed to be arriving from Europe later this year.

 

That would not necessarilly be a bad thing, as it would be more fitting to have a tropical Felidae species in ZAA (all Australia zoos) per se. However, I think a more likely candidate would actually be the Jawan leopard Panthera pardus melas.

Snow leopards - in my humble opinion (you may not agree or contest, ... that is fine) would be best suited to the New Zealand climate (than anything hot and dry Australia).

 

I visited there around two weeks ago and there was no sign of any construction?

 

Well if the leopards are still supposed to be arriving at the end of the year, lets hope there's something starting soon. They are a small private zoo so they might still be trying to fundraise in order to buy their supplies.

In the end, I think it'll be a great thing for the region to have a second leopard species.

 

I agree a second species would be much better but it appears the "tread" in resent years is to "trim" down the number of species regardless how endangered they are, if it were not for a number of the smaller regional zoos taking up some of the species which the major zoos have lose interest in more would have gone by now the Manes Wolf is one of them, I have to take my hat off the the smaller guys doing what some of the big guys are finding it to hard to do, I would hope that Taronga might include more species in it "Asian rain forest" than just Tigers, maybe a few more oil drums and wooden packing crates may help!

 

One would presume Javans have been too difficult to source. They were definitely the preferred subspp at one stage in the past.
Agreed that certain zoos should look at one or the other spp. Any zoos in Tas or NZ should preferably look at Snows, while zoos in WA, SA + QLD should concentrate on Sri Lankans. Mind you leopards of all sorts are pretty adaptable beasts.

 

Another step back from the brink for the stick insect

Another step back from the brink for the stick insect | Zoos Victoria

Six tiny nymphs just hatched at Melbourne Zoo represent a more secure future for an amazing insect species that was thought to be extinct for almost 80 years.

The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect breeding program will now benefit from this start of a new genetic line to strengthen the species survival breeding program that has already produced more than 14,500 phasmids.

Researchers surveying Ball’s Pyramid in 2001 made the astonishing discovery that a small number of the ‘extinct’ species had survived there after invading rats had devoured all those on their home island, making them a ‘Lazarus species’ - back from the dead.

After extensive discussions, N.S.W. wildlife authorities decided to move four of the rare stick insects into a mainland breeding program, and two arrived at the Zoo in 2003.

This April, scientists undertaking a major Australian Museum expedition to Lord Howe Island located 17 additional survivors on Ball’s Pyramid.

Invertebrate Coordinator Kate Pearce returned from Ball’s Pyramid with one adult female, named Vanessa after the expedition member who found her.

Vanessa was kept in strict quarantine conditions, where she laid 135 eggs before she died on October 10. The life expectancy of this species is only two years, and preliminary results from her necropsy showed signs of aging.

The first hatching on October 18 was an egg laid on April 6, just two days after Vanessa arrived at the Zoo. Since then, another four of the six eggs in the first batch Vanessa laid have also produced nymphs.

This morning a nymph from the second batch of eggs emerged, another major milestone making a total of six nymphs so far.

Paul Flemons, leader of the Australian Museum expedition to Lord Howe Island and Ball’s Pyramid, and the Museum’s manager of citizen science, said ‘This is fantastic news for the survival of the very rare and very special Lord Howe Island phasmid, whose status on Ball’s Pyramid was firmly established by the Australian Museum’s daring expedition in early 2017.

‘The recruitment of Vanessa and her offspring to the Melbourne Zoo breeding program was a great outcome of that expedition, particularly now that the rat eradication project for Lord Howe Island is scheduled for mid-2018 and could mean the reintroduction of the insect to the island,’ Mr. Flemons explained.

As Vanessa was an adult when she was collected on Ball’s Pyramid, the assumption is that she would have bred with one or more of the males there, so these nymphs are expected to be carrying two genetic inheritances.