Mountain View Conservation & Breeding Centre Mountain View Conservation + Breeding Centre

I'm pretty sure thats illegal in NZ and possibly Australia and the UK... I think here only invertebrates are allowed to be 'live' fed...

 

Hi Guys, I just thought I'd add my two cents here. I posted a few months ago and have been busy with school since. Several summers ago I volunteered at Mountain View and worked with every animal there except for the Vancouver Island Marmots. I thought I might be able to clairify some of the points and questions made by other people so here goes!
@ snowleopard: I'm glad you enjoyed your visit and that many of the more interesting animals were co-operative while you were there. Firstly regarding the cat and lemur cages....each cat is kept in its own cattery and they are only introduced when they are trying to breed them (which is not that often these days as most of their animals are already well represented) so although they may appear small, in fact they are quite large when you consider the size of many of the cats. As for the pools etc, If you had been allowed down to the catteries where the Fossa, Ocelot, Pallas Cat etc are than you would have seen that each cattery has a very large pool (when I worked with the fishing cats we put live fish in them to provide some behavioural enrichment) in which the water is changed every few days to avoid any stagnant water or any chance of disease etc. Finally, regarding the live feeds....the cats are each given a live quail (from a nearby poultry farm) I believe it is every Friday (I witnessed this several times and it is absolutely fascanating seeing the various behaviours that each cat exhibits)..otherwise the cats are fed chicken chicks or chicken necks or a combination of the two.
@okapikpr: The animals have access to their indoor areas at all times and are never locked in/out unless there is incredibly horrible weather outside (even then its rare). During the summer months the malayan tapirs and bongo are usually let out into a 10+ acre ravine area where they are essentially left to their own devices...the keepers keep track of them every few days and rely on how much food has disappeared to know how they are doing...I believe they did the same thing with the Pygmy Hippo when those were there too. The only animal that was extremely closely monitored when I was there was a male Sable Antelope who is kept on a smaller off-property area along with a herd of Addax. During the winter all of the birds are brought into the upstairs area of the main barn.
I hope this provides some answers, If you have any more questions dont hesitate to ask and I can try and answer them for you. By the way, I have lots of excellent photos which I can post if you want including every species of cat there (except for Clouded Leopard and Indian Desert Cat) and several of the Mountain Tapirs out in there yard!

 

@choloepus: thanks for responding, and your reply was extremely informative. Having not seen any water at all in the cat exhibits it's good to know that the enclosures that I wasn't allowed to go near (fossa breeding time!) did actually have pools. The live feeds are something that I actually support, and the 10 minute complimentary DVD shows some brief footage of cats and fossas attacking the quail in their exhibits.

The idea of allowing specific animals to roam around in a densely forested, 10-acre ravine is revelatory for any establishment keeping captive wildlife. There are certainly some marvellous aspects of Mountain View that other centres would do well to copy. One last thing: you mentioned a clouded leopard but there is nothing recorded on the website. Did the cat leave at the same time as the pygmy hippo pair?

 

Glad I could help , It is a truly remarkable place and I think that more zoos need to follow their lead. As for the Clouded Leopard I'm not completely sure what happened to her. When I was working there she was housed in the cattery that was close to the aviary but since she was afraid of men she would disappear whenever I would go nearby - in my entire 4 weeks there I only saw her twice and it was only for about 5 seconds each time! I know she was different subspecies than the usual clouded leopards and I believe the only other members of her subspecies in captivity were/are at San Diego...maybe she went back there?

 

I am seriously considering visiting this establishment when I visit British Columbia, possibly this September. I think it'll definately be worth the $30. I am especially very interested especially in the Aardwolves, Black Duiker, Kulan, Fossa, Takin, Cape Buffalo, Mountain Bongo, Golden Cat, and the huge African Wild Dog pack. I've seen about three of these beautiful dogs in North Carolina Zoo so it'll be something to see a pack of them, if they show themselves in their huge exhibit

 

I have to disagree with you about the elephants. They often let the elephants out and are able to graze in the woods and forest behind their exhibit. Also their barn is state of the art. Also the elephants breeding success their is grand so the elephants must be having a good life and is more natural than most elephants.

 

@ cheloepus: taking this back a while. I want to clarify that the Toronto Zoo hasn't flinched to look into building a Madagascar exhibit. There mainy projects now are listed on wikipedia all taken from the City of Toronto's 2009 Budget there projects go until 2018.

I would love to visit this establishment as well. They seem to have some fairly nice animals and great exhibits!

What happened to the pygmy hippos, what was the reason for the move, and is thier old exhibit still standing? As well as the Generuk?

 

Actually, the pygmy hippos are now at Toronto Zoo (Harvey and Abou)

 

OO really, that's funny. I wonder why the hippos moved?

 

Quick question does anyone know why the website said it had Kulans now it says Persian Onagers. They have the same pictures, but different name. Did they actually switch from Kulans, to Persian Onagers and haven't switched the pictures, or did they just discover they are actually onagers. Thanks.

 

I am pretty confident - allthough not completely - that the Langley individuals have been Persian onagers all along. They have exhibited them for quite a number of years and have had marginal breeding success with them.

Kulan have only ever been kept by The Wilds in any numbers recently (safe for the CCES by Bill Gruenerwald ... from where sadly all equids have now disappeared to unbeknownest third and fourth parties ... or in the case of kulan stallions simply shot on vehicle ... as not considered valuable enough).

 

You are quite right those elephants are Thriving there, the park has a great breeding record and as you say they are let out to graze in the woods often for hours, as for the small lake well it's the largest I have ever seen given to any elephant herd

 

You think they would be kulans even though they look very similar to onagers. I'm haven't actually seen either species up close before but very fond of both species, and from what I have seen it does look like a Kulan. Anyways the whole situation of the Kulans if very sad. Their used to be soooo many at the Colorado Rare Equid Sanctuary and now I haven't heard of many being in zoos. My friend Jon Conley used to have some at his safari park in Tennessee, and now hopefully he will get some more. Another place called Lazy 5 Ranch has at least 4 of them, and correct me if I'm wrong I think Shadow Nursery has or had some also. I have seen prices on them and they cost around as same as an domestic donkey.

 

Yes the lake was large and how a dog herded the smaller elephants and made sure they stayed in the water was quite funny. They have it better off than most elephants. To get a little off topic, I wonder how they keep all of those Olive Baboons from inbreeding. I can't imagine how hard it would be to get birth control to most of them. Also just simply managing that number of monkeys.

 

HUGE news from Mountain View Conservation Centre, and none of it is positive. On the front page of today's "Province" newspaper, which is the major paper in British Columbia, Canada, there is the revelation that animals "suffered cruelty, neglect and even gruesome death". That is the headline on the front page, and then there is a massive, 3-page article detailing allegations from 7 former employees of shady practices at the breeding centre.

The large article admits that Mountain View Conservation Centre has long been regarded as "world-class", as it specializes in the breeding of rare and endangered animals. I visited a couple of years ago and was impressed with the enormous pack of 30+ African wild dogs, the 10-acre Malayan tapir enclosure, Ivan the Indian rhino, the small herd of vicuna, mountain tapirs, Asiatic golden cat, rusty-spotted cat, etc.

The news from the ex-employees is shocking: botched mercy killings with hammers and inadequate guns, dead animals tossed to the African wild dog pack, the millionaire owner's loss of over $100 million in the technology bubble bursting of a decade ago, a mother and baby giraffe dying within a day of each other last weekend, a veterniarian often not being called until it was too late, improper fencing for Ivan the Indian rhino, a gerenuk that had its leg fall off after it had rotted for 6 months, etc. Some of the deaths of animals were gruesomely reported in the newspaper, and that will surely rile up any local activists.

The owner Gordon Blankstein denies all charges and has declared that some of the allegations are not factual. Lawsuits and a major investigation from the British Columbia Humane Society are expected to occur in the near future.

A brief introduction: (the full 3-page article is only in the hard-copy paper edition)

'World-class' Langley animal conservation centre under SPCA probe

 

Wow thats not to good, I wonder what is to come. It seems like a very good facility!

 

Horrifying I feel awful for the animals and employees. They had a segment on this on the local news, some employees had to be put on depression medication.

 

This sounds like a similar story to that of Wildlife World Zoo but worse. I have heard of people making false reports against other zoos but its hard to tell fact from fiction. Talking to a zoo owner who was attacked by PETA I know how bad they can get.

@snowleopard: Do you think this is all true? It sounds like a pretty big thing that would have been noticed beforehand. Or is most of these things more recent?

 

@kbaker116: It sounds as if there is a lot of evidence of neglect in terms of a veterinarian not being called until the last minute in a number of cases. An addax being shot 6 times, still being alive and then being smashed with a hammer 10 times is going to convince most people of abuse if it is on the front page of the Provincial newspaper. I don't have an issue with many of the dead hoofstock being fed to the African wild dogs (according to ISIS a pack of 26 dogs) but that has been a major concern in the press. The fact that there are 7-8 ex-employees who are making statements means that this cannot be attributed to a single disgruntled employer. Bleak times may well be ahead for the owner Gordon Blankstein.

 

If the park owner was to be prosecuted and the worse was to happen what would be become of the animals? Would they be under new management? Or would the place be shut down and entire collection be dispersed.

I guess my real question is do you think he will be able to recover his trust with the other facilities? I am not sure how many animals he really owns and how many are on loan from other places, with other zoos hearing of this do you think they will withdraw any of their animals?