I love those Tree Kangaroos, wish we had more of them in our zoos, maybe some of the other species would also be nice.
melbourne zoo has a wonderful record for breeding goodfellow's tree-kangaroos and currently have two breeding pairs one on display and a second in a off-limits area behind the butterfly and bugs exhibits. a keeper told me that the marsupials are producing one joey every 11 months just like clockwork. unfortunately they demolished the large 2 year-old northern neighbours exhibit (that also housed cassowary and echidna) to make way for the orangs, but hopefully another exhibit new guinea exhibit will be constructed soon. the tree-kangaroos are very popular with visitors and people really enjoyed standing around the elevated boardwalk watching the keepers do talks about the kangaroos whilst they fed them and the echidnas. i love them and i never ever miss them if i visit the zoo.
Yes Pat they are hard not to love, we have some at the bird park on the gold coast, I could watch them for hours.
that would be currumbin sanctuary mark? some of the goodfellow's tree-kangaroos there are melbourne born as the two zoos have a co-operative breeding program. matschie's tree-kangaroo is very common in OS zoos in europe and america and just a couple of other zoos keep the goodfellow's (like san diego). adelaide are now the only zoo that house matschies in australia but unfortunately they are not breeding. not sure why (this could be one for you ben?). currumbin now hold the last two dorcopsis wallabies left in oz - an unusual looking new guinea forest wallaby that was once bred in large numbers at taronga and melbourne.
Yes thats right Pat, i just looked on ISIS Currumbin have 4 of them and Melbourne has 7 wow, wish we had more of them, i think Perth used to have a large collection of tree Kangaroos some years back?.
the perth tree-kangaroo where the matschie's that are now at adelaide. melbourne have 6 - 2 males and 4 females which is good news because quite a few males where born there in a row. one of the melbourne-born males is now at taronga.
Thats really great news Taronga zoo has a male goodfellows lets hope they can form a nice breeding pair as well, in fact it would be real good if all our zoos here could hold at least one pair, hope thats not to much to hope for.
Some interesting zoo news I saw today, The Howletts zoo UK, have bred 27 Clouded leopard cubs in 6 years from 5 breeding pairs. over 27 Black rhino to date, 8 African Elephants, plus many other rare and endangered animals. Love to work there.
thats great news about the matschie's tree-kangaroos ben. i was hoping they where not going to be phased out. as melbourne is so experienced in breeding the tree-kangaroos (they used too have matschie's also) i'm hoping one day the zoo will house both species. indeed it would make sense with new guinea fauna officially being only second to our own in terms of prority (though we all know that "prority" species are often ignored!!!). i'm really hoping taronga will have some sucess breeding their long-beaked echidnas and it will spurr an import of some more direct from PNG. though the female is very old and the male has a sperm count of six, apparently they display alot of breeding behaviour and taronga was suspect a few years ago that the female had laid an egg. unfortunately almost nothing is known about these giant monotremes and everything is generally guesswork based on the short-beaked species. oh and in regards to clouded leopards at howletts, thats fantastic!!! the trick with cloded leopards seems to be; 1) islolation from other big cat species like tigers 2) providing plenty of hiding spaces with an emphasis on arboreal space - they feel safe high in trees. 3) hand-rearing cubs so that they are less stressed by people 4) rearing cubs with an unrelated mate of similar age so that the male's agression is diffused somewhat. i suspect that the male killing female problem might be due to a territory protection instinct overriding the desires to mate. a neutral breeding enclosure between the "territories" of the male and females enclosres might work to some effect.
tree-kangaroos i'm pretty sure that sydney will have to source a female from overeas as the genepool isn't large and i think the taronga male is the related to both currumbins and melbournes animals. there are only a handfull of zoos with the goodfellow's species but although ISIS lists many of them as being of different subspecies, i know the australian bred shawmayeri race is actually just a pseudonym for the buergersi subspecies kept at some overseas zoo so interbreeding is not a problem. australia has pretty good connections in papua though as breeding centers there are actually members of ARAZPA. so ideally they would come direct from new guinea. but i'm just trying to make an educated guess...
Lets keep our fingers crossed that we can get one from NG, who is keeping them over there, i am not sure they have much in the way of animal parks?.
Pat i was at Currumin sanctuary about four years ago when i spoke to a keeper about the Goodfellows there, They said one of the Goodfellows they had was from the San Deigo zoo, i have not been there in resent times but next time i go i ask about their plans and any other news then post it up here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1790478,00.html this says thta the 8 to taronga are the first of 100 elephants destined for australiasn ZOOs. is it true or a typo?
TAsmania gets exotic species Indian Palm Squirrels take up residence http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19375029%5E3462,00.html
