Zoochatters can probably give the show a miss. The time could be better spent on the walking trails or taking a second ride on the tram (tickets are good for multiple rides).
thanks Zooish. I usually ignore animal shows at zoos but thought I'd better check in case they had a banded linsang in the show or something like that and I missed it
the possums did indeed come from Wellington Zoo: Wellington Zoo Trust | 2010-11 Annual Report: Animal collection "In September three brush tailed possums left us to go to Singapore Zoo where they have formed a new breeding group and have settled in very well"
Some of the wallabies (Bennett's or parma) supposedly came from New Zealand as well. They arrived in January 2012. The possums have settled in well indeed. I saw about 6 of them on display.
Wellington have a large number of Parma Wallabies (~25), but no Bennett's, although many other New Zealand zoos have those, so Wellington could have organised something.
funnily enough there's just been an article released about those wallabies (although it doesn't say where they came from): Night Safari welcomes new wildlife from Australia - inSing.com
another question for Zooish: the tarsier in the Night Safari...is there just one? Or more than one? I saw a site a few days ago while looking up something else about tarsiers and it said there were three tarsiers there (one Philippine and two Bornean, or vice versa) but I don't know how old the information was.
@Chlidonias: There was a media blitz the past week for the Wallaby Trail's official opening this Friday. There's just one Spectral tarsier now. There used to be a pair until one died some years back. I've not heard about there being a Philippines one before.
I understand the 2 species were sourced from NZ and Holland, so it looks like the parma's came from Wellington (part of the deal with the possums) and the Bennett's came from Holland.
actually I stuffed that up completely! Perhaps I should have re-checked it before posting The site actually said one male Sumatran tarsier and two male spectral tarsiers. The site is just someone's hobby site I think so it may not be at all accurate. tarsier
Hah! Well, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Sumatran at some point, possibly a confiscated animal.
Just to go back to where the Australasian animals came from, the Wellington Zoo's Annual Reports show that they sent 3 Brushtailed Possums to Singapore in 2010/11, and then three Parma Wallabies in 2011/12.
3 Asiatic black bears arrived from a safari park in China in early February and are undergoing quarantine. Their new exhibit at Night Safari (viewed from the tram only i believed) should open in the 2nd half of this year. 3 Asiatic black bears inspected at Singapore zoo before exhibit - Xinhua | English.news.cn
Xiangjiang Safari Park in Guangzhou received 3 Javan langurs and 4 king penguins, in exchange for 3 Moon bears, 2 white lions and 4 giant flying squirrels. Night Safari receives three Asiatic bears from China - Channel NewsAsia
WRS don't even display Javan Langurs anywhere do they? And what do they want White Lions for? Aren't they phasing out their White Tigers because they serve no conservation purpose?
The Javan langurs are completely free-ranging at the Zoo, although they have been conditioned with food to hang around the Primate Kingdom area. I'm not so sure about phasing out of white tigers. WRS has never stated that before. It admits as much that the white tigers have no conservation value except to attract eyeballs and hopefully bring more awareness to the tigers' plight. I'm guessing the white lions will be part of Night Safari's expanded Equatorial Africa zone. WRS probably chose white lions to differentiate them from the existing Asiatic lions. Ultimately WRS' parks are populist establishments and white/albino anythings usually attract more interest from the regular zoo-goer.
The Javan langurs are great and new to Chinese zoos！ Thus Xiangjiang Safari Park now has eight leaf-eating monkey species, i.e. golden snub-nosed monkey, Guizhou snub-nosed monkey, black-shanked douc, white-headed langur, Francois's langur, silver langur, purple-faced langur, Javan langur, making it the zoo with most leaf-eating monkeys in China.
That's a great collection of colubines. The safari park itself looks pretty impressive, but its a pity they're still sticking to circus shows and dressing up apes.
Yes, I hate these. Both circus shows and dressing up apes are illegal in Chinese zoos, but maybe because Xiangjiang is a private zoo, they have not stoped the circus shows in the zoo.
