Orana Wildlife Park Orana Wildlife Park News 2020

Orana Wildlife Park currently has no tigers. Dumai, their last Sumatran tiger was put to sleep yesterday at the age of 16 due to renal failure.
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Orana Wildlife Park has received two Lace Monitors from Auckland Zoo. The pair are currently 9-months-old and are on-display in the former Shingleback Lizard enclosure. According to the article Orana hasn't held the species in 15 years.
Christchurch wildlife park welcomes two Australian lace monitors, relations of Komodo dragons

 

How many does Auckland have? I didn't even know they were breeding them.

 

Back in Feb 2017, they had 3 males on display, Bruce, Ned and Alf; who were mentioned in this Youtube Video:



They bred 5 hatchlings back in July 2018. Their parents were ‘Ned’ and ‘Darla’.

Meet our new lace monitor hatchlings | Auckland Zoo News

 

How many lions do Orana currently have?

 

Orana have 6.5 lions in two prides:

1.0 Ra (24/09/2002) Toby x Priscilla
0.1 Leah (13/01/2004) Toby x Priscilla
0.1 Meeka (13/01/2004) Toby x Priscilla
1.0 Mambila (04/01/2011) Malik x Mishka

1.0 Kahn (31/12/2002) Toby x Kiara
1.0 Sakura (31/12/2002) Toby x Kiara
0.1 Mishka (31/12/2002) Toby x Kiara
0.1 Tua (16/06/2009) Malik x Mishka
0.1 Tama (16/06/2009) Malik x Mishka
1.0 Kairangi (05/07/2009) Malik x Kiara
1.0 Tawhiri (05/07/2009) Malik x Kiara

All of the males are castrated, so with the lionesses in Pride One post reproductive, this pride will eventually die out. There’s around two years to breed with Tua and Tama from Pride Two, otherwise they will soon be in the same situation.

 

Wonderful news. Orana Wildlife Park has announced that twelve Orange-fronted Kakarikis bred at the zoo have now been released into the wild. From the zoo's Facebook page:

Orana Wildlife Park

Source: Orana Wildlife Park's Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=610878239504258

 

A few bits and pieces from a recent Facebook post. One of the zoo's female Addax gave birth to a calf four weeks ago. Orana is the only zoo to hold the species in New Zealand. They also welcomed 12 Blue Duck (Whio) ducklings for release this season. From the zoo's Facebook page:

Orana Wildlife Park

 

Orana Wildlife Park will reopen on Thursday. From the zoo’s Facebook page:

Orana Wildlife Park

 

Orana Wildlife Park has recently received seventeen Maud Island Frogs from the University of Otago. According to the article, this is the first time Orana has ever housed a native frog species. The frogs will be on-display in a new frog habitat along with a few exotic amphibians which will be arriving at a later date.

Full story: Native frogs land at Orana Wildlife Park

 

Orana actually welcomed two Addax calves. They were later both sexed as females, and named Nailah and Hara.
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Orana Wildlife Park has announced the birth of a third Addax calf. The calf was born yesterday afternoon. This is the zoo's fifth calf since the group arrived from Australia. From their Facebook page:

Orana Wildlife Park

 

It will be interesting to see once they reach a certain size herd number if other NZ zoos will obtain them?

 

I wonder if Orana is still planning to get Sumatran orangutans or instead have Borneans to support Auckland Zoo.

 

I could see them going into Bornean orangutan also. They planned to acquire Sumatran orangutan three years ago; but decided to loan Auckland’s around the time that the Bornean orangutan was conservation status was updated to critically endangered - and Auckland decided to go back into them. This could be interpreted as their way of stalling making the decision until they had had time to observe which way other zoos in the region would go.

The biggest clue is that they haven’t mentioned acquiring Sumatran orangutan since this time either (something they previously spoke of frequently).

 

According to this recent Facebook post, Orana Wildlife Park is down to eight lions across two prides. From the exotic mammals of New Zealand thread, the zoo only had 5.4 lions as of January 2020 so it has been a gradual decline in numbers.
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That’s interesting. The Facebook page says the lions are aged 8-16, so from this we can work out that the youngest (Mambila) - who is actually aged 9.5 years, is still alive; and that the eldest (Ra) - who would have turned 18 next month, is deceased. I’d hazard a guess the other two deceased lions (to make the decrease from eleven to eight) are two of the three lions born December 2002.

It looks likely that they’re repeat the same formula as last time - let the non breeding prides die out; and then import new founders.

 

I was curious to hear directly from the zoo regarding what their current plans were for orangutans returning to the zoo. They have no plans for them at this stage. This was the response I received:

 

Well that’s disappointing. I made the comment that the zoo haven’t mentioned obtaining Sumatran orangutan for over three years, which is about the time we all heard that they were planning to obtain a breeding troop of Western lowland gorilla. I’d say it’s likely orangutan were on the cards all the time they had a small bachelor troop of gorillas in a single exhibit; but that they’ve now been canned in favour of holding a breeding troop.

Whether this breeding troop will be held alongside a bachelor troop (in a seperate exhibit); or whether the bachelor troop will make their long predicted export to Sydney Zoo is anyone’s guess. Either way, Taronga Zoo has benefited from having a second smaller exhibit over the years - to house Haoko and Shabani prior to their export to Japan; to house Kibale and Kimya, while Kibabu’s troop were still at the zoo etc. So it’s not hard to imagine this could be Orana’s thinking.

 

Or they don't have the funds to import and care for a group of orangutan this year.