Orana has published a special birthday edition newsletter for their 40th year in operation on their website. Some interesting info and photos in it from the zoo's history. Here is a quote from the "looking forward" section of the document about a future development: I found some more information about the New Zealand Native Centre on the "coming soon" page of Orana's website. No idea how long this has been up on their website for, but I thought it would be worth sharing on here.
Cheetah Import Orana Wildlife Park have received two new cheetah 02/11/2017, as part of a joint import of six cats from Cango Wildlife Ranch, alongside Auckland Zoo and Monarto Zoo, who each received two cheetah: Auckland Zoo brings two cheetahs from South Africa for $40,000
The three orangutans from Auckland Zoo arrived at Orana Park this morning: Auckland Zoo orangutans arrive for stay in Chch Three orangutans from Auckland Zoo have finally arrived at their new home in Christchurch. Thick fog delayed their arrival at Orana Wildlife Park yesterday morning, but they were able to make it to Christchurch in the early hours today. The orangutans, 36-year-old Charlie, 29-year-old Melur and 38-year-old Wanita will stay in Christchurch for two years while a new precinct for the animals is built at Auckland Zoo. These are the only orangutans in the country, and this is the first time orangutans have ever resided in the South Island. Auckland Zoo's primate team leader Amy Robbins, who has worked with the trio for 17 years, will spend a week in Christchurch helping the orangutans to settle in, and an Auckland Zoo staff member will work alongside Orana Wildlife Park staff for the two year period. Orana's chief executive Lynn Anderson said the animals were tired after their journey but had settled in well. The orangutans would be on display from today, but would be kept in the inside day room until next week.
There's a video on the link below as well, although it is kind of embarrassing to watch with the reporter throwing out "I'm smart" words which make him sound like an idiot because they make little sense ("apricot anthropoids", "prehensile primates", etc). It's painful enough just reading them in the article without hearing someone actually saying them out loud. Orangutans settle in at Christchurch's Orana Wildlife Park Zookeepers expected the South Island's first orangutans to feel tired and cautious on their arrival in an unknown land. Instead, the long-armed tree-dwellers made themselves at home – including with some orangutango. The Great Ape Centre at Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch has welcomed three orangutans – Charlie, 37, and two females Melur, 27, and Wanita, 39. "Charlie there and his favourite female, Melur, reconnected with some very special cuddles," Orana Park boss Lynn Anderson said. The three apricot anthropoids will stay in Christchurch for two years while their Auckland Zoo home gets an upgrade. Amy Robbins has been with the apes at Auckland Zoo for the past 17 years and travelled south to ease the transition to their new home. Robbins explained some of the psychology of being a primate master. "You've got to be very honest when you're working with orangutans, they're not a very social gregarious species and they're not very vocal so they rely on body language and facial gestures. "If you break it down this is all psychology 101, everything we do is some form of training." She said the orangutans, the most intelligent of the great ape species, were highly-adapted to body language communication. "They've come to associate over time what different words mean and different cues and signals. It doesn't take long to train so we could speak in any language we like." She said the orangutans tended not to like large men. "Really tall bald men who are big and kind of staunch they don't tend to like for some reason. That's not across the board, but it does happen quite a lot. A lot of the time big men with beards as well," she said. Charlie, the boss, liked peace and routine and did not like it when the girls fought, she said. Melur, Charlie's favourite, was the "fun one", Robbins said, while Wanita was the sensitive one, the voluntary third wheel. Fataki, the gorilla next door. watched on cautiously. "Our gorillas have never seen orangutans before and our orangutans have never seen gorillas before," Robbins explained. The prehensile primates will be allowed into the open on Monday, when the public can see them. Anderson had advice for consumers if they wanted to help orangutans and gorillas. "When you're going to the supermarket you can help orangutans by choosing products that have got certified sustainable palm oil. "That means rainforests haven't been cut down to make the palm oil for that product." She said recycling your old mobile phone, which can be done at Orana Park, helps stymie mining for coltan, a mineral in cellphones mined in areas of Africa where gorillas live.
I'm more annoyed by the media's inability to correctly report the orangutans ages. Charlie is 36 (not 37); Melur is 29 (not 27) and Wanita is 38 (not 39). It's not rocket science.
