Javan gibbons Nakula (male, apparently planned to be sent to Java but never happened) and Cahaya (female) have left for an institution in the UK (supposedly Howlettes).
Baby gibbon, Owa who was born in the middle of last year and taken for hand-raising since mum wasn't producing enough milk has returned to living with his family. Full article here - Baby gibbon hand-raised at Perth Zoo back home | The New Daily
The cassowaries and tree kangaroos moved into a new home this week. A new tree kangaroo will arrive from Currumbin by the end of the month as well. Full article here - Perth Zoo launches Goodfellows tree kangaroo breeding program in refurbished rainforest enclosure - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Perth Zoo's only Cheetah Kifani has been put to sleep. Zoo saddened by the Passing of ‘Kifani’ the Cheetah. | Perth Zoo
Five meerkats born: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/26914581/baby-meerkats-a-surprise-for-perth-zoo/
1.0 white cheeked gibbon born: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/27576206/thumbs-up-for-birth-of-rare-gibbon/
The tree kangaroo move has been delayed due to quarantine permits: Red tape blocking rare tree kangaroo breeding program - ABC Gold & Tweed Coasts - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Article about the conservation projects at the zoo : Perth Zoo- world leaders in conservation work - ABC WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
Architects enter orangutan enclosure at Perth Zoo into a major international housing http://news.domain.com.au/domain/re...ernational-housing-award-20150514-gh1fcc.html A Perth architectural firm that put years of applied thinking into making stimulating housing for the orangutans at Perth Zoo has entered their collection of lyrical and elevated "nests" into a major international housing award. "We've put it into the housing category," Iredale Pedersen Hook director Adrian Iredale says. In entering the orangutan exhibit into Britain's 2015 AR (The Architectural Review) Houses Awards, which closes this week and which garners worldwide exposure for the winners, Iredale says: "we could see nothing in the entry conditions that stated that they needed to be houses for humans. So we think what we're doing is completely legitimate!" Occupied by a colony of 29 Sumatran orangutans, the high-rise platforms that fulfil the brief in providing privacy, shade, stimulating opportunities for climbing and for putting the individual occupants within sight of each other - and of the walk-through primates who are paying visitors - are, he says, "more than stylised trees. They move. They sway. They are not passive". The orangutans tend to be solitary tree dwellers who spend their time nest-building, foraging for food, playing and interacting with their individual exhibit spaces. The primates, he says, tend to "personalise their nests by dragging sacking and nesting material up to the platforms". The high-rise development has also proven beneficial in enhancing the health of one of the old males who has developed diabetes and was showing signs of lassitude. "In the new exhibit, he's become much more active". Iredale says Iredale Pedersen Hook has been involved in developing various aspects of the popular orang-utan exhibit since 1999. Most of its inhabitants have been bred in captivity and had become conditioned to being ground-dwellers. "Part of our role was to bring them back into being tree dwellers by providing them with a number of different opportunities for brachiation [moving across forest territory by swinging arm over arm], and to sleep up on elevated platforms." Using recycled concrete electricity poles as the piles for the attached platforms; recycled marine ropes from navy and merchant shipping as an aerial circulatory route, and recycled jarrah for the wing-like shading devices, provides ways of moving and living that are similar to what the orangs would find in a natural Sumatran rainforest habitat. "Other structures, such as drinking fountains, puzzle boxes with food inside, and dipping tubes into which jam has been placed that allow them to poke around with sticks, is also about emulating how orangs live in the wild." When first approached to do the multi-unit high-rises, there were some suggestions of putting natural trees into the exhibit. The architects argued that real trees would very quickly be stripped. (One mature ficus tree is used as "a training tree" for orangs about to be released into the Bukit Tigapuluh ecosystem in Sumatra). "The zoo discussed a naturalistic approach", Iredale says. "But we argued for a clearly constructed landscape that had a certain honesty of material expression to it." Judging for the award will take place over the next month and the winner will be announced by mid year. Iredale says designing housing for other species is very important. "It's even a critical architectural topic because for us humans, it contains a message about species preservation." But does his practise seriously expect to win? "Perhaps it is a bit tongue in cheek", he admits. "So maybe we might win the larrikin award?" There is also a nice gallery of photos showing the exhibit linked to the article - http://news.domain.com.au/photogall...0150514-3vz0o.html?aggregate=&selectedImage=0
Western swamp tortoises have been released in the Moore River: Bid to boost numbers - Community Newspaper Group
I prefer calling them turtles as well, but Perth Zoo itself actually calls them tortoises (as well as many other sources): Western Swamp Tortoise | Perth Zoo
