Port Lympne Wild Animal Park Port Lympne Wild Animal Park giving up Asian breeding program ?

has anyone got any information about Port Lympne Wild Animal Park giving up it's Asian breeding program? I can only find superficial snippets. 3 African cows (i dont know which) were moved from Howletts and the bull Kruger, from Knowsley was moved there to breed with them. Any ideas on how this would affect the Howletts herd?

 

Port Lympne decided to giv up keeping Asian elephants last spring, when the two younger females and the female calf were sent to Antwerp, and the older cows and the bull Luka to somewhere in Spain. The decision was made because they had repeated failures with breeding, with several stillbirths and rejected calves. The final straw was the loss of the two year old male calf 'Sittang' to the elephant virus. He was their first successful calf to be reared after about eight failed births.

Three African cows from Howletts were relocated there and joined, as you say, by the unrelated bull 'Kruger', from Knowlsey SP. Space at Howletts is limited so spitting the African herd in this way is probably beneficial for them anyway.

My only critisism of this is that they didn't take the chance to upgrade the Port Lympne accomodation, particularly the barns, before moving in new elephants.

 

Abit late!
But the 3 females from Howletts are: Shara, Lara and her daughter Issa.


Any news on breeding with the new herd then?

 

As awful as it was, the loss of Sittang has at least meant that all the original Port Lympne cows, plus a few that joined later on, are together again in the much warmer home at Terra Natura. The original bulls, Assam died at Port Lympne a few years ago during an operation on his tooth, and Bindu has
been moved to Cologne zoo, which at least has spacious indoor facilities.
The surviving rotterdam group were the ones Port Lympne sent to Antwerp.

If you want to keep track of captive asian elephants and see the port lympne animals in their new facilities, go to www.asianelephant.net

 

Both me and paradoxurus have uploaded photos of the elephants at Terra Natura, so I assume the port lympne animals are on there.

Just realised there is also a Terra Natura gallery on this site...

 

Any new developments for 2008 expected at either Port Lympne or Howletts in Bekesbourne? New exhibits, new species?

 

I'm planning to visit as/when the weather improves, so will find out. I don't know of any major constructions happening this year though.

 

Grant, when you do visit could you ask them if they intend to join the UK breeding program on Indian rhinos since now there are three UK zoos holding them and also do they plan to "bring in" some new African elephants to add to the Port Lypmne herd

 

... I heard a rumour a few years back that they wanted to get Javan Rhinos! They always seem to want to get species other zoos haven't got. But I guess realistically Indian rhino is more likely....

 

Is this just a zoobeat rumour or are Port Lymne seriously moving onto Indian rhino next?

 

The keepers at Port Lypmne told me in 1987 they did want to get Javan rhinos if they could

 

I would like to know if they do intead to keep the species, it would be interesting if there were four UK zoos working with this rhino

 

They like so many zoos around the world have absolutely no chance of ever getting Javan rhino, it simply would not happen!
If they are to go into Indian rhino the former Sumatran rhino would be an ideal house with its forested paddocks.
Speaking of Sumatrans, who would have thought 20 years ago we would see them on these shores, or come to mention outside of Indonesia, so i take it back about the Javans (not!)

 

If any zoo gets Javans, it should be San Diego WAP, as they have done the best breeding with the indian rhinos... I'm not to sure that the climate is right for them though...

 

if there was any chance of Javans coming into captivity, i think Singapore would be the ideal holding zoo for them, with climate and finance playing major roles.

 

It is just a zoobeat rumour... Port Lympne have talked about Indian Rhino more than once in the past though, (as well as Javan...)but nothing has happened so far. I rather doubt that it will- unless I hear something definite...

My personal opinion is that Javan, if they could get them in the first place, would not be as difficult to keep as Sumatrans, as they are very similar to Indians- remember they are the 'Lesser' so a relatively similar species and probably no harder to keep in captivity. However whether it will ever happen I've no idea, but the Aspinall parks do like to claim 'firsts'.

As Howletts/PL have poor relations with ZSL, any Indian rhinos would no doubt be sourced from elsewhere (e.g. San Diego?)

 

If port Lympne had Indian rhino, the old Sumatran enclosure would be okay but the House would have to be enlarged considerably or another built..

Don't totally discount the idea of Javan's though- Aspinall Parks can come up with amazing surprises sometimes..

 

I think the roof maybe to low for Indians

 

I would love to see some javan rhinos in captivity, but i feel the only way we would see this is if the population crashed to try and ensure there survial or if we could give them and the rainforest enough protection to see there numbers rise to a couple of hundred, but the latter would take a 100 years or more with there currenty breeding rate!

Plus they just had a small baby boom in the last couple of years and were only talking of 4-6 new rhinos!

I would love to see this species but i would prefer countless generations after me enjoy them they us interfearring with the small population they have

 

no matter how different we think it might be if they imported some Javan rhino, from the point of view of a country allowing this animal to be caught and flown to England, P.L. kind of blew it with the Sumatrans. It was a costly exercise and although the failiure of the program may have been beyond their control, I don't think they will act as pioneers for another large mammal in this way.
I've often wondered why they don't keep greater one-horned, although the sumatran rhino house is now the best malayan tapir facility in the UK and slightly too small for any pachyderm bigger than a sumatran rhino, but there is plenty of paddock space lower down the site, or what would be amazing is a rhino-proof fence round the Howletts asian deer park.