Prague Zoo Praha Prague Zoo News 2013

Time for a new thread and time for big news, the Prague zoo has received a male Javan leopard from Tierpark Berlin.
The zoo is sourcing a female for the male "Arjuna" from Asia.

Prague zoo has Javan leopard | Prague Monitor

 

Fantastic news, we could do with a few more of these cats in Europe.

 

Some mammal-news from Praha :
Panay Cloud rats 2 females recieved from Pilsen
Rodriguez Flying Fox 3.5 recieved from Olomouc
1 Balabak chevrotain bred
0.2 Black lemurs bred

 

11 Brown roofed turtles hatched at Prague zoo :
May 25, 2013
Prague Zoo is the First to Hatch Rare Turtles

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Eleven tiny Brown Roofed Turtles hatched at the Czech Republic's Prague Zoo this month, the first of the species to hatch in any zoo in the world.

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Photo Credit: Tomáš Adamec, Zoo Praha

Brown Roofed Turtles are native to South Asia, including Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. They are listed as Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Many Turtle species in this region of the world are in decline. They are often collected illegally for the pet trade and for use in traditional Asian medicine. The Turtles' shells are ground up, mixed with herbs, and marketed as remedies for a wide variety of ailments, but there is scant evidence that these potions are effective.
Source : Zooborns

 

The baby Sumatran Orangutan, who was born earlier in the year has been named "Diri"

 

The zoo is currently preparing in case they have to evacuate as there is a threat of floods although they hope it won't be necessary.

 

From their facebook page (and with a dodgy translation):

I'm thinking that it means that animals which can be relatively safely and easily moved, without use of tranquilisers or risk to people's safety are being moved first (e.g. tortoises, tapirs) as well as the gorillas.

Does anyone have any further updates on the situation in Prague?

 

Another facebook update (and dodgy translation):

So no animal deaths (yet) although the lower part of the zoo is very flooded (see facebook photo here: https://www.facebook.com/zoopraha). I'm not sure which animals are still in the lower zoo, presumably the sea lions and Richard (male gorilla) at least. Can any Czech members say if any other animals are liekly still down there? Is the Cat Pavillion relatively safe from flooding or has that too been evacuated? Where do they move everything too?

And does anyone know what "sloninci" means?

 

What is still in the lower part of the too are gorillas (in their flood-tower), sea lions, part of the birds. The evacuation of birds is still continuing, the zoo waits till it is clear that they have to move them from that and that place, because many of them have eggs, so they wait with such cases till the last moment.

Sloninec means the old elephant house. The cat pavilion is empty. The animals are moved into the upper part of the zoo, into other houses, quarantine and so on, also other zoos offered their empty space. More then 100 employees were sleeping over this night at the zoo (even through I guess none were sleeping). The zoo has a detailed evacuation plan for each of its animals, that makes things run efficiently.

 

Thanks for the update Jana, that's great news. The gorilla flood tower sounds like an awesome idea. Fingers crossed the water levels don't rise any more.

 

Another facebook update (again not perfectly translated):

There is also a large number of photos of the evacuation, although they aren't captioned, so its not necessarily clear what species are being moved. It certainly looks like they have moved the sea lions now, so only the female gorillas are left in the lower part of the zoo.

 

Gorillas to be removed from Prague Zoo

The gorillas were moved to an upper room yesterday, a place built since the last flood, and constructed especially for an occasion such as this. The lady gorillas had done drills over the past years, to practice getting up to the room, and were all okay with it and went willingly. Richard, the Silverback, however, never was willing to go upstairs to the room, and did not go this time either. He had to be knocked down and carried. Video here of that process. http://video.idnes.cz/?idvideo=V130603_184346_tv-zpravy_krr

At this point Richard is not happy up there, is what I am hearing.
My understanding is that flooding of the downstairs has been so bad, that the current placement is not a long term solution, and all the gorillas will be moved to a completely different zoo (Dvor Zoo?) as soon as it is safe. I am following a Czech group discussing all this, and my Czech is not so great quite yet, so I may have some of the details a little bit off.

I am not able to find the Facebook page alluded to above, the one which was supposed to be set up for donations. Can anyone else find it? This is all so sad.

 

I think that there will be major clean-up and restoration works needed once water levels recede, and quite possible some rather major building work. The gorillas are going to be sent to Dvur Kralove, which is a zoo not too far away. I suspect a number of other species may have to be sent away for some time too, depending on the extent of damage to their exhibit and the availability of other on-site housing.

I don't know if there is a facebook page for donations as such, but the newly set-up group for volunteers is this group here I think: https://www.facebook.com/groups/588867347811786/

 

I have tried to download the picture frame and paste it into this thread. Up till now to no avail.

The link is: http://www.forum.zoofreunde.net/showthread.php?tid=8094&pid=230317#pid230317

Look for message id #167. Even though it is in German you will see a picture frame inside detailing the following data.

*****

FLOOD IN PRAGUE ZOO

PLEASE HELP


GORILLA HOUSE

ZOO PRAHA POVODEN 2013
Komercni Banka
IBAN CZ330 100 000 000 000 307 0207
BIC (SWIFT CODE) KOMBCZPPXXX

*****

As it is in a good cause I do hope regular forumsters on this forum will do their bit to save this wonderful zoo and its disaster zone.



Just to know how bad it really is, take a look at the BBC reporting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22752544

 

Another update from the zoo's facebook page:

And I agree KB, it really is a disaster zone, and will need a massive amount of work and money to restore it. Hopefully the damage is not as bad as it was in 2002 - I have attached a photo that shows the damage caused by that year's flood. I hope the water doesn't get that high again.

 

Good news - the zoo has said on facebook that they will re-open tomorrow, although only the upper zoo will be open. The weather looks set to improve, and I guess this means that the water should start to recede now.

 

Can anyone explain what the gorilla flood tower is?

 

A very tall addition to the indoor gorilla area that the gorillas are trained to escape to allow them to keep above water level in case of flooding. It has access at the top to allow evacuation if needed.

 

All so sad . I visted a couple of weeks ago , such a lovely zoo . Many of the birds in the lower grounds were showing breeding behaviour .

 

The zoo started to distribute the rescued animals elsewhere, more then 700´ve left/are leaving to other Czech zoos, most of them offered help and free space and are picking the animals themselves at Prague. Dvur accepted spider monkeys, guerezas, tigers, clouded leopards, lowland tapirs, many birds and so on.

Two senegal lapwings died and some domestic rabbits were overlooked burrowed too deep. One injured flamingo died.