Several Tasmanian Devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) came to Prague yesterday. They will be on show in late March. I can't wait )))
They are still on the way, the picture provided by Zoo's director showed 4 crates being loaded on the plane. However, it is unclear if all animals are for Prague as director in an interview mentioned that other zoos are bound to get them as well.
On 7th December, meeting with residents of Troja district was held, where were they introduced to the future developments of Prague Zoo and its influence on their quality of life. The 4 developments were: • Tasmanian exhibit • Gorrila house • Arctic complex • Reworking the hoofstock exhibits in upper part of the zoo - new exhibits for Bactrian camels, Przewalski horses, comeback of rhinos,... No timetable was mentioned though.
Interesting news! Any further info like drawings or other planning documents or parts of presentations worth mentioning?
On the subject of developments having an influence on their quality of life, I wonder if there is any timetable yet for a replacement for the old Troja footbridge...... it collapsed into the Vltava not long after my June 2017 visit, and there seemed to be no sign of work starting to replace it when I visited in October this year granted there is a free ferry across the river at present, but I imagine it might have had some small impact on pedestrian footfall to the zoo!
I wasn't there, my info is from zoo's press release, which you can find here, there are visualizations of the Arctic complex (already known for some time) and new Przewalski's horse stable Construction of the new bridge began on 7th November.
During November, 1,0 Lesser yellow-headed vulture and 1,1 Tawny frogmouth arrived. Another 5 Earless monitors hatched, 1 Fishing cat was born, list of arrivals also showed 1 Polar Bear being born but that is deleted now so I assume it is just another unsuccessful breeding, but who knows.
Polar bear Berta had cubs born every year since Tom gained sexual maturity, but they never survived long. Now is Berta 16 years old and still waits for its first surviving offspring. Very sad situation. I dont believe the new polar area will be built soon enough for her and she will just be old. Another bear life wasted. I still remmember when she was just a little cub playing with her mom Bora in that small water pool in right enclosure, under name of Albert (keepers thought it was a male cub for a long time).
Last I checked they had 23 animals total at present, 16 of which have been bred by Prague (these 16 are also the only ones to have been bred by Prague). 11 of these 16 were hatched in the past year (including the five mentioned above).
They could pull a cub and rear it by hand. At least they will know if the problem is with the place or with the health of the cubs. By the way, anybody knows what is natural survival of polar bear cubs in the den? Maybe a silly question, because few polar bear dens were ever observed in the wild.
I have a quick question about the devil import, hopefully someone knows the answer. Will these devils be retired breeders like the ones currently being imported to the USA, or will they be the base of a breeding nucleus like the Copenhagen devils?
d I dont see why they feel the need to demolish the Kiang exhibit when they have plenty of unused space right next to it:
What you marked is not really unused though, there are ckearly visible off-show exhibits + place where manure and probably other trash is stored.
Yeah there is one off-show enclosure, but nothing very important or permanent. Its also nearly 5 acres, only a part of it is needed for a polar exhibit.
