seems gibbons will bully anyone smaller in their territory. but gibbons are much more agile and faster than orangutans, hence why they can co-habit with them. still, most zoos have special "safe zones" where the gibbons can go without the orangs getting there.
i remember reading about the patas monkeys. ironic that a guenon adapted to semi arid environments (and the "cheetah" of the primate world) would be such a good swimmer. do you know if they went overseas or did they saty in australia? also, you are not the first dubbo person i have heard refer to the siamang as a siamang "ape". not that it is techincally incorrect, just interested as to why everone up there calls them that. i usually tack "gibbon" on the end. since they are one and we don't call lar gibbons or moloch gibbons "lars" and "molochs" do we?
of siamangs and apes... i get a bit picky with common names and like everything uniform. some authorities regard siamangs, crested gibbons, hoolock gibbons and all other species as four seperate genus'. others lump them all in hylobates. sometimes names get too long though especially when you describe the subspecies in the common name eg; southern white-cheeked crested gibbon or kikuyu eastern black and white colobus monkey or kangaroo island western grey kangaroo arghhhhh!!! one thing i always do is refer to a monkey simply as whatever kind of monkey it is. thus a.... de brazza's monkey is a de brazza's guenon. a colobus is just a colobus (not a colobus monkey) a langur instead of leaf-monkey etc.. tricky though. no right or wrong. in any case we all know what a siamang is...
The Western plains zoo did indeed exhibit Hanuman Langurs on an island in fact they were the very first primate exhibited at the zoo, they had them listed as Entellus monkeys which is part of there latin name. Zoo_Boy if you look in your early issues of WPZ guides you should see them listed. I do have some photos of them in the early years.
prob for the best that they have been phased out. in fact, since neither they or purple-faced langurs are in australia anymore - and the melbourne pair of javan langurs have bred before and no zoos seem interested in getting more - and since dusky langurs are not as endangered as francois' langurs - i say all our zoos may as well just keep only the francois. though the dusky's do have pretty faces don't they?
Patas are good swimmers? Hmm.. that's new to me. Singapore Zoo has kept patas monkeys on an island for almost 15 years and they've never escaped before. The moat's not very wide (since the colobus that share the island have jumped out of it before), but there is hot wire about half a feet above the water surface encircling the moat. Monkeys that do swim use the dog paddle and except a few species like long-tailed macaques, most are unwilling to stick their faces underwater so the hot wire does help to deter them.
phasing-out primates.. the primate TAG suggests that there are too many primates in the region. something i would be inclined to agree with. so which species would you phase out? its a bit tricky because some species i would be inclined to suggest are well established in the region and others i am very fond of are not. in the end i think you want to hold onto a variety of very different primate species from each region of the world. and which species would you like to see added to the collection?
Monarto doesnt really have to room for any lemurs that xant tolerate the heat and dry very very well'
more gibbons ben!!!! we have 5 species currently in australia, with 3 of them definately staying as part of breeding programs. loris i love. melbournes female has dropped of the isis records so i believe now we only have males here. RT lemurs are not actually a rainforest species (like the ruffed's) and would be well suited to lanrge island colonies at an open range zoo, like Zoo_Boy said. another lemur species or subspecies (like red ruffed lemurs) would be great (or how about breeding more of those white fronted lemurs?) but more importantly for me would be to see the lemurs main predator - the fossa. san diego have them (of course they do!!) we will tell them that in addition to the water rats, they can have a pair of brush-tailed possums in exchange for the fossa....
Monarto Zoo does indeed have ring tailed lemurs, all boys, these are held behind the scenes in a holding facility, I fed them during my internship, at that time they had just arrived from a NZ Zoo and were quite shy and as always, they preferred grapes before any other food...and they refused to touch the boiled egg that was supposedly part of their diet!!
aw101 please note the information on lemurs here is 2 years old, the leumrs have been at MZP for a while
When any impractical dreamer like myself mutters aloud that Aussie zoos need jaguars, we are slapped on the wrist and told,"Tut!Tut! Those spaces are needed for snow leopards!" My question is; how come nobody says that about gibbons? Our zoos have a few different species. How come nobody says," Get rid of those Siamangs or those White-cheekeds! We need those spaces for Javans!" (Not that I want them to.)
Probably because we are only trying to manage three species of gibbons in the region (with an additional two species being phased out - eeek ), and yet we hold eight species of large cats, with only two of these having enough animals for viable populations. It doesn't take much working out really, does it?
on the javans ara, i actually think we should consider giving up and exporting the animals if we don't see momentum in the next 5 years or so. its an international program and australia is struggling to acquire new animals. currently we don't even have two unrelated pairs! i believe howlett's will only give us animals if indonesia gives them animals and its all looking like a bit of a stalemate. thus perth have been forced to stop breeding. no idea whats the deal with the US... its a shame, but if nothing happens soon we may as well send our gibbon to europe and just focus on siamang and white-cheeks...
That would be unfortunate, because Javans are the most endangered in the world, aren't they? While we're on the subject, let me say that I'm not impressed with the way Taronga's Javan gibbons are kept. The enclosure (a large cage) is fine, but there is little for the gibbons to swing on apart from the wire roof, which is not desirable. It needs a "lace work" of horizontal branches, not just a few (vertical) palm trees.
i don't like keeping gibbons, particularly, in "mesh" exhibits. since they do not destroy live trees and can't swim i much prefer (and i'm sure they do to) the island type exhibit. yes, its a shame about issues maintaining javans. tarongas animals haven't bred yet, anyone know if this is because of fertility issues or that the animals haven't bonded properly/shown interest in eachother? if the latter is true then maybe the female can be traded for another unrelated one with an OS zoo? because ideally taronga and perth would have unrelated pairs so their respective offspring could have been paired up and sent to other zoos in the region.
ARA, last time i went to taronga the gibbons at taronga had plenty of branches, ropes and other materials to move around on.
