Santiago Zoo Santiago Zoo news

Santiago Zoo announced this week that 5 white tiger where born to his white tiger pair!

The press is giving a big cover of this "great" news! Several TV channels are covering it in South america.

Telling about the very rare "albino" tigers, and about "conservation" of White Tigers.

Interesting that some zoos still dont have a vision of what is conservation breeding!

 

I had already written this morning to two newspapers who covered the story pointing out the error of the 'rare and endangered'. If all informed people did the same then we might just get the message through.

 

Searching news I found out that Santiago Zoo breed them every year or every 2 years, they keep a male and 2 females. There need to be a good market for sell all this offsprings!

 

I may be as surprised as you all, I just take a different view. The Santiago Zoo is a municipal zoo which has some conservation breeding programmes, notably vicuna and pudu. The director is well known in FA and works closely with Argentinian conservation people + Zoologico de Buenos Aires. However, both institutions are rather cash-strapped and by default the white tiger story has to bring in the punters.

If all zoo and environment circles would have the same type of access and interest from the media, it would be a totally different picture. However, in Chili and Argentina alot of people are working in conservation and environment despite a lack of resources and co-funding from national government.

It is more or less cowboy nation and every man to himself in terms of environment. Given even a fraction of the resources going around a major western zoo, both the Santiago Zoo and Zoologico de Buenos Aires could be paragons of conservation.

I say we lend Dr. M. Fabry a helping hand ...
(Mind I am not justifying, just painting the picture of what it should be)

 

Most Zoos in South America are municipal or even run by the state, I dont know any national zoo in South America and a very few are private zoos! The lacking of funding is a bigg problemm, Zoos build in the 1950's without any new developments, tigers, lions, bears in enclosures with no more that 50 sqm, chimps in small cages, etc, etc. Zoos like Sao Paulo even dont have space for a "flea" in is collection due the lack of money for build new enclosures!

I dont have problems with Zoos displaying White Tigers and if the Zoos sell the offsprings, they need to made money for cover its expenses, but the the things need to go in a correct way, all people that visit Santiago, Buenos aires, Sao Paulo, etc think that this White Tigers are the biggest "rarity" shown at the Zoos due of incorrect informations given by this Zoos ! Or even they dont know the true?!

Sao Paulo also have intention to breed his White tigers as soon as they get a "non related" to his couple of White Tigers!

Be sure there will be a waiting list of Brazilian Zoos that whant this offsprings!

 

eduardo,

I agree it is not good for educating the general public on conservation or endangered species to even display "white" mutations. It serves no purpose. Just being cash-strapped and meagerly supported by Municipality and State, this type of project becomes the money burner.

However, give Santiago - National Zoo say US$1,0 mio and the zoo could have a complete make-over to be completely geared towards conservation breeding of local endangered species. This would also benefit the national programmes for the local endangered taxa.

The Santiago - National Zoo is now in an impossible corner of the city next to Universita Catolica ... There is a good park at the other end of town that would be far better suited to create a true National Zoo. And I know that in a city like Santiago de Chile many locals would simply visit on an average Sunday to relax ...

K.B.

 

Article about the new Red Panda enclosure :
http://www.zoosprint.org/ZooPrintMagazine/2016/April/23-25.pdf

 

Lion incident :
Zookeepers shoot man with tranquiliser while trying to save him from lions | World news | The Guardian

 

Such terrible news. A real shame.

 

Here is a brief review of Santiago zoo which i visited recently. The official name is Zoologico Nacional de Chile. It was founded in 1925. The zoo is located on cerro San Cristobal. You reach the zoo by a cable car that goes up the hill.On clear days the views can be quite nice. The zoo is small, but has many native species, since it is the national zoo of Chile. Some parts are very outdated.
After leaving tha cable car, the first enclousures are ugly cages for wolves, white tiger and pumas. After is a nice brand new exhibit for 2 red pandas. The enclousure where the lion tragedy occured (see above) has been rebuilt,now it has overhead netting and the moat has been repaced by large glass panels. New lions have not yet arrived.
There is a pool for black necked and coscoroba swans. There is a varied primate collection in adequate cages, lar gibbon,2 species of spider monkeys, brown capuchins, patas monkeys, black and white ruffled lemurs and common marmosets. Hamadryas baboons and chimpanzees have large updated enclousures. Various small mammal exhibits which are reasonable in size hold meerkats, african porcupines, an ocelot, and very nice group of active lesser grisons. There are llamas, guanacos and vicuna, as well as bactrian camels. This zoo has two breeding groups of pudu, which are native to Chile. One is with rhea, also native to Chile. There was a single bongo, which is very unusual in South America. Tango the polar bear has died, and only a brown bear lived in a adequate but small exhibit. 2 african elephants live in a tiny space, quite bad. Also 3 reticulated giraffes also have a very small pen.
The bird collection in Santiago zoo is interesting. Many chilean species such as humboldt penguins, chilean flamingos, upland geese, various parrots and conures native to Chile. A large aviary holds chilean blue eagle and andean condors. There is large free flight aviary with more chilean species and some exotics like peafowl and egyptian ibis.
There is a small reptile house with iguanas and a python, among others. A breeding group of yellow footed tortoise where there.What is notable at Santiago zoo is the part for amphibians. There is an entire section for them, which holds the endangered chilean water toad and a notable area for the small endangered darwin´s frog. Many thanks to the San Antonio zoo for assistance in breeding projects and exhibits for amphibians at Santiago zoo.
There is a small aquarium in one of Santiago´s parks, but not really notable. However, the National Natural History Museum in Quinta Normal park has some very interesting exhibits and collections and should be visited.

 

Thank you very much for this review carlos55, esp. because so little information about South American zoos is placed on ZooChat ! Also the photos you placed in the Santiago Zoo Gallery are very intresting !

 

I can still hit myself for not having visited the zoo when I was in Santiago a decade or so back (unfortunately with a booked travel party with no interest in zoo visits). This despite the fact that I KNEW the zoo was then already leading and very active within ALPZA!!!

 

Yes, Santiago zoo has an amazing view on Cerro San Cristobal and does really great work with native chilean species. If only the elephants, giraffes and white tigers were moved. They really do not belong there. The chimps can stay, because the exhibit is OK. Despite the lion killing scandal there is no plan to close the Santiago zoo similar to what is happening with the Buenos Aires zoo. Perhaps also because Chile is now more stable politically than Argentina-

 

santiago zoo also recieves fauna hurt in forest fires Autoridades dan a conocer trabajo conjunto en el rescate de fauna silvestre ante los incendios forestales | Minagrii

 

more on rescued fauna from forest fires,again a kodkod
[COMPARTE] Hoy la PDI nos entregó una... - Zoológico Nacional de Chile | Facebook

 

I visited Santiago zoo on Palm Sunday. Polar bear Tango (or was it Taco) died 3 years ago. His former enclousure has been readapted for the two benal tigers, one white and normal colored. The enclousure covers part of the hill, and the bottom part has a glass front. I would have liked andean bears here, but the enclousure is really quite nice with natural vegation repacing the ugly concrete pen where the polar bear lived. The former tiger enclousure now holds a pair of jaguar that came from the Berlin Tierpark. Another new arrival is a female bongo that will be introduced to the male bongo.
Among the animals that have bred recently are darwin´s rhea, chilean flamingos, humboldt´s ´penguins, lar gibbon, brown capuchin, hamadryas baboon, common marmoset, ring tail lemur,chilean pudu,guanaco, styke´s red panda and the darwin´s frog. The juvenile reticulated giraffe has already been moved to another collection.
According to the information the on the zoo map the Zoologico Nacional will continue to build new exhibits in the future. It is nice to see that the chilean government continues to support its national zoo in contrast to how in Argentina the Buenos Aires zoo languishes in uncertainty because of political turmoil.
New photos on the gallery of course.

 

video on rescued kolokolo kitten recieved at santiago zoo

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1611747745515994

 

Interesting how much the kolokolo and kodkod rescued cubs in CHilean zoos look like little pumas. I really look forward to see these lovely felines go on exhibit in the future.