Hello all. I'm doing some research into zoos with open range as well as city premises. Can anyone supply information about the use of the open range facilities to agist temporarily their larger animals, away from the more confined enclosures? Do zoos move their animals back and forth between the smaller and larger enclosures on a kind of rotation basis? Thanks for your help.
A major gripe I had with Taronga when Western Plains opened at Dubbo (way back when) was that they shipped just about everything (by way of ungulates) out to Dubbo, and didn't keep even a representative few. From having ridiculously large herds of elands, bison, wapiti etc.they suddenly had none. Melbourne and Adelaide were much more sensible. While they sent most of their ungulates to their country facilities (Werribee and Monarto) they nevertheless kept some for display at their city zoos. You could still see, for example, a few bison at Melbourne and Adelaide zoos even though most had been sent to the country. No such luck at Sydney, of course. It was like a fire sale; "Everything Must Go!"
but even putting space restrictions aside, taronga is very unsuitable topographically for most large ungulates...and i can imagine all that hoofstock must have one taken up large amounts of land that are now very valuable to the zoo in its mission expanding into 21st century immersion style exhibits. interestingly taronga now has far more ungulates than melbourne has. the african buffalo and bison left for werribee a year or so ago leaving them with just a couple of giraffes, zebras, peccaries a lone pygmy hippo and an off-display blind tapir.. taronga have all the above species PLUS chital, tahr, bongo, barbary sheep and brazilian tapirs (do they still have oryx as well?).... comparitively, thats not at all that bad in my opinion...
the oryx moved out to Dubbo a while back but i do agree that Taronga has managed to retain quite a few ungulates in the city. as far as rotation across the two zoos i dont think it happens much. by that i mean that once the animals have been moved from one zoo to the other once they generally remain at the new zoo. look at zaraffa the giraffe. she was moved to Taronga as a baby becuase of problems she cause in the herd and now she is set to stay at Taronga for the long term.
adelaide i believe rotate giraffe, as there open range facility is only an hour away , were as dubbo is 6 and over the great dividing range
Thanks all. I didn't think it was done that much in Australia. I've emailed San Diego to see if they rotate between the Zoo and the WAP. I've also tried emailing London/Whipsnade, having had to use the Comments function on their website as I've totally failed to find an email address (other than ones for donating money) on their website or in the International Zoo Yearbook. If anyone could give me an email addy for their curatorial section, I'd be grateful. Cheers.
