San Diego Zoo San Diego Zoo News 2021

On December 4th a black duiker was born and after the mother failed to care for her, she received bottle feeding.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ4MRYGA883/

 

A Female Black Duiker Calf named Noel was born on December 4th:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ4MRYGA883/

Wild care specialists assisted in raising a young duiker when its mother failed to care for the calf. She's doing well and has adjusted to her habitat as well as her okapi neighbors.

 

California will be lifting the stay at home order giving us hope for reopenings.
California Lifts Stay-At-Home Orders: 'Light At The End Of The Tunnel'
I don't know if San Diego county officials will allow to reopen the zoo but I would say there is some hope for the Safari Park.

 

Just got an email from San Diego Global saying that both the Zoo and Safari Park are tentatively looking to re-open this Saturday, January 30th pending any restrictions the County has in place. Have to book reservations.

 

Does anyone know how many babirusa are at the zoo?

 

The TV show The Zoo San Diego season 2 is now on Discovery+

 

I "attended" a webinar for donors hosted by San Diego Zoo Global on February 24, 2021. The big news is that the organization is changing its name again, to "San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance", effective March 3, 2021. A new logo for the organization will be a circular one with an African lion at the center and a Southern white rhinoceros and California condor on each side. This change was inspired by a new approach to their in situ conservation programs, which will now be organized into 8 regional hubs consisting of multiple species programs and alliances in each hub (examples of hubs are 'Southwest' and 'Oceans' and 'Australian Forest').

There was also an update on the Children's Zoo construction: it is still on schedule for a Fall 2021 opening. They mentioned that they are building a 2-story tree which will be fully ADA accessible and will provide great views of a squirrel monkey exhibit. Also mentioned is that there will be a significant amount of invertebrate exhibits in a bug house. The adjacent hummingbird aviary and new Komodo dragon exhibit are still set to open earlier, at the end of May 2021.

 

I plan to come here next year for a vacation visit. Here’s to hoping both the zoo and the park will be open in the summer with no issue.

Quite excited as this will be the first non-Chicago zoo I’ll ever attend (whether or not Busch Gardens count is debatable).

 

Great Apes Receive Covid Vaccine:

Great apes receive COVID-19 vaccine at San Diego Zoo

The lucky recipients are four orangutans and five bonobos, who were distracted with treats as they got their shots.

The gorillas will likely join their orangutan and bonobo compatriots in vaccination later in the spring.

 

The zoo redesigned their app that once had bought the Zoo and Safari Park maps as well as info in one app. Now have been split into two separate apps, one for the Zoo and for the Safari Park, in the Apple App Store from what I saw. There was an error so far on it, labeling of the Amur Leopard as African Leopards.

 

I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I found what seems to be a partial species list for the new children's zoo that was published in January of this year (Last edited this week). Remember some of these species will be education animals and therefore will not be exhibited on a regular basis.

• Red-winged blackbird
• Bobcat
• Dwarf Caiman
• Short-beaked echidna
• Fossa
• Kinkajou
• Naked Mole Rat
• Ocelot
• Chinese Giant Salamander
• Serval
• Eastern Blue Tonged Skink
• Two-Toed Sloth (species unknown)
• Sugar Glider
• Desert Tortoise
• Common Wombat
• Northern Hairy Nosed-Wombat
• Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat

(I'm not entirely sure what is going on with the wombats)

LibGuides: Fact Sheet Index - San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library: Children's Zoo

 

There are also Galahs on the plan now
For the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombats the website doesn't seem very confident, multiple times it calls the species "the worlds rarest mammal" and it brings up the lack of species in captivity due to low wild numbers and difficult husbandry. The only source they had for successfully keeping Northern Wombats was a farmer who caught three specimens and kept them as pets. The female of the three lived for 27 years in captivity. It clearly states the zoo currently has Southern Hairy Nosed and Common Wombats but never states they have any of the Northern species in their care or have a current way to acquire one.

 

It’s a real shame that the pangolins were cut from the plan, but I guess that means brandy wine has a better chance of getting pangolins then.

 

I haven't seen this posted. Part of the Zoo Archive is available online San Diego Zoo Global Library and Archives . There some old Zoo Guides, ZOONOZ magazines, CRES reports, etc.

 

That's only a partial list though, so they may or may not still be in the plan. We shall see.

 

On March 6th, it was reported that Kurt, a cloned 7-month-old male Przewalski horse is now coming to the zoo as of the time of writing, and will be at the zoo on March 7th. The horse was cloned at Timber Creek Canyon in Amarillo, Texas.

Endangered horse cloned in Amarillo heading home to San Diego zoo tonight | KAMR - MyHighPlains.com

 

I don’t know if they’ve been cut out yet though, as @nczoofan had mentioned, it appears to be a partial list and I think it may be as well. Knowing the pull SD has for getting the oddities and rarities, the pangolin doesn’t seem like a stretch. It does seem to display quite a number of their ambassadors program animals on this partial list and it makes sense since there’s supposed to be an animal ambassador building in the Children’s Zoo. Yet some animals I would like to see if perhaps the aye ayes could be moved to a permanent exhibit amongst the Children’s Zoo, would be a must see for Zoochatters.

 

On an unrelated note, Wyman’s post reminded me that San Diego no longer has its pandas. Has there been any information about when/if they will get the species back? And what have they since done with the enclosure?

 

Red Pandas were living in the old Giant habitats last I heard.