Chuck the southern white rhino, who was late northern white rhino Nola’s companion for a while, passed away. Chuck the rhino, longtime companion to Nola, passes away at Safari Park
(moderator note - this post and the three that follow were moved here from the Reid Park Zoo thread) While Mabu was at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, he was able to breed with Ndula, Swazi, and Umngani. Subsequently, Ndula and Umngani are pregnant and are both expecting in April of 2018. This is great news as the last successful birth of an African elephant in North America was in January of 2017 with the birth of Stella at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The information was collected through the following sources: Ndula -> Petra Prager – Elefanten-Fotolexikon Umngani -> Petra Prager – Elefanten-Fotolexikon Stella Celebrates Her First Birthday at Disney's Animal Kingdom
Really, the pregnancies are merely creating filler at this point. Mabu is the most well represented African bull in North America at this point, with 11 living offspring, 2 more on the way this year, plus more than likely one and possibly two more in the next 2-3 years, which will put him in the 14-15 calf range assuming all new calves survive. Coupling that with the fact that he seems to throw mainly bull calves, and he also has 3 calves coming into sexual maturity, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to be breeding him at this point, especially when there are a number of bulls in North America that we could desperately use the genetics from. Especially between Reid Park and San Diego, their cows are socially savvy and know their way around a bull, they would make for excellent facilities to bring more genetically valuable bulls to in attempts to breed (Males such as Tonka, Max, Samson,Tuffy, Artie, and others come to mind) In turn perhaps Mabu could be sent to a facility to natural breeding is at a standstill, if for no other reason than to keep aging cows who haven't calved in years reproductively viable or start young nulliparous females breeding without needing to resort to AI (which also becomes easier once a female have calved). Baltimore, Hogle, and North Carolina are all facilities that Mabu would likely be of great use at, versus jumping back and forth between facilities where he already has many calves.
According to zoonooz Ndlula and Umgani are both pregnant and Mabu returned to Reid Park on 20th February
After reading a comment by cmrButton5 and a new article by ZOONOOZ, some of the information I’ve posted is incorrect. To stand corrected, Ndula is expecting in August or September of 2018 while Umngani is expecting in October or November of 2018. The information was collected through the following source: Have you “Herd”? – ZOONOOZ Thank you gerenuk for mentioning the birth of an African elephant at Africam Safari in May of 2017. It must have slipped my mind since I primarily focus on the captive population of Asian and African elephants in Canada and the United States.
Is there an opening date set or at least an estimate for the Australia Walkabout exhibit opening this summer?
Where did you find this information? In my searching for the opening date all I could find was Summer 2018.
Shortly after my trip early this year, I emailed the safari park and I received a response that went and I quote, "We are expecting to open Walkabout Australia in roughly early June of this year, and look forward to sharing this new area with our members and guests."
I have plans to attend the Park tomorrow. I'll take pictures of the progress and report any info I discover.
