please correct me if I'm out-of-date, but aren't wombat breedings in captivity not commonplace anyway? (For any species). If that is still the case, then trying to set up a captive population of northern hairy-noses would seem quite silly.
As Steve said, it' an insurance population as they are only found in one small area, with less than 100 individuals. Hix
Common Wombat births are increasing every year - not commonplace yet but not rare enough to engender huge excitement. Southern Hairy Nose are a different matter. Taronga's birth [here we are back on topic!] is very significant.
I read the Qld/National Recovery Plan for NHNWs today and it says "The overall goal of this recovery plan is to achieve a total population of a minimum of 150 northern hairy-nosed wombats in two wild populations and at least one captive population by 2007." It was written in 2005 with zoos heavily involved but I guess as Steve says, some mistakes have meant the captive population never went ahead. However, it's great they have achieved the 2 wild populations. I think they were worried about a flood wiping out the Epping Forest population but after they established the St George site it was flooded itself! (no impact though)
What is the captive breeding success like for Southern Hairys? I was always under the impression that despite being a little more difficult then Commons, that they weren't exactly hard to breed. Assuming of course that you get the exhibit right. Does anybody know why Northern Hairys haven't substantially increased in population given that the management has been ongoing for decades?
SHN breeding has been, perhaps surprisingly, somewhat uncommon. Getting the exhibit right would certainly appear to be part of the secret. However, how many zoos get the social structure right? Interesting paper presented at last week's ZAA conference about the Taronga breeding. In an endeavour to get the social structure right they brought in a group of SHNs. However, the animals were in poor condition and some of them appeared to be pretty ancient. Some years down the track, after deaths and new introductions to the group, they have now achieved a success. Hopefully they have now ticked all the boxes and this will be the first of many. The original NHN population out from Clermont fluctuated up and down for years as you would expect with such a small start up population. Overall it didn't do too bad - it was self sustaining but the numbers didn't increase dramatically. Now that a second population has been established successfully I don't doubt that the overall numbers will increase.
Could it be region / climate related? It might sound a bit curio ... but we live in a temperate, but rather humid environment. I expect the environment for the penguins in Australia to be rather dry. You do not see many outdoor outback koala/echidna enclosures in Central Europe either. For wombats, I guess husbandry is also not too well advanced in Europe, let alone social structure (and given that even in their home range states breeding in captivity is not exactly a given). I hope the new knowledge and experience gained at Taronga will assist in more robust efforts for captive-breeding of wombats.
An update on NHNs following a discussion I had with someone working on recovery: the Clermont population is now doing so well that they are looking towards expanding the enclosure. It was explained to me that the parents let their offspring takeover the burrow then they (the parents) go to seek new territory to start a new burrow (a nice bit of parenting). However, at Clermont they don't have far enough to go now.
According to the Billabong Wildlife Park website, snow leopards 'Kamala' and 'Sabu' have left Taronga and have arrived at Billabong. It looks like they might even already be on display. This leaves Taronga with their mother 'Semara' and unrelated male 'Khumbu'.
It's kind of difficult to understand the plan, lots of flowery design language used, and the picture is very small, but looks like the lemurs get about a third of the total area, at the end closest to the gorillas?
In my opinion, it looks to me that it will actually be divided into thirds (like I mentioned before). The first third (closest to the gorillas) looks to be the 'damaged' and logged habitat that I also mentioned before. The middle third looks to be a children's playground/rest area. The third third (!) looks to be the more forested exhibit. This is what it looks like in my eyes. Hopefully it will turn out to be a productive use of the old seal pools.
Oh yup, I can see that the central third is for visitors and the ends are for lemurs, that looks good. Aren't the seal pools heritage listed or something? I wonder how they will protect them while installing this exhibit. I certainly look forward to seeing it when it opens.
I believe the heritage listed exhibits are Taronga are the spider monkey exhibit, old seal pools and Moore Park aviary, so yes they are heritage listed. Not sure how they will protect them tho. To be honest, I would love for Taronga to expand on the Wild Asia precinct and build a new African precinct, thus meaning that they focus on only Asian, African and native animals. Especially a second female elephant paddock. But this is only my hope!
Old Elephant temple/house is heritage listed as well. Can't say I'm a big fan of the design. Kids can play in a park playground for free, they could use that space to expand and make the forest walkthrough bigger.
I also think that the oldbear caves, currently the red panda exhibit, are also protected. I don't mean the exhibit itself, but the indoor 'caves' (dens) that once housed sun bear, American black bear, etc. Can anyone confirm this? Nothing important but still relavant: the little penguin breeding season has started with alread six eggs laid.
Technically, I think the entire zoo is heritage listed with particular heritage values including the upper and lower entrances, the Elephant House, old Aquarium building, Floral Clock, Aviaries etc.
An updated list of species in the nocturnal house (based on 7th October) in order: 1. Bilby 2. Greater stick nest rat/ red tailed phascogale 3. Brush tailed possum 4. Northern quoll 5. Common ringtail possum/ long nose potoroo 6. Black footed tree rat 7. Yellow bellied glider/ long nosed potoroo 8. Rufous owl/ long beaked echidna (!) 9. Feathertail glider 10. Plains rat 11. Plains rat 12. Tawny frogmouth/ common ringtail possum/ long-nosed bandicoot (left hand side) 13. Long nosed potoroo/ bush rat/ squirrel glider (right hand side) There are also two empty exhibits, one that was formerly for New Caledonian giant gecko (across from the long beaked echidna/owl exhibit) and stick nest rat (the end exhibit of the nocturnal house,being renovated).
the long-beaked echidna is back on exhibit?!! (Are you reading this CGSwans!! ) I don't think they had rufous owl when I was there. The Taronga nocturnal house is superb indeed!
