I read in a news article the other day that they will keep both herds separate (but I think still having visual contact with each other).
Taronga's 4-year-old female Koala 'Tilly' will be transferred to Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya, Japan. She is scheduled to make her debut at Higashiyama on the 4th of October. http://www.chunichi.co.jp/s/article/2014091690130244.html (in Japanese but you can see her picture)
There is a fairly high chance that Shabani could be the father of Shiba's little Sudi... which would make him both father and brother... err! Anyone who watches the Taronga chimps regularly knows that Shabani is the one who is always glued to any female with a swelling... he has a one-track mind that boy! The odds of him fathering more than one of the latest babies is pretty high I would think... lol! I have this gut feeling that he's not Fumo's father though... my guess is Shikamoo... but that's just a guess until the DNA test is done. T.
The chimp colony is getting a fair bit inbred nowadays haha. Furahi is also a result of incest as well (Lubutu and Kuma are half-siblings).
That would be why he looks so much like Lubutu then... lol! Sometimes it can be hard to tell them apart at a distance... T.
I wonder if new females will be brought in (from Europe?) if further breeding is planned, surely it can't be ideal for so much inbreeding to be taking place.
Yeah there hasn't been many imports from overseas (or even any other regional zoo for that matter), so I also hope that they will import some new females (and eventually export some of the males to prevent further inbreeding).
I think the intention is to keep the males within Taronga's community, but with the new baby boys that's going to be a LOT of boys. Maybe vasectomies could be an option? I don't imagine they will be in much demand for breeding elsewhere considering that they are almost all related to Snowy, and so many chimps in the region, and probably hybrids so not in keeping with the current aims of the EEP. Maybe a bachelor group might be started somewhere in the future? Just musing out loud.
EEP nowadays recommend only breeding from pure West African chimps, though many zoos still breed from their hybrid/mixed race chimps, either deliberately or accidentally from time to time. Its always a difficult decision to stop breeding entirely as babies/young are socially important to a group and a visitor attraction too. The downside is where to place the surplus of course. I don't know of places that deliberately keep 'bachelor' chimp groups. Males will obviously live together, at least in most instances but I'm not sure many places have tried/set this up deliberately with Chimpanzees.