This is a organisation mainly working with the conservation of the Tenkile (D. scottae) and Golden-Mantled (D. g. pulcherrimus) Tree Kangaroo in the Torricelli Mts of north-western Papua New Guinea, not far from the border with West Papua. The Torricell Mts must be the ultimate location if you intend to work with the conservation of Dendrolagus as these days this is the only place on earth where you can find three species of Tree Kangaroo in the same general area. They operate two facilities at the moment in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. Their main base (Lumi) is located just outside the town of Wewak while their other base (Sibilanga) is located up in the Torricelli Mts just in the middle of the distribution of three species of Dendrolagus (D. scottae, D. g. pulcherrimus and D. i. finschi). Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo or Weimang (Dendrolagus goodfellowi pulcherrimus): They keep 1.1, both being rescued from local hunters. Only got their female in August 2008. Both individuals are still young and have not reached sexually maturity, but hopefully they will start to breed as they mature. Only place in the world keeping this subspecies of Dendrolagus goodfellowi, I believe no-one else has ever kept it either. Grizzled Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus inustus finschi): They keep 1.3, and 1.2 out of these being rescued from local hunters. They have succesfully breed it once. If breeding kicks of it would be good, and maybe animals could be send to other institutions in Papua New Guinea to get some fresh blood into a old/inbreed population. All other Dendrolagus inustus kept in captivity in PNG is likely to represent the finschi subspecies. Tenkile Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae): They recieved 0.1 from local hunters in early 2007, she was however released back into the wild in November 2007. With the current state of things it would probably have been better to have kept it in captivity, and aiming to create a captive population in the long-term. White-striped Dorcopsis (Dorcopsis hageni) New Guinea Pademelon (Thylogale browni) Black-spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus rufoniger) Spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) Ground Cuscus (Phalanger gymnotis) Northern Common Cuscus (Phalanger orientalis) Striped Possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata) Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps papuanus) Palm Cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus) Yellow-faced mynah (Mino dumonti) Lesser Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea minor)
Kiglezi, Those other species listed at the bottom of your post, are they held by the Alliance or just species also found in the Torricellis? Hix
Thats more or less a complete list of species kept by the Tenkile Conservation Alliance at the moment.
They are indeed very impressive, one of the most beutiful of all Cuscus species. I have only seen it on one occasion myself. Very, very rare in the wild now, pretty much hunted to extinction everywhere. The one at TCA in Sibilanga was brought in by local people I believe.
interesting that this photo is the same one that Sebbe has in his photobucket account......you know, the Sebbe that was always going on about New Guinea constantly..... In fact the photo is actually posted from Sebbe's photobucket account! I've had my suspicions about kiglezi for a while, especially since he posted photos claimed to be from a zoo in Sulawesi!
Lets get this Thread back on track guys, I for one would like to see a captive breeding program for this species in their native country, from my serches on the net very little to nothing is known about their breeding or anything else about them. A stunning species that I am sure we could learn a lot from
how has the thread gone off-track? The original post lists species at the Tenkile Conservation Alliance that "kiglezi" may have got off the net somewhere or, more likely, he just made a list up from a bunch of books about New Guinea wildlife. The thread wasn't about captive-breeding of the black-spotted cuscus about which, as you rightly point out, almost nothing is known. (I also would love to see a captive-breeding programme brought into play for this species because it is critically-endangered by all accounts, but I think ex- as well as in-situ should be used for safety's sake).
Lets keep this thread about New Guinea wildlife and not some former member that was on the forum some time back Its more more interesting. I agree it would be great to see an breeding program both in New Guinea and in an overseas zoo, maybe here in Austraila?.
