well dont we feel silly it was announced this morning by Guy Coooper on ABC radio that the 8 year old asian elephant tong dee is about 6 months pregnant!!!!!!! Good work Gung now we just have to wait and see if she carries it full term and waht the backlsash from the greens is going to be
Wonderful News! (Told you all that Taronga would beat Melbourne!) Nice photo of Thong Dee's ultrasound on page 3 of today's Daily Telegraph.
ahhh - ya never know what might happen ara? anyone know how old exactly this elephant is? she may very well be as old as 10 or 11 by the time she gives birth. in any event she is maybe a tad younger than usual but really this is all within the "round-about" right age yeah? i mean, if she's fallen pregnant then she's old enough right?
How many calves can the exhibit support (looking long-term)? And how would a calf affect Gung being introduced to members of the herd?
oh don't get me started - i don't think these kind of exhibits are big enough for five animals let alone more! anyhow... taronga didn't design their exhibit that well for breeding since originally, they never planned on importing a male elephant at all. thus, there are no purpose-built bull facilities at taronga. the zoo is instead updating the old elephant exhibit into a bull enclosure and (in the future) will be dependent on walking the females through the zoo to the bull paddock for any planned natural matings. this idea is far from ideal in my mind as it doesn't account for any breeding females being classified as dangerous in the future. if a female is moved to "protected contact" status later on, the zoo will be reliant on a moving truck or AI to breed the female with the bull. in addition this locks gung out from enjoying the benefits of the female elephant exhibit since as a bull he will not be allowed to walk through the zoo. melbourne has a three-paddock system that allows their (fully matured) bull to be rotated much as the cows are through the various paddocks day and night. oddly, the zoo built him a separate barn, which seems a bit extreme to me since he is always within sight, sound and smell of the females anyway. nontheless, its a much safer (and very good) system in my opinion.
WooHoo! Though their is much that can go wrong (look at how much trouble US zoos have) I am going to be hoping like all that everytthing goes well. Uoou were very quick with the news Torie.
mum had the radio on and the words baby elephant and australia kinda grabbed my attention pretty quickly its going to be a long anxious wait!
Here's a question for Ms Rhiannon. How dou stop eigght year old elephants from getting pregnant in the wild - oh I forgot. It's ok then because it happened in the wild
This is wonderful, wonderful news and a great tribute to some very dedicated staff - not to mention an enthusiastic Gung! So hold your horses everyone - we're in for a long wait.
Your quite right Steve, it is going to be a long wait. Who will be the next female inline for breeding, The staff have done well with the group, Gung could become quite a stud if not a little "Gung oh", hehe, again Great news
i had heard rumours but just dismissed them as such. so yes, Torie, i do feel silly, lol, though by monday afternoon the 'possibility' of the Thong Dee being pregnant had started to generate regional media coverage, giving me the inkling there was some truth in it. this is going to be IMO possibly the most anticipated birth of an animal in an Australian Zoo ever......and yes a long wait. but, whilst some credit must go to the Greens for breaking the story so to speak, its about time someone put together a list of quotes from that party telling the public Taronga would never breed elephants. breeding elephants at Taronga Zoo was always in the planning, Gung, of course, wasnt. but the zoo is building an exhibit for him and, so far, all 4 cow elephants are behaving themselves so im keeping optimistic about the future of walking cows down the main boulevard to breed. of course, Thong Dee has saved herself the walk. surely Pornthip and Pak Boon are next in line, if they dont get pregnant themselves soon to have babies. whether or not the exhibit will be big enough in a few years time for all of the herd is a bridge the ZPB will have to consider crossing soon. of course, the extra visitation a succesful birth will generate may well cover the cost of an expansion project............there is still room heading towards the red pandas/tahr area which could connect to the barn. on the flipside, if the calf is a bull, it will either live next door to Gung, or could be sent to WPZ or somewhere else.....maybe even Auckland might have a new exhibit by then, or Australia Zoo. either way, considering how much talk the import generated on this forum, i can see this thread stretching for many, many many pages. good validation for Taronga. now who said you couldnt breed elephants in zoos???????????????
im not sure exactly but i estimate it would be close to two acres if not more??? my idea would be to link the back of the barn (which faces the kodiak enclosure) by way of Asian inspired gateways similar to Melbournes which would only be closed for elephant transit to the land running past cats of asia down to the meerkats. this land is currently used for pygmy hippo, dhole, fennec foxes, meerkats and a PNG aviary. none of these exhibits are 'world class' or elements of lasting value and were in fact earmarked for breeding golden cats and dhole in an asian highland biome. now golden cats are being phased out, the dhole could be relocated to the old sun bear enclosure and this would open up all this land. it is flat, and in parts quite wide but its also a very long block...........great for exercise. in addition, by restricting vehicle circulation to the road running from the Servie precinct past teh bird show area, a whole section of road in the area im talking about could ripped up and redeveloped for elephants. the only thing would be a small section of road way wide enough for vehicles would have to remain to service Cats of Asia. even if you look at the map posted in the gallery the other day by 'Interested' you can see this is a pretty big area. also, id consider turning the aldabran tortoise exhibit into an elephant ampitheatre similar to Perths. its a possibility, and it wouldnt be too expensive either. certainly nowehere near the $6 million for Gungs new exhibit. plus, theres a really nice big Moretone Bay Fig tree in this section which would look great incorporated into an elepnantine expansion.
i think your expansion sounds great glyn it will make the zoo very elephant dominated but if thats waht it takes to accomodate a breeding herd then i guess something similar to that will have to happen. i dont think the dhole would go so well in the sun bear enclosure though as it has veiwing from a window in the top coner and dhole arnt the biggest of animals so they may be really hard to see from there and it would be abig shame if people couldnt see them
lol Torie i forget your young age. you mightnt even be able to remember when sun bears were kept in the 'old' exhibit i was referring to, the one down past the silvery gibbons on the way to the ferry. if i had my way with taronga zoo prett much the whole middle section would be asian animals, with exhibit clusters linked to the 3 different asian elephant enclosures...... anyway, it might be a good idea but the main reason i posted it was to illustrate the fact that Taronga does actually have expansion options if it does need them. though im sure the zoo has already thought of them
This is a pretty fast growing thread; in 14 hours it's already up to its second page. I read the title of the thread and was trying to think of which elephant at melbourne was called tong dee and then i was like "Crap that's Taronga." I'm just biased because i wanted it to be "my" zoo, Melbourne to be the first in the race.
You know that the current ele exhibit in Tarnoga is only 1/2 of an acre? I have my doubts that the space behind the ele exhibit is 4 times as large. I hope all goes well. If they had build a barn for a big family group this would be great news... zoo elephants in good health can breed amazingly early, Tong Dee is certainly not the youngest female to get pregnant, so I don`t understand the outcry about the "underage pregnancy" neither.
Yes, its no big deal.... anyone would think its the first elephant pregnancy in Australia.... Yassa is correct- she's certainly not the youngest.(The 'anti's' no doubt are not too well informed about this). Chester's 'Sithami' was only six when she GAVE BIRTH to everybody's shock at the zoo. She reared her calf together with her own mother. Sithami has continued to grow normally since then and the experience seemed quite normal for her. Whether such early breeding happens in the wild sometimes, or is specifically a product of good feeding/environment in captivity I'm not sure. I don't know if anyone has studied wild groups of Asian elephants well enough to determine at what age the young cows normally start breeding? At least Tong Dee should have an easy birth as her bones are still soft.. The record holder could be 'Gung'-fertile at an amazingly young age too.
