@AJ the TZ Guy, yes Penny should be leaving come spring (covid dependent) for Houston. Penny was always going to leave us. We cant keep the vast majority of babies born here. Harvey and Kindia are both imports from Europe with no other relatives in North America other than Penny. That makes them founders so getting as many calves out of them as possible is important so their genetics can be spread amongst the other pygmy hippos. We have had Penny much longer than we should have thanks to covid. By the time she goes she will be nearly 4 and she will be ready to breed with her new mate as soon as she settles in.
And on the plus side, it will mean we can have another pygmy hippo calf soon! Harvey and Kindia are crazy for each other so it's really just a matter of allowing them to breed.
I'm gonna miss Penelope so much, I got to watch her grow up right from a fat little jellybean and was even one of the people who voted on that name for her... ;w;
How did we end up importing Pygmy hippos from Europe? At the time was there just not the population in North America? A quick google search for articles really doesn’t want to go further back than the explosion of articles around Penelope’s birth.
When it comes to most babies at the zoo, you should come think that they are temporary residents and will eventually leave. It's great to watch them grow, but it'll be great to see them off to keep the conservation effort going.
@Zooer I believe Canada sent a pygmy hippo to Europe, so I'm not sure if that's how the trade went but I know that Kindia definitely came from France. Also I love the discussions going on, let's keep them going hopefully
When pygmy hippo Harvey arrived he didnt belong to Toronto. He belonged to the now closed Mountainview Breeding and Conservation Center in BC. They must have made a swap for him but i dont know the details. He was brought in to breed with Toronto born Abou who was there on loan from Toronto. Wildly unsuccessful as a pair. Harvey is a fantastic sire. Always gets the job done quickly and the ladies love him. Abou just couldnt get one to survive beyond a few days execpt the last at toronto who they hand reared for a month before she passed or he... i dont remember. Sadly just aftet the birth Abou got very sick and never recovered. At that time we had a proven potential founder sire but no female. Im not sure if Toronto arranged it or if the SSP did but they got Kindia who was overrepresented in Europe. Not sure if there was a swap or a donation but Toronto owns her now which means we own Penny and should own Pennys first calf. Ater that it will be the 3rd or 4th claf depending on if Houston owns the bull or if hes on loan as well. We will also own any other calves born to Kindia and Harvey. @cypher is very right. Any baby born here should be considered temporary. Not everyone gets to stay like gorilla Johari, giraffe Mstari zebra Tori or the polar bear trio. Some you can guess might stay but most will go. Boys very very rarely stay. Some girls will stay on if they are their fathers last offspring. Example I think its highly possible little Charlie will stay on with the gorillas. Keepers seem very attarched to her and the troop will need a 3rd adult female in the post charles world. Being 15 years roughly younger than Ngozi and Johari she will give them more flexiblity to breed long after Johari and ngozi cant. Nneka could stay instead but she will be ready to breed in a few years and Charles is still somewhat healthy. They can keep charlie and not loose reproductive years like they have with Johari. Another example might be the upcoming orang infants. If they are girls keeping them and sending Budi away after a second breeding with Sekali makes a ton of sense. Allow me to explain this one. A female orang is only allowed to get pregant until she is 40. No later. Ramai is 36. Her baby with Budi will most definitely be her last. We did waste an entire breeding cycle for both Ramai and Sekali waiting for Budi to mature. Why AI wasnt attempted using samples from Molek Ill never understand. Why not experiment? Anyway so Ramai will never breed again. Sekali is younger and if they forced weaning at 7 they could potentially get a 2nd baby by Budi out of her before she turns 40. If they are all males the program could be doomed. Our power right now is we have 2 breeding females and a great male. But once we loose the girls they might send us a lone female to breed Budi but never 2. However lets make 2 or 3 of those infants girls. Toronto could keep all of them and ask for a new male while giving up Budi. The new male wouldnt even be needed for 15 years from now. They could have Budi, Kembali and Jingga all in the US breeding in 7 years if all goes well. Still wish we were keeping Jingga and sending Budi off once he got the job done. Jingga will produce the first 5th gen orang and I wish it was happening in Toronto where the rest of the line was born or first bred. Kudu Roux is another strong contender. Maynard is no spring chicken and male kudu have notoriously short lives. You would think for an animal that size they would be hardier. 8 is the average for a male. Maynard is there maybe 9 now. He could go at any time. Ruby amd Rosalita are middle aged for females and we know it will probably take a year or more to get a new bull. They may not be breedable. Roux and any sisters born next summer will likely be the future of the herd. Just some examples though nothing official. Simply a few I could see staying on for life.
Regarding the orangs, why can't they just breed Budi with Ramai and once the infant is born or shortly after send both Budi and Kembali to breeding facilites down south. That way in a few years a new male could be brought in to breed with Jingga and Sekali when she is done raising her 2022 baby. And if Sekali and Ramai's babies with Budi are female, they too can be bred to this new male assuming he is still alive when the girls reach maturity. I know both Jingga and maybe Kembali have already been given transfer recommendations but is it know where they are to be sent yet?
@Animals R AMAZING! Love your thinking. That's what I would love to see. Sadly that is not what I am going to get. The current decision is Jingga will head to Louisville to breed. It is been the plan for awhile now and keepers still say she's going. For some dumb reason Kembali isn't headed south too. At first I assumed it was because Calgary's plan was to house orangs after the giant pandas left in 2023. However Calgary has clearly stated that their plans have changed and now they are housing Malaysian tapir and white handed gibbons in there. So I would think with less breeding males available then breeding females they would want 15 year old Kembali in the US breeding. Clearly he is old enough to breed since Budi got the job done. And male orangs have a nasty habit of dying younger than they would like due to respiratory issues so best to get him breeding ASAP. But those in charge have other plans. I would kill to keep Jingga. Heck take both Budi and Kembali and send me a sample from her chosen mate and I'll get the ball rolling Jingga's first time with AI. Toronto has the facilities to be on the cutting edge of orang reproductive work. Now in a different reality we probably would have kept Jingga and she would be pregnant by now. After the trios dad Molek died there were plans to bring in a new male Kutai from Oregon in 2013. He would have been able to mate all three girls and the boys would have left. Unfortunately late in the year he got sick with an infection in his air sac (common cause of male death). By Jan 2014 he was dead and all hopes of breeding Ramai and Sekali any time soon died. Jingga would still have been too young until this year. In that world were he had lived he was set to arrive in the spring of 2014, the zoo had begun fully preparing for his arrival. Toronto probably would have had a pair of babies in 2015. And likely depending on weaning for those babies 3 probably would be born between 2022 and 2023 as Jingga became old enough to breed for the first time. We would have a big group again full of lots of life even if Sekali and Ramai couldn't be put back together. You could have seen Sekali out with Kutai and their 2 babies or Ramai, Jingga and their 3 babies. Oh fate you are cruel! Saddest part is Kutai wasn't doomed to die. Look up what happened. There was a series of bad decisions made and both the zoo's director and head vet lost their jobs and Toronto lost a very different future for their orangs. Can't help but wonder if there had been the 2015 babies would there have been more pressure from the zoo to get the outdoor orang exhibit done... Actually that one is probably for the best because it would have been built under the old management and their just good enough attitude. I think what we will get under the new team might actually be pretty good. World class remains to be seen but they are including some cool elements like the reverse water cannons, O-Line and orang vending machine.
Here is a photo of the temp naked mole rat set up. No signage - and looking very temporary. (Someone just walked by and said look at the baby chameleons…)
Wow that's crazy! Looks like they just moved the entire exhibit over to the chameleon nursery. I wonder if there's some construction going on in B&C and that's why they're in there for now? As far as I remember it's being turned into a place for zoo camp, maybe they're getting started on that.
It barely looks like an exhibit, rather than a look in the the behind the scenes area. It's odd for sure.
Thank you @Zooer for the photos! Yeah I agree with the others it looks like a temporary set up especially considering the window is right there. They could have moved the nursery stuff (not that there is ever any real eggs in there. And put them up front and center for viewing. Yet they didnt. The mole rats are on phase out and this is probably just temporary housing until the group can be shipped out. They are definitely working on the burrows. They transferred out all the Egyptian fruit bats awhile ago. They have been working to downsize the straw coloured fruit bats for a while as well with no new births in quite some time and the males physically removed unless sterilized. I bet if someone asked a keeper the rest of the fruit bats are now in the aviary behind the Nile shoftshell turtle and its very possible all boys are now neutered or they were shipped out.
Were the Egyptian fruit bats still there in 2015? I could swear I have a pic of them from that trip, but I just need to be sure. Also I really hope they reconsider making the naked mole rats leave, I still want my nakies to stay, especially since I never got to give them a goodbye visit... ;w;
The Egyptian fruit bats would have still been there in 2015. I couldnt find a date that they left specifically but it appears that they departed in either 2016 or 2017. You still may get to say goodbye to the mole rats. They have that temporary looking set up which gives you a chance until the day they are shipped out. At least they are not in the health center off display. And with covid who knows how long they will be around. I mean we have dozens of animals waiting to go somewhere else or come in from somewhere else and lots of them have been waiting since before covid. Not saying they will definitely still be there next fall when you can visit but there is a chance they might be.
I just hope they're not still behind the nursery display if I get to see them again, I want to see them up close and take pictures of them like I was able to before... :'c
My visit to Toronto Zoo went well! A lot of fun seeing Mila. Adira and Suva were both in the trees. The polar bears weren’t as active as I hoped. But it was also neat seeing the in habitat enrichment (feeders, boomer balls attached to the rope, the car wash cleaner brush as tactile for the rhinos) Plus Puppe was out as well! And pretty much most of the gorilla group were as well at their habitat. With the giraffes I couldn’t tell who’s who but one was pregnant (Mstari?) @Zooer , thanks for that clarification- I was slightly puzzled when I saw them.
Mstari is Pregnant and keepers anticipate that the baby arrives somewhere around late Feb. To mid March.
@Aelita, Kiko is the largest, darkest and his horns are naked. He rubs them a lot on things. Mstari is larger than Amani and her horns are fuzzy. Amani is the smallest because until the new baby arrives she is the baby. I think you are off by a month @Akula. If I recall right its March or April. Little earlier than Amani but not a lot.
