Hiya all Just got back from a trip to southern NSW, including a visit to Mogo and Symbio. I really like Mogo zoo, it is small and intimate but with enough variety to make an interesting half day visit. The new part, which includes the savanah and primate islands is great. The savanah is like a smaller version of Weribee, big enough that the grass is now being destroted by the animals but small enough that you can still see them. I'm no good at jusging distances so can't give you an indication of its size. The residents are currently two ostrich, three zebra, a scimior Oryx and two giraffe. they have recently received a femalegiraffe from melbourne, not sure one of the two calves thoughg. This gives Mogo a pair of Rothschilds! (some of you will know my passion for them) The cimps outdoor exhibit is about half finished and looks like it will be quite good with a major hill in the middle which the animals canm choose to be out of sight of humans. There are three wild dogs as well as the brazilian tapirs, plus Timbavati, the exhibit for the white lions. Primate islands involves about six islands which are wooded, plus have ropes and things. The monkeys can escape from view but generally don't shoose to do so from my vuewing. There are spider monkeys, siamangs, ring tailed lemurs, the fluffy black and white lemurs and lar gibbons. The older section of the zoo needs some real work done to it. It is a discrace really and just about all of it should be pulled down and rebuilt. I did NOT like the concrete and iron cages for the de Brazzas. There seemed to be only one snow leopard and no where really for three others. Does any one know if the zoos last cubs have been moved? The snow leopards exhibit wass awful! I really hope that the zoos plans on redoing this section before adding anything new. There are 5 servals BTW so many! I don't knopw how much further they can expand. To get to the primate islands you need to walk the whole length of the property and then to get back to the exit, retrace your steps the entire way. They need to have an exit from the primate islands section. This is especially important if you are unable to walk great distances in any way (old, wheelchair, prams, small children) I have some pctures which I will post soon.
hmmm - sounds like maybe mogo bit off a little more than they can chew with the chimps eh? might have made more sense to use that money fixing facilities for animals they already owned rather than take on more, let alone very-expensive-to-house chimpanzees! if you need to backtrack then thats and example of bad zoo design. have you got photos? id'e especially be keen to see the crappy stuff..
engaging in the chimpanzee program isnt as bad in my opinion as the white lion program. if this program is too persist more animals will need to be imported, at cost, from overseas. on the other hand, investing in long-lived, non breeders like the chimps in a decent enclosure would have given mogo a star attraction without need for costly future inputs.
i was going to mention the white lions - but didn't to prevent the inevitable argument arising again!! there must be something wrong with me?
i dont care about the arguments, lol. within 5-8 years mogo will be faced with the need to import more animals and either a-export surplus back to South Africa or elsewhere as part of the management program for this 'colour-type'? (and nowhere in Australiasia at this stage wants them) or b-import new animals and expand their white lion breeding facilities to build holding capacity. again, at cost to them. the two chimps or however many there are living in a garden shed would have been much better candidates for a new exhibit. they would be the only great-apes in regional NSW, in fact regional anywhere bar rockhampton, and they'd last for at least another 20 years. their advocacy role would also have been much higher, and in the future if mogo anted to shift focus to a breeding group of chimps the option would have been there. instead, they chose white lions. on the old, crappy part of the zoo, if it hasnt chaned since 2001 id hate to see it now. this section of the zoo contrasts rather unfavourably with the newer developments, think melbourne's babboon enclosure standard and youll get the picture. maybe mogo has bitten off financially more than it can chew??? anyone want to argue that point with me?
I don't, though with regards to the white lions. As they are just a colour mutation there is no reason why they couldn't be bred with tawnys, then their offspring bred back to the main lion rolleyes just as budgie breeders do. Anyway, the zoo really does need work on the old parts but I didn't get any photos, didn't want to waste the space. If you have been to Alma Park and seen their old monkey cages then you will know what they are like. The thing is that they aren't that old, only fromn the 90's. Just not well designed though.
What a great idea! Thereby adding white color genes back into a regional population of tawnys that zoos in this region have worked collectively for 10-15 to eradicate. You see, the big difference between many (not all, I know Ben will jump on me if I say all ) private bird breeders and most reputable zoos - one lot thrive on crossing various subspecies and/or strains to come up with that truly unique blue-headed, orange-breasted split pied budgie x macaw cross, and (most of) the other lot strive to keep populations and blood lines pure, so that in a good number of cases, they are potentially releaseable back into the wild.
And zoopro, I was told by mogo that a white lion has been released into the wild (you can dispute the truth of that, I don't know). What i was trying to point out was that you don't need to keep getting extra white lions to have the white gene continue. And to be honest would it really dilute the gene pool. The white gene was wild created in the first place and most likely would still be in the wild if it weren't for the desire of some humans to have a lion skin rug that was white. From the book that I read the colour didn't seem to adversly affect the ability of the original white lions to hunt etc. But I wasn't saying that it was a good idea, just that it was possible. I don'y agree with avicultural desire for even more colour variations in bird species though it happens and is something to live with.
The white lions have not been rleased into the wild. steve van mil and mogo are working with a team in south africa to do this but6 it hasn't happened yet. It has been started. four in fact. It's a bit of a way of promoting themselves as doing good things. the four white lions. Mum, two boys and a girl, i think. are in a reserve being fed with sometimes live sometimes dead game. It is expected to take a few years before they will be totally free. at the moment they are just increasing the size of the reserve they are kept in (fully fenced and competition free for the time being) and decreasing the human interaction as well as the amount of dead animals provided. it is a long process which many think will end in failure. having said that two bengal tigers have successfully been released into wild africa.
i dunno how "successful" that bengal tiger (or the south china version of the experiment) has been and it seems utterly rediculous to me that they would try and wild-train a cat in the wrong wild...i saw footage of the tiger attacking a rhinoceros and i just thought "this is dumb". anyway by releasing white lions mogo is "doing good" eh? i'll stop there. i feel another repetative rant coming on....
I'm not saying that they are doing good by releasing the white lions.... that's just the way they put it... to promote the cause and obtain funding... The tigers did do pretty well for a while but starngely not much has been said about them lately
i know your not saying that - i just hate breeding white lions and tigers and calling it conservation. to be honest i lost a bit of respect for mogo when they did this.
I certainly wouldn't call it conservation, anything but, it's just colour breeding as per budgies etc. But don't write off Mogo because of it. They are a good, private zoo that seems to be going a long way. As they are privately owned they will have their idiosycrasies.
Has anything happened at Mogo recentley. Anyone up for a trip to batemans bay to bring us some photoes. Hopefully after the chimps they've started to redo all of the "old" part.
I don't think the chimp enclosure at mogo has been finished. A mate was there a few weeks ago and by his description there was still a bit to be done.
