yes, thanks Tygo. I wanted to see if it had been updated (i.e. if it showed where the capybara would be) but it hasn't. The pelican is still there as well.
Zuri the female Giraffe is on her way to Wellington Zoo from Auckland Zoo. Auckland Zoo's giraffe to reunite with Wellington relatives | Environmentsci | Newshub
Update on Wellington's plans for the future: Snow Leopards, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Wombats as part of a $2 million refresh of Neighbours (which was just opened, but will also include a new aviary for the zoo's Aussie birds and hopefully be much less garish) and a much-needed new entrance. All sounds good to me, except replacing the Hamadryas Baboons (where will they go? why?) with lemurs. Story here: No pandas for Wellington, but snow leopards, wombats and ring-tailed lemurs are on the way | Stuff.co.nz
Wellington Zoo's target market is 5 to 10 year olds. The Baboons are big and scary and they do not have additional fund raising appeal; you can't do a meet the Baboon experience. A Ring-tailed Lemur experience will prove to be very lucrative. (Sorry I am just being an old cynic this morning!) Great news about the Snow Leopards. They will be a welcome return to Wellington. Thankfully if they do bring in Wombats they will have a much better enclosure than the last Wombat at Wellington Zoo. In the 1970's I can recall one in a solid concrete enclosure about 5m by 2m , where it ran backwards and forwards all the time I viewed it. It was the most active Wombat I have ever seen. Every other Wombat I have seen has been asleep. I personally think that Wombats are a poor choice and that Wellington would be better off considering Quolls as they are more active and of a smaller size that would appeal to the target market.
I'm excited that Snow Leopards are still on the plan. I couldn't think of a more suitable species for the rocky terrace of the old sun bear enclosure. I'm not impressed to hear that baboons are being replaced. I believe Wellington Zoo hold the largest troop in Australasia, and they are an interesting exhibit, as are the troop at Auckland Zoo. Does anyone know when the last offspring in the troop was born, or what the plans are for the existing troop at Wellington?
klipspringers and rock hyrax? Melbourne's group is comparable, perhaps larger, but I don't know the specific numbers - they're both somewhere around 15 or 16 animals. I think the last baboon baby at Wellington was in 2010.
According to Wellington Zoo's website "Wellington Zoo is home to a group of seven Hamadryas Baboons, which is just one of the five Baboon sub-species. You can easily spot the alpha males with their impressive long silvery capes, while the younger males are brown." When I was last at the Zoo in several years ago there was a large troop of at least 25. An Internet search shows that several moved to Melbourne. "Privileged to be involved with the #export of SINEAD, ZARA, ABEBA, QETESH #baboons #flying today from #WellingtonZoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Melbourne " "Privileged to be involved with the export of MACY, BETH & GREET #baboon #flying today from #Wellington #zoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Adelaide" The Zoo Annual report for 2010-2011 states "The baboons have bred well in the past year producing four new babies." IMHO it would appear that the decision to phase out the Baboons at Wellington Zoo was made some time ago and has only just been made public.
oh, interesting. That is dead right and it had escaped my notice. As a point of interest, Wellington seems to now only have male baboons. Melbourne's group is now about 21 animals, while most of the other holders in Australasia have groups of around 7 to 9 animals.
I'm afraid I'm in the majority group of zoo visitors who are mostly interested in the megafauna species and are largely ignorant of lesser known species which if displayed well, could be equally as intriguing. I'm sure rock hyrax would adapt well to the enclosure, as would klipsringers (I had to Google them), though wouldn't have the pull factor of Snow Leopards! Having read more about baboons habituating cliff faces etc., I'm sure the enclosure would not be entirely unsuitable for them, though they are from Africa and Snow Leopards will compliment the Asian theme they have going in that area.
Thanks for that info. I saw on the WZ page, that they were down to 7 and wondered where they'd all gone. Now I know. I thought they had at least 15, so assuming 1 died, that would leave 7 after the export of the 7 you mentioned (all females I take it?) I'd imagine there would be many institutions willing to take females, while the males obviously would be harder to relocate. I still think it's dissapointing to lose them as a species from the zoo. It looks like Melbourne is the place to see a large group now.
The zoo has received a new pair of Cotton Top Tamarins from the UK and Slovakia https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/critically-endangered-tamarins-settle-in-wellington-zoo
According to The Wellington Zoo Annual Report for 2015-2016 the only births recorded at the Zoo "Our Meerkat mob welcomed four pups that are all thriving". A bit sad for a Zoo that is celebrating its 110 anniversary. Too busy being "Carbon Zero" and "sustainable" to breed anything else???
you seem to have a real beef against the zoo. All your posts seem to be for the sole purpose of putting them down. As it happens, meerkats aren't the only births in the year-period. There were, for example, pigmy marmosets and nyala. Not sure why they didn't mention them and others, but your criticism is based solely on you not having any information to the contrary. And what about the good news you could have mentioned from the report? In animal news alone, the import of new grey kangaroos and agoutis for their groups is pretty significant! (But that brings me to my main criticism of the zoo at the moment - no publicity for some of their imports/new animals. The new cottontop tamarins, capybaras, and bongo are examples of animals given press releases which is great. But I have seen nothing outside of member emails and non-public sources for - as examples - the veiled chameleons [except a random X-ray photo on Facebook], the new agoutis, the giant millipedes, the emperor scorpions, the grey kangaroos [the latter were the only totally new ones to my information, but most people who haven't visited the zoo wouldn't know any of these had happened]. It would be nice if prominent newcomers like these got some wider releases to the public). The report: https://wellingtonzoo.com/assets/Resources/Wellington-Zoo-Annual-Report-2015-16.pdf
I am sorry if I appear to have a real beef against Wellington Zoo. I guess I just expect an institution that is "Driving a Zoo Keeping Revolution" to actually breed and keep animals in healthy viable populations. The births of the pygmy marmosets, and nayla were all mentioned in the previous years annual report and did not occur in the year ending 30 June 2016, leaving the breeding success for the year at 4 meerkats. For an organisation with a total revenue of $7.2 million NZ dollars, I expect slightly better breeding results.
fair enough. But FYI, for the births I specifically mentioned: pigmy marmosets were born in September 2015 and nyala in October 2015, both with the year-period of the 2015-16 annual report.
The lack of breeding of the higher profile animals is partly circumstantial: Lions: The three females (born 2001) are post reproductive. Tiger: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permission by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017. Cheetah: Wellington Zoo will only ever hold non breeding males, as will Auckland and Hamilton Zoo. Only Orana have the space to breed cheetah. Sun Bears: The pair are father and daughter. Giraffes: They currently hold a single sex herd, as do Hamilton Zoo and Orana Wildlife Park. Chimpanzee: They have had three infants born between 2010 to 2014, and all females are currently on contraception to avoid overcrowding. Hamdryas Baboon: These are being phased out, and only males remain as they await relocation. Red Panda: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permision by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017/2018. Otter: They hold an all male group.
Auckland Zoo plans to build off-display breeding enclosures for cheetah at the back of the zoo, as per their 10 year master plan. So you would assume that in the future Auckland will breed cheetah. Any ideas to where the remaining baboons will be relocated?
Off display breeding enclosures were constructed for Golden Cat back in the 2000s and worked well. For optimimal breeding cheetah require a combination of space, distance from apex predators (in particular lions), privacy and a selection of males for the female to choose from. Orana have a raceway boardered by several enclosures containing males. She can display a preference for a male this way and they can be paired for breeding. Out of several males, the breeding females have both chosen a male called Jonah. Must be the Beauden Barrett of the cheetah world. I have no idea where the remaining baboons will go, and I'm not sure whether Wellington Zoo do at this stage. Auckland, Adelaide and Melbourne all curate the species but have males already and wouldn't desire more. Optimistically, I'd guess a low profile zoo in Australia which may be happy to simply display Hamdryas, irregardless of the fact they'll be holding a bachelor group. I think there was a new zoo opening up near Sydney which talked of baboons?
