I agree, the Elephants should have been prioritised first, but it’s too late now. The construction for the new Bison habitat has been going on for some time now so they may as well just finish it.
Zoos Victoria has announced that male elephant Luk Chai has arrived from Taronga Western Plains Zoo to Melbourne Zoo. They plan to breed him with the other female elephants at Melbourne Zoo first before moving them all to Werribee in early 2024. "We hope to introduce him to our breeding females and give them opportunities to reproduce and have calves here at Melbourne Zoo. However, we will take our time and let him get to know them and vice versa." Exciting news for Zoos Victoria's elephant family! A Massive Welcome for a Huge New Melbourne Zoo reisdent
This isn’t how government funded projects typically work, though. Funding is provided in stages over a series of budgets (in this one, it appears to be four), and it’s not the case that the grant recipient can decide how much comes in what year. There are typically also milestones that need to be met to trigger release of the next round of money. Werribee will likely have identified the bison paddock as ‘shovel-ready’ - that is, something that can be started and finished reasonably quickly so that progress can be demonstrated, while the more complicated and design-intensive things like an elephant exhibit are planned and prepared for in the background.
I understand and agree with you but how much input would the managers have as to what is really more urgent?
It is very much a question of how selling it to the fundors and the boxes they would like to have ticked (quite often they do not correspond to what the vision plan is, a major lacunae in government and administrative funding mechanisms often brought on by their need - ego does come into it too - to score in 2-3 years without having achieved the long term aims and vision and then somehow halfway through the whole thing goes to ground). I could very easily make the case why in the masterplan A) elephants and B) expanding your savannah in terms of attractions and species are far more important for the long term vision Werribee is to project than out of place American bison will ever be! Admittedly and personally, I find that in the Australia environment North American and/or Eurasian species are actually a non-starter for exhibits simply habitat-ecotype-biotope wise. Further, in the country at large you already have considerable issues with deliberately and accidental introduced exotics that are damaging the local ecosystem starting with "mega" vertebrate (dromedary, buffalo, red-fallow-sambar-hog-rusa-chital-deer) down to the lesser, but eventually some of the most damaging (brown hare, black rat, house mouse ..., red fox, cane toad, house sparrow, common starling, common carp, rainbow trout, mosquito fish ...)! An endless list, I am afraid. Now, I can imagine that you would as a serious educational facility open up an exhibit on introduced species and use it to show how they are affecting the Australian environment (just fine). However, somehow species that are not typically found in an arid, semi-arid nor tropical north that which is Australia seems quite out of place here. It would be better if the local zoos and association take advantage of the environment that is there and how this could be a benefit for exhibiting particular kinds of species from similar habitat regions in Asia/Africa. BTW: I meant all this in the atmosphere - location of the open range zoo concepts only.
It would be rather difficult for Zoos Victoria to make a pitch for how urgently needed a new elephant exhibit is, while simultaneously bringing a new bull to Melbourne. But that’s not quite the point, anyway. A new elephant exhibit at Werribee is a complex, design- and planning-heavy task. I doubt the zoo went very far into the engineering and design work before securing funding, because if they weren’t successful that money would be wasted. By contrast, I expect the new bison exhibit will be relatively simple. In other words, they are building the bison one first because they can. None of that is particularly relevant because, if you plug in Werribee on Google Maps, you will find it is in the far south-east of the continent and is neither arid, or semi-arid, or tropical in its climate. I will note that your particular cynicism in the first paragraph is unfounded. The current Victorian state government (disclosure, which I work for, but as a civil servant, not a political staffer) puts an enormous focus on completing projects and delivering promises. I have absolutely no doubt that this new Werribee master plan is real and that any failure to deliver will be due to Zoos Vic changing its mind (again), not because the promised money didn’t materialise.
@CGSwans, I have no doubt that the Werribee MP and expansion is real. Nor that the money would be not forthcoming! I never said that. I just feel that the focus on bison over what elephants and other parts of the MP is a bad choice. As such what comes first is very much relevant. Further, I am thinking of the wider Continent Australia and not just the SE corner and its particular climate and what seems to me the most desirable for future animal collection development in the region. I do take personal exception at you using the word "cynicism", I find that wording out of place and certainly out of my character. It is just my experience with grand project visions over time (in my home country as well as abroad and repeatedly. It remains an art with long term 10+-20+ year visions go forward over time everything it the project brief got done). We may or may not disagree on zoo issues, that is fine ..., but please keep it civil. Rest assured: I really do have every hope the long term vision of the Werribee open range zoo gets done.
I accept that I must have misinterpreted your comment, but I do think it was a reasonable one. You suggested that it’s common for projects to “go to ground” after an initial “score” within 2-3 years. I don’t know how you intended that to read, but a face-value one is that you were suggesting the Victorian government’s commitment to the project could not be trusted. That was the implication i responded to. My use of the word “cynicism” certainly wasn’t intended as a slur - there’s a lot of things in this world to be quite justifiably cynical about. Back to the substance. There seems to be a persistent misconception in this thread that the bison exhibit is coming at the expense of the elephant one. It simply isn’t. The bison project is ready to go now, so it’s underway now. The elephant one isn’t, and so it will be built later, when it *is* ready.
CGSwans, thanks for your reply and your and mine intentions are clear. Appreciated and fine! I have been reading up closely all background info and know that the bison project is not foregoing the elephant project as such. I had just this lingering hope - probably with most of the Down Under crowd - that the elephant project would be on line first. I certainly cannot wait to see it all come to fruition in the next few years. As such, I remain very excited! One last thing: I hope the Werribee elephant project will also stimulate the region into getting wider cooperation from the international community. Europe has a lot to offer in terms of bull elephants, actually, some of which are too related to stock here ... but of real benefit to either North America or Australasia!
I’m confused as to why bison are inappropriate for Werribee and elephants are not. If you are worried by the pest potential of bison, they have been in this country for a very long time, including attempts to farm them, with no signs of them going feral. They have also been at Werribee since it opened. As to moving the elephants the current management is totally committed to this action.
I realize he said a lot more but @CGSwans covered this adequately. I am confused by the argument- is it that Australian zoos should not exhibit temperate zone animals?
He is saying that Asian elephants are endangered and should be put before Bison which are common and can be found on a lot of farms. It has nothing that I know of about different zoned animals
Zorro, can you please explain how you infer that bison are being “put before” elephants? The sequencing of construction has been explained repeatedly now.
I would agree that threatened species should be preferred to common species however as @CGSwans points out this is not an either/or situation. However I would also say this. Let us not kid ourselves this is about conservation. There is very little chance that zoo elephants will affect the position of elephants in the wild. The money being spent on this project could fund dozens if not hundreds of in range projects, and dozens if not hundreds of breeding programs of more endangered, but less charismatic, species.
No one is saying this other than you, He is simply saying elephants should be put before Bison why try to make this out to be anything more.
I'm sorry, but it is you that brought up the threatened status, just to be clear. Anyway this is going nowhere so that is my final comment.
@Zorro and @Kifaru Bwana, I think you guys might be reading a little too much into it. The bison are probably just in the way of construction. And the "bison plains" is probably just a fancy way of saying they are moving them to a new paddock. In fact depending on the plans you look at, the bison (and wild horses) are potentially just being shifted to some existing paddocks that currently hold odds and ends on the other side of the river.
