Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden What's Gnu at the Cincinnati Zoo - 2016

The zoo has just announced that Saari the Bactrian camel is pregnant yet again!

 

Small update - Its been about a month and half but Ali, the aardvark is still waiting to give birth.

https://www.facebook.com/cincinnati...61800120478/10153817661255479/?type=3&theater

 

"Ali" the aardvark gave birth early this morning, but the calf did not survive; "Ali", herself, however, is doing well.

 

A baby potto named Otto was born.

 

This isn't so much news for the zoo itself but news about work the zoo has been doing with rhinos. The zoo's protocol and assistance in giving oral progesterone to female rhinos to help those who have difficulty carrying a calf to term do just that, has successfully produced the first surviving rhino calf for Toronto Zoo in over 17 years. Hopefully the work done in this case will help fine tune things and more healthy rhino calves will arrive throughout the AZA in the coming years.

Toronto Zoo welcomes 'vulnerable' baby Indian rhinoceros - Toronto - CBC News

 

Video about the new baby potto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqN9AIxmcqM

 

Updates galore!

First off, a blog update about "Moe" the zoo's female Linne's two-toed sloth being moved off exhibit for breeding with a male named "Twix" on a temporary breeding loan from the Racine Zoo. While "Moe" is off exhibit, her exhibit will be renovated and expanded to include several more trees and vines, allowing her much more space to move about; the blog post also highlights some of the zoo's conservation work with sloths in Costa Rica!
Sloth News: A Mate for Moe and Sloths on the Go in Costa Rica | Cincinnati Zoo Blog

Now, for the other updates:

-The zoo will be receiving a pair (1.1) of tamanduas for the interpretive collection.

-The last of the zoo's golden dart frogs has died, and their exhibit in the Insect House will now hold an ornate horned frog.

-The new male fennec fox I announced previously, named "Jager", is now on exhibit with the zoo's female, "Sage"

-The Steller's sea eagle pair has nested, and the hatching window for the egg(s) is expected to be from between today, February 22nd, and February 29th.

And lastly... The biggest news I have to reveal today...

This April, the zoo will be receiving "Einstein" a male Baird's tapir from the Sedgwick County Zoo to go on exhibit in the currently vacant former Sumatran rhinoceros yard!

 

The Cincinnati Zoo, along with a handful of other zoos across the nation, are a part of a research to determine a body condition scoring system for wild polar bears:
Helping Scientists Assess the Body Condition of Polar Bears in the Wild | Cincinnati Zoo Blog

 

Fact pages for the Baird's tapir and golden-headed lion tamarins have been added to the zoo's website.

 

As I was told the tamarins would be put in the former indoor Langur exhibit, quite large for the small Monkeys.

 

Another article on the upcoming hippo exhibit:
HGC Construction tackles Cincinnati Zoo?s ?most complex? exhibit, tons of hippo poo - Cincinnati Business Courier

(Opinion time. It will be yet another hugely popular exhibit that forces hippos to live in a pair with very limited space. In the wild they live in groups - why not in zoos?)

 

I don't like the herd thing. I can think of maybe one herd of hippos in a zoo- at Animal Kingdom. The next best is Saint Louis, with four. After that, there are a few zoos with three. 70,000 gallons isn't too bad but so many zoos are doing more for their bippos now. The Dallas Zoo will be getting 1.2 hippos in a 3.5 acre habitat with a 120,000 gallon pool- leaving the door open for more hippos. It sounds miles better than this of Cincinatti- but at a several million higher price.

 

Meaning you don't like my suggestion of creating a herd/pod? Or you don't like the fact that Cincy is not creating a herd/pod?

 

The fact that they aren't creating a herd. Sorry for not being so clear, I need to work on that.

 

That will, indeed, be quite a deal of space for them! I wonder whether they will have the entire space to themselves or if they will be housed with other species, as they were when the zoo last exhibited them in what is now the indoor Komodo dragon enclosure.

To be fair, the exhibit was designed with aims of housing several additional hippos. The zoo was initially supposed to be receiving 1.2, but I do not know why this changed; however, I cannot defend against the lack of grazing (or otherwise for that matter) space, as this is a major grievance I, too, have with zoos exhibiting hippos, as this is a basic biological process for these animals and a major part of their activity budget in the wild... I hope that it is something that a zoo will finally step up to the plate and address before long!

As to not misconstrue information, I think it's important to note that the entire exhibit complex, hippos, okapi, hogs, storks, visitor space, etc, is 3.5 acres, not just the hippo exhibit, itself.

 

Whoops, misunderstood that (too good to be true!)

 

After the fact that the outline of the exhibit is fully complete and that the walls are nearly done, it is apparent that the hippo exhibit will be very identical to the size of St. Louis's exhibit

 

From the zoo's Facebook page:

 

Is the bear still "on the loose" behind the scenes or is it back to normal now?

 

We were told the animal is secure however, guests as of now must wait about 30 minutes until they can walk through the park again.