There have been two camel births this year. Khan is seperated as there is going to be a three-way swap of male camels at some point. Can't remember the other two places. Young eland doing well and nearly ready to join everyone on the African Plains. Tiger cubs readily seen outside now. Pixel is still giving Victor a wide birth although some people had been doing a 'polar bear experience' last week and the ranger said it was the closest they'd ever seen them together. Next polar bear(s) was said to be late in the year/next year.
This may or may not be related, but on my last visit to Whipsnade a couple weeks back, a male camel had been separated and was undergoing horsebox training
Last time I talked to a ranger they said that they were going to be unable to build the large paddock for giraffe behind the giraffe house so they are going to split the African Plains into two.
Dortmund zoo, the EEP-Coordinator for giant otter has confirmed that 0.2 otters will be the first arrivals for the new enclosure.
Pure speculation, and as such to be taken with many, many grains of salt: possibly the 0,2 giant otters intended for YWP are the cubs born at Chester some time ago?
Hope not.... I would love the 3 females at chester to be joined by a new male to create a large breeding group. In the wild they live in very large groups and chester could take that many in their large enclosure...?
More likely to be coming from Doue in France , or Duisburg ? The RSCC Facebook page has a link to the Giant Otter EEP Facebook page which has a list of specimens by collection back in March 2015 . All new holders seem to be getting single sex groups , probably because it is now not possible to make up new pairs that are not closely related . The EEP really needs some new blood . Doue is listed as having 4 females , Duisburg 3 .
Without a shadow of a doubt; considering some European-born giant otters *have* been sent to collections in the Americas it seems a bit disappointing none have gone the other direction.
The giant otter will come a GMSP, the issue is not too closely related but not enough zoos interested in keeping the species
It is actually in my view a wished-for procedure / situation for most if not all current managed conservation breeding programs to become really global in reach and in line with some global population management for the benefit of the entire species. This is regardless of whether in any of the individual zoo organisation regions sufficient willpower or capacity exists to maintain a fully fledged conservation breeding program (95%-98% genetic diversity/population-region) in any individual region(s) -. Further, I do think it is incrementally beneficial to all individual zoo organisation regions to have inter-regional cooperation on conservation breeding programs and regular exchange of genes / new blood to maintain the level of genetic diversity in each and every individual zoo regional population. I have it on good authority that in the last few years there has been some "new blood" imported from various Amazonian and South America/Caribbean coastline areas into the EEP/EAZA region! Surely, given the small founder base it is equally beneficial to have some more founders to the EEP/EAZA population in order to get to a level of 20+ founders within the EEP/EAZA population.
Don't worry KB, there are plans but like everything in the zoo world it takes time! Giant otters are here to stay! There will be a lot more cooperation between zoo associations and breeding programmes in the not too distant future.
The Tiger cubs have been named following an online vote - the males are Harley and Hector, whilst the female is called Hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVQymr2ztdM&feature=youtu.be They have released a video of the cubs. They are absolutely adorable. Wonderful to hear that they could be reintroduced back to the wild.
Strictly speaking I don't think they would be reintroduced - they would go to breed at the selected site and the cubs born there would actually be the ones that are released. A crucial part of the process nevertheless. When I first heard a talk about this programme about 5 years ago I never imagined it was going to progress as quickly as it has.
