The zoo has presented their newest King vulture chick. It hatched on 23rd February in incubator and got returned to parents three days later. Ostrava keeps their vulture breeding pair off show permanently to provide them with safe enviroment. The pair rears its 6th chick since year 2017. The article also mentions that european captive population is around 100 birds. Article
A commercial poultry farm (within 10 km from zoo) with 15.000 turkeys reported bird flu. The zoo is allowed to stay open and it didnt announce any restrictions for visitors. But it´s prohibited to transfer any birds into or away from their areal for 30 days. Also, probably next week weekend, rhododendrons will start to bloom. Ostrava zoo has a large collection of 400 varieties. They have whole rhododendron park near Chitwan bear exhibit. Nice time to visit. Personaly I prefer Průhonický park (ca 10km south of Prague) for rhododendron appreciation visits. They have less varieties. But 200 hectares of nicely maintained English style park.
According to local media, the zoo closed all walk-through bird aviaries. Source I guess, Papua pavilion is also closed (it´s works as one-way-street for visitors and you leave it through an aviary). And probably some bird species kept in open-top exhibits were moved indoors.
And another lemur added to the collection: 2.0 greater bamboo lemur from Cologne have arrived. This makes Ostrava the 7th European zoo of this critically endangered species.
Eurasian griffon vultures have a small chick. The first one ever for the zoo (at least I cant find any mentions of earlier success). The zoo keeps 2 vulture pairs in one aviary. An old pair, too old to breed, got a dummy egg, to be entertained and to not bother the second pair. The young pair laid a second egg in this season (the first one was pulled by keepers but died in incubator), incubated it themselves and now feeds a chick. The female is 22 years old, her name is Riga (she came in 2019 from Riga zoo), the male is 33 years old and came from Zlin.
Serval twin cubs (born two months ago) are on show with their parents. They are 1.1 10 green tree python babies hatched few days ago, but are off-show now. Their parents live in Papua pavilion. The adult breeding male came from Leipzig zoo, two females are Plzen´s bred. Source
The new parking house (capacity 200 cars) is open and running. A binturong cub was born last month. It was already visible to visitors but only now announced by the zoo. Its sex is unknown yet. Its older sibling lives mixed with small-clawed otters and waits for EEP recommendation where to be sent to. Source
Rough-scaled sand boas (Eryx conicus) have bred for the first time. Two of them were born recently (this species doesnt lay eggs, they birth live youngs). The zoo obtained a group of 2,1 last summer and they live in a show tank inside the lion-tailed macaque house opened last year. Source
Caribbean flamingo flock has an average breeding season. So far with 7 chicks. White-naped crane pair has 2 chicks. They live in a walk-through exhibit (mixed with smews, scaly-sided mergansers and Mandarin ducks) but it´s closed temporary to give them calm enviroment. Ural owl pair (Strix uralensis macroura) had 5 chicks and all were sent to Austria for rewilding in localities of Wienerwald and Dürrenstein. Krakow zoo had transported additional 3 own chicks to Ostrava, those were repacked and sent too. Central African rock python (Python sebae) laid eggs and 19 babies hatched. Babies are kept backstage, the breeding pair is in reverse-light exhibit in pavilion Tanganika Source
Last Wednesday two female Rothschild's giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi) (*2021) arrived from Safari Park Beekse Bergen. Zoo Ostrava now has 1,3 Rotschild's giraffes. Source: Instagram of Zoo Ostrava (20/07/2023)
The zoo bred Black pond turtle (Geoclemys hamiltonii) again after 5 years. It keeps a breeding group of 3.1 backstage. The female laid three clutches this year and so far 42 babies hatched in incubator, few more eggs are still there. Half of the eggs were incubated in higher temperature (to become females) and half in lower temperature (to become males). Other zoos that bred this species recently are Zoo Halle and Leipzig. So whoever is planning to start with the species can currently obtain unrelated pairs/groups. Source The colony of 8.10 Lord Derby's parakeets (Psittacula derbiana) kept at cage just behind zoo gate (it´s the former Eurasian eagle owl cage) has bred and currently has 19 fledged chicks - all of them parent reared. This is a convenient species for low-budget zoos - fully winter hard, mid-sized, with visible sexual dimorfism and can be kept in flocks. Source
Next year should start building of pengun exhibit. Planned is also reconstruction of African animal house (giraffe house possibly?) and "improvement of conditions in leopard paddock". https://moravskoslezsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/zoo-ostrava-novinky-akce-rozhovor-s-reditelem.html
For those interested, the Annual Report of Zoo Ostrava was recently published, it includes a complete census (including population changes) towards the bottom. https://www.zoo-ostrava.cz/soubory_texty/51_20.pdf
A chimpanzee was born earlier this week and "Pavilon evoluce" is closed for visitors due to it. Source
The attendance figure was 612.000 last year. The zoo could grow it by 1% compared to year before and thus reached a new record. The zoo kept 6592 animals of 452 taxons at the end of the year. During the year 2023, it saw 2146 animals born or hatched - however half of them were fish. A back part of pavilion Tanganika is under reconstruction that should finish in spring 2024. It will be used as a mixed exhibit for warthogs and banded mungooses (both will be new species). One outdoor fish pond (near elephants) with its islands has been repaired and cleared of mud. It will be used to keep pelicans in future. The zoo has no pelicans since 2013, thus this will be a new addition to its collection. The zoo supported 20 in-situ projects with ca 72.000 euro it got from entrance fee. Another 10.000 euro were raised by benefition run for coral protection program. The zoo started a new "komise zahradnická" under UCSZ. A group for gardeners working in Czech and Slovak zoos that enables them to meet annually. link
A lion-tailed macaque born in last few days. The first one after arrival of a new breeding male. The group has 11 adult females and most are expected to give birth. Source A zoo keeper is on a trip to Senegal and she is updating studbook of captive western giant elands there. She posts short videos on FB. Link
