Banham and Africa Alive to both have ownership/management transfered to the newly formed charitable trust, Zoological Society of East Anglia rather than being in private ownership as they have been until now Plans to transfer two East Anglian zoos to charitable trust - News - Eastern Daily Press
Transfer of both parks is expected to be completed in the next few weeks Kessingland/ Banham: Africa Alive and Banham Zoo to transfer to charitable trust by February - Business - East Anglian Daily Times
Good news. Although a zoo is always run best by a passionate individual, rather than by committees or boards of trustees, it is always better, in the long-term, for those passionate individuals to transfer ownership to a charitable trust, even though this does mean relinquishing power to committees, because it secures the future of the zoo way beyond the lifetime of the person who founded it/bought it. Too many animal collections have closed when the owner retired or died.
The XSEA magazine is interesting . There is an article about the Africa Alive golden-bellied mangabeys . The first pair are 21-year old Edward from Port Lympne ( not sure if he is the original PL male who I am sure was called something else , but he has not bred with any females so far ) and 9 year old Lunda from Wuppertal . The second female , Nia Nia came from Montpellier , it does not say how old she is .
I think this must mean Port Lympne are now on their third male. The original one was called Sancho(or similar) and was very decrepit. I thought it was this male who had been transferred to AA but was surprised given his evidently advanced years. So he presumably died at Port Lympne, and was replaced with 'Edward' at some stage in the last few years( I have seen him mentioned on PL blog somewhere but not relating to his arrival there) and now in turn by the male I saw at PL in September. Hopefully the trios at both parks will start breeding.
This photo warms the cockles of my heart... Again, anyone know if this is a first UK breeding?- it definately must be in modern times.
Yes I guess it should, I was just replying to the previous discussion. I'm happy for it to be moved....
David Field has been announced as the new Chief executive of the ZSEA, he was formerly Zoological Director at zsl.
