Howletts Wild Animal Park Howletts Wild Animal Park News 2018
- Thread starter vogelcommando
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Indeed. If they go the same way as the Aspinall gorillas then it's either going to be several dead gibbons or being confined to an island. I personally feel that these animals should have been distributed to zoos rather than being shipped out to face an uncertain future.
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I like how the first sentence of the article is "Cheeky gibbons have finally been released into the wild after travelling more than 7,000 miles to the Indonesian jungle." and then the third sentence is "The apes were flown over 7,300 miles to a primate rehabilitation center near Bandung, Indonesia, where they were released into enclosures."
The gibbon rehabilitation and release programme has been going on at Bandung for many years. That these particular gibbons came from Howletts is incidental. Unlike the gorilla release this is actually a working model.Indeed. If they go the same way as the Aspinall gorillas then it's either going to be several dead gibbons or being confined to an island. I personally feel that these animals should have been distributed to zoos rather than being shipped out to face an uncertain future.
Thanks for the information, I did honestly think it was another Damien Aspinall vanity project. In that case I take back my original comment, though I would like to see the gibbons spread to more collections still.
Well it still kind of is - he is just using the established centre in Java to facilitate it.Thanks for the information, I did honestly think it was another Damien Aspinall vanity project. In that case I take back my original comment, though I would like to see the gibbons spread to more collections still.
I don't know if the gibbon individuals sent to Java were surplus or better off being retained in the captive population. If they are actually surplus then I have no objections at all; if they are valuable then they (or at least some of them) should have been retained.
Perth Zoo releases surplus Sumatran Orangutans into the wild which certain Zoochatters object to, but in my opinion surplus Orangutans should be used for reintroduction experiments. Releasing captive-bred animals is very different to releasing formerly-wild animals (and both are different to releasing human-raised pet apes). If zoos are supposed to be "saving animals for the future" then there need to be reintroduction experiments. Perth's reintroductions are done through the reintroduction schemes already in place in Sumatra.
Gorillas should also be used for reintroduction attempts because there are loads of surplus Gorillas, but I don't know if there are any real programmes in place for that. Simply throwing Gorillas out into the forest is only going to result in a bunch of dead Gorillas.
Which is what has happened previously if I remember correctly. That was the main reason my heart sank at first.
I also don't know if they were surplus or not but it wouldn't surprise me to find out they're needed to support the captive population. Let's be honest, DA doesn't really seem bothered about other collections but does like to look good in the media.
The population of Javan gibbons is not exactly big outside of the Aspinall collections, though it has been growing slowly in the past years, there are still only very few holders in Europe.
Indeed, only nine collections including Aspinall's. One of those collections is Kiev, anyone know where they came from? I don't see Aspinall sending them to what is (by all accounts) a very shoddy place.
I think Orangutans are a very good example of a species that merits and lends itself to releases into the wild. They breed extremely freely in captivity and I'd far rather see the surplus used in reintroduction projects than introduced to yet more zoo holdings. I also think they must be pretty much at saturation level in captivity nowadays.
Just a few changes I noticed on my visit to Howletts on 4/3/18:
Signage for the African Wildcat has been removed, though the enclosure looked like it was occupied by something. Margay signed in next enclosure which formally held an elderly Ocelot .
Iberian Wolves moved to the enclosure near the new Gorilla buildings which previously held Dhole & Timber Wolf before that. European Wolves (2 seen in old Iberian Wolf enclosure )
A Cheetah enclosure has been constructed at the end of the deer park , opposite the lion-tailed macaques.
A lot of the bushes appear to have been cut back along the mansion side of the woodland path and much better views of the enclosures on that side at the moment (albeit from a distance ). Saw a Heck's Macaque for the first time in a few visits.
Signage for the African Wildcat has been removed, though the enclosure looked like it was occupied by something. Margay signed in next enclosure which formally held an elderly Ocelot .
Iberian Wolves moved to the enclosure near the new Gorilla buildings which previously held Dhole & Timber Wolf before that. European Wolves (2 seen in old Iberian Wolf enclosure )
A Cheetah enclosure has been constructed at the end of the deer park , opposite the lion-tailed macaques.
A lot of the bushes appear to have been cut back along the mansion side of the woodland path and much better views of the enclosures on that side at the moment (albeit from a distance ). Saw a Heck's Macaque for the first time in a few visits.
No Wild Dogs or Lynx on my visit last month!
A serval was signed in the usual enclosure, but not seen on my visit last month.
As indicated earlier, there were no signs for the Wildcat or Ocelot though.
On my visit at the end of February the serval was there, but I must have walked past the enclosure half a dozen times without seeing it.
As pipaluk says, nothing for lynx, wildcat, wild dogs or ocelot.