Adelaide Zoo Adelaide Zoo News 2018

Kifaru Bwana said:
@Zoofan15, a very valid question. We seem to be revolving on this one.
It would be nice if this ZAA program would function properly ....

In several ways the ZAA program can contribute: 1) conservation breedin; 2) ex situ conservation education; 3) ambassodor species for S.E. Asia and in situ support .....
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Breeding certaintly seems to have stagnated for sun bears in our region. I believe there have only been four successful births in the region: 2.0 at Wellington Zoo (1999), 0.1 at Wellington Zoo (2006), 0.1 at Perth Zoo (2008) and 0.1 at the National Zoo (2008). Only 1 of the 3 females born between 2006 and 2008 has been paired with a male, and none have bred. Therefore the last birth in the region was 10 years ago.

It will be interesting to see if Adelaide Zoo acquire new sun bears or phase this species out of their collection.

As far as I know, the population of sun bears in the region is 4.5 animals, 3.4 in Australia and 1.1 in New Zealand. All aged between 10 years and early 20s.
 
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Nisha said:
Two Spotted Hyena's have arrived at the zoo from Monarto No Cookies | The Advertiser
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The hyena's are being displayed in the former sun bear enclosure. The glass viewing area has been painted over as they settle in with viewing from the top area. The enclosure has not been altered from when it held sun bear.

In other new from the zoo

- The former forest cobra exhibit in the reptile house is being renovated to hold one of the veiled chameleon's held at the zoo.
- A third tamarin tunnel has been erected going over towards the toilet block.
- Both of the goodfellow's tree kangaroo's have now been moved over to the former mastchie's tree kangaroo exhibit.
 
Adelaide Zoo now has binturong again following the arrival of a male from Perth Zoo.

Information from the Perth Zoo facebook page
We recently bid bon voyage to one of our Binturong kits, Jakarta, who is now settling into his new home at Adelaide Zoo as part of the breeding program for this Vulnerable species. Jakarta and his sister Enam were the first Binturongs born at Perth Zoo in our 120 year history!
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It will be interesting to see if Adelaide Zoo acquire new sun bears or phase this species out of their collection.

In the normal trend in Australia it will be no surprise if they phase this species out like so many start then stop again species before them
 
Zorro said:
It will be interesting to see if Adelaide Zoo acquire new sun bears or phase this species out of their collection.

In the normal trend in Australia it will be no surprise if they phase this species out like so many start then stop again species before them
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They probably don’t have any plans for sun bears (unfortunately),:( the old male’s enclosure has since been occupied by hyena, as mentioned above.
 
toothlessjaws said:
And yet zoos still claim "insurance populations" as one of their key reasons for being. They offer little insurance. Most species are badly mismanaged in my opinion.
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I agree, if there were any reintroduction programs for any of the exotic mammals we hold here in Australia/NZ, I doubt we would contribute any stock, (bar a few abc mammals), due to the subspecific status of many species, lack of genetic diversity and dwindling populations.
Honestly give me a dollar for every time I read an Australian/ NZ Zoochatter stating the same thing about the state of our zoos!! You’d think they would listen....unfortunately we are a minority when it comes to zoos’ target audience.
:p:p:p
 
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WhistlingKite24 said:
Unfortunately the Hamadryas baboon baby has died (the second baboon baby to die from this pair). This leaves Adelaide with the breeding pair and two offspring.
Adelaide Zoo
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Any info as to what happened to this baby? I wonder if they need more females to balance out their troop? The previous baby died as a result of injury from one of its brothers apparently...….
 
toothlessjaws said:
And yet zoos still claim "insurance populations" as one of their key reasons for being. They offer little insurance. Most species are badly mismanaged in my opinion.
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Quite right I believe there have been a lot of species over the years that were mismanaged, The Pygmy Hippo was one of them with a few scattered among our major zoos that should of been paired up much much sooner than they did perhaps someone at Taronga may of seen by members statements here in regards to this some time ago as there was an 11th hour rush to breed and pair up animals that could have been breeding a lot sooner yet another speices that fell down between the cracks in our zoo system.
 
I think the sun bears is probably one of the best examples. Here is a species that is notoriously difficult to breed in zoos. Australian zoos imported a number wild-born individuals from overseas rescue situations (Cambodia and Myanmar among others if memory serves correct). These animals would be of high value - wild born, young specimens of a threatened species not well established in zoos. Australian zoos paired them up and put them in precisely the same sort of accommodation as every other zoo in the world. And no surprises, the results were the precisely same: very little breeding. At no point was any alternative pairings or major rethink in housing or management attempted. Every zoo just hung on to their specimens and allowed them to age.

A similar thing happened with Malayan tapirs. Australian zoos imported a number of animals to replace the existing Brazilian tapirs with a breeding program for this more endangered taxon. The Malayans bred quite successfully but suffered blindness, not unheard of in this species, probably due to exposure to the glaring Australian sun. The decision was made to phase them out again, by simply halting breeding - despite the fact that no zoo had actually tried keeping the animals out of the sun until after the damage had been done.

The Brazilian tapirs were never re-favoured again either.

These scenarios are not actually unique to Australia but instead symptomatic of the attitude of all zoos in the world. Its just that with our smaller number of zoos and tighter import protocols, the situation is more obvious and magnified here.

I read an article many years ago about this same problem in US zoos and the way "fads" had seen genetically healthy zoo populations of critically endangered species like lion-tailed macaques crash just because macaques are unpopular compared to other primates species.

In a time when the war to save the worlds biodiversity in the wild is being lost day by day, the need for genetically healthy insurance populations of endangered species is critical. But i'm starting to feel that zoos are completely incapable of providing that - So fundamentally rooted still is their thinking in the menagerie concept of last century.
 
Astrobird said:
Any info as to what happened to this baby? I wonder if they need more females to balance out their troop? The previous baby died as a result of injury from one of its brothers apparently...….
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I'm guessing the brother that killed the third offspring (and possibly this latest, fourth baby) was Tomkay. When the second offspring was born (Dijibouti), 2 year old Tomkay was separated for quite some time and the baby (Dijibouti). Third time round, 3 year old Tomkay and 1 year old Dijibouti, were not separated for long (or at all) and the baby died. Footage of this latest infant showed the troop were all into together (when the infant was only a few weeks old). Keepers noted they start to venture off from the mother at around 6 weeks, and both times this is when things have gone south.

There's footage online of adolescent males like Tomkay grabbing infants by the tail, dragging them around, slamming them into the ground and mating with them. A lot of this behaivour comes from frustration, due to a lack of female interest (often caused by a lack of females in a troop).
 
Sunbear12 said:
Adelaide Zoo did attempt to introduce two females to the troop following the birth of Tomkay. Unfortunately due to issues with aggression the decision was made to export the two females instead of finishing the introduction.
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Do you know which females they were? Where they came from and where they went? I’m guessing the agression probably came from the Gina, Chappi and Horus being so protective of Tomkay as it was following Tomkay’s birth.
 
Sunbear12 said:
Adelaide Zoo did attempt to introduce two females to the troop following the birth of Tomkay. Unfortunately due to issues with aggression the decision was made to export the two females instead of finishing the introduction.
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They should have persevered with it, though trying to add strange females to a pair with a baby isn't the best time- the male would be delighted to have additional females I'm sure, but not the female. I also think lack of females to distract him is why the younger male abuses infants like that, he has no other focus of attention. In a big troop this would less likely to happen I think.
 
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