Zooplantman
Well-Known Member
Nope, orangs
Fewer in zoos if I am correct
Fewer in zoos if I am correct
Bristol Zoo (Closed) Bristols new zoo
- Thread starter kiang
- Start date
well monkey world managed to get thier hands on one! they arent "as" common as borneo ones but there are still quite a few in zoos across the world, from an education point of view it should be all sumaturan animals!
Correct overall/numerically. In the Uk only Chester and Jersey currently exhibit them ,but in Europe I believe the zoos keeping Sumatrans equal and may actually outnumber those with Bornean orangutans and some e.g. Heidleberg, Zurich, Basel, La Boisierre etc have large breeding groups. Bristol have kept Sumatran Orangutans previously and it shouldn't be difficult for them to obtain them again on that basis.
Monkeyworld's only Sumatran orangutan 'Aris' was sent to them from a European zoo(Basel?) for socialisation purposes, but I believe he was wrongly introduced to older animals which resulted in his injury and subsequent death.
Berlin Zoo has two seperate groups of Sumatran Orang-utan, around 9 animals total I believe - strangley though the information board they have up states that "orang-utans come from Borneo" and also they have BOS material around.
I would be really pleased to see more Sumatrans in the UK and hopefully some sort of education/funding relating to the sumatran species - having spent the summer in Sumatra/Bornea you can really see the difference in support between the species, the critically endangered sumatran orang "rehab" centre was basically a hut, a couple of horrible looking cages and a feeding platform - whereas both of the centres I visited in Borneo were on a much larger scale with much better funding and facilities, it seems that it is always BOS that is the group that gets supported by the Zoo community, would be really amazing to see some kind of link between this new project and genuine in situ conservation in Sumatra before the last few animals are exterminated. I guess the problem is making sure the money does what is needed and not just end up in the pocket of some corrupt Indonesian official.
I would be really pleased to see more Sumatrans in the UK and hopefully some sort of education/funding relating to the sumatran species - having spent the summer in Sumatra/Bornea you can really see the difference in support between the species, the critically endangered sumatran orang "rehab" centre was basically a hut, a couple of horrible looking cages and a feeding platform - whereas both of the centres I visited in Borneo were on a much larger scale with much better funding and facilities, it seems that it is always BOS that is the group that gets supported by the Zoo community, would be really amazing to see some kind of link between this new project and genuine in situ conservation in Sumatra before the last few animals are exterminated. I guess the problem is making sure the money does what is needed and not just end up in the pocket of some corrupt Indonesian official.
Jersey keep them as well
it's strange there are only two groups nowadays in Uk, whereas there are plenty in European Zoos. Other Uk zoos which have kept them in the past include; Bristol, Twycross, Dudley(female of mixed race pair), London, also Belle Vue, Flamingo Park and Colchester(all the same animal!) also Edinburgh who achieved the first Uk breeding in the 1930's with a Sumatran pair 'Mickey & 'Minnie'. I would love to see them in a few more of our zoos as they are very different to Borneans- much more active in behaviour.
