Hemsley Conservation Centre Hemsley Conservation Centre

Zooreviewsuk said:
Hi Thomas,

I just want to correct you on this. Hemsley have two Eastern Aardwolves. Which will be going on show very soon. Hopefully before Easter if they can get the exhibit finished in time. They are considering it being a combined exhibit with Aardvarks, but these are likely to come later and the Aardwolves will go on show in the next couple of months.
Neither of their Aardwolves have come from Park Cottage / Park Exotics according to the owner of Hemsley and neither did they have to pay a pretty money for.

I just wanted to give facts to the above rumour, having spoken to the owner of the centre myself recently and he was very open about current plans and that.
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Even better if they have two! That's great!

In reference to the "pretty penny" comment - that was just an assumption, but something that I'm sure most zoochatters would also assume as due to their rarity, and that they were acquired privately - that was, what I believed , to be the only somewhat rumour aspect to my comment.
 
ThomasNotTom said:
Even better if they have two! That's great!

In reference to the "pretty penny" comment - that was just an assumption, but something that I'm sure most zoochatters would also assume as due to their rarity, and that they were acquired privately - that was, what I believed , to be the only somewhat rumour aspect to my comment.
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But your post gave the impression you knew that they had one and stated where it came from which was false . So if you were in fact guessing as to where the animal was sourced it would have been better to say that then effectively state something you didn’t know to be true ?
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Given the fact that the Park Exotics and Hamerton stock is the last remaining in the UK - and neither are exactly young - I suspect obfuscation somewhere along the line.
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Although they are not . They may be the only Zoo or place listed on Zootierliste perhaps but they are not the only holders.
 
Zooreviewsuk said:
But your post gave the impression you knew that they had one and stated where it came from which was false . So if you were in fact guessing as to where the animal was sourced it would have been better to say that then effectively state something you didn’t know to be true ?
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I believed what I had been informed to be true - I was in no way guessing, and would not have made such a comment if I had thought it to be false.

It's pretty clear from how and what I said, that I did not appear or intend to be speculating - as said, I believed what I said to be true.

I was correct that they had at least one - I was just unaware that they had another.

If what you have stated does happen to be true - then that's great - it would be great to know where they have infact come from, if not Park Cottage.

Thanks.
 
Zooreviewsuk said:
Although they are not . They may be the only Zoo or place listed on Zootierliste perhaps but they are not the only holders.
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I hope you realise that by acting big-headed on a public forum and explicitly stating that you know the origin of an animal but then, despite sharing that point publicly, refusing to share the information with the rest of that public forum, is exactly what I was referring to in my previous post. A lot of us on this forum know certain things we aren’t allowed to say, but at least most of those people don’t go sharing the fact that we know that information and refuse to tell others! My advice is if you know something but don’t want to tell people it then keep the fact that you know said information to yourself, and once it is public knowledge then mention that you had known where they were from… it’s exactly this kind of attitude that makes people on this forum so desperate for a scoop!
 
ShonenJake13 said:
I hope you realise that by acting big-headed on a public forum and explicitly stating that you know the origin of an animal but then, despite sharing that point publicly, refusing to share the information with the rest of that public forum, is exactly what I was referring to in my previous post. A lot of us on this forum know certain things we aren’t allowed to say, but at least most of those people don’t go sharing the fact that we know that information and refuse to tell others! My advice is if you know something but don’t want to tell people it then keep the fact that you know said information to yourself, and once it is public knowledge then mention that you had known where they were from… it’s exactly this kind of attitude that makes people on this forum so desperate for a scoop!
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I think this is a tad harsh - the original intention was to simply correct what was posted by ThomasNotTom. It was only further questioning of this that led to the statement 'I know where they came from. Not for me to say though'. What is big headed about that? It is just a fact to support the correction.

Personally I can't abide when people do what you are suggesting - i.e. jump in with 'well I knew all along' after the fact. That seems far more desperate to me...

Anyway - I don't much care where they came from. I am however of the same opinion as @Shorts i.e. I hope the size / quality of exhibits are going to improve as the place grows. When we visited it did strike me that I would have preferred fewer of the more common species (lemurs and meerkats for instance) in the interests of using the space more generously for the more unique species.

I do appreciate that they probably need some 'crowd pleasers' for those who (unlike us) were not willing to wait several hours to see a Geoffroy's cat - but I observed the most engagement from other guests in the talks that took place. I genuinely think a more 'professional' set up for talks / meet & greets etc and improved accomodation for fewer animals would improve their visitor experience more than holding lemurs / meerkats does.
 
Zia said:
I genuinely think a more 'professional' set up for talks / meet & greets etc and improved accomodation for fewer animals would improve their visitor experience more than holding lemurs / meerkats does.
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Hear, hear! I was genuinely a little nervous when one staff member supervised three young children (eldest eight, maximum) in feeding a number of meerkats in a fairly tight enclosed space. Maybe the animals were considered very tame, maybe the staff member was fantastic and very experienced but for me there were too many variables (mainly three young children) in too tight a space.
 
Zooreviewsuk said:
Although they are not . They may be the only Zoo or place listed on Zootierliste perhaps but they are not the only holders.
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I am not merely relying on ZTL, actually.

To be blunt, I rather suspect I know more than you about the current captive situation of Eastern Aardwolf in Europe, given my long-standing interest in the species and the fact I've been in correspondence with individuals keeping track of the population on ZIMS for some time - and you *do* have a track record of making wild claims and, when called out on it, insisting you have "sources" which confirm these claims.... for instance, the whole "World of Bears" debacle.

To break things down:

All the Eastern Aardwolf in Europe over the past decade or so came from a handful of imports undertaken by Todd Dalton between 2009 and 2012 - the searchable CITES import database indicates that a total of 13 living individuals arrived, and that there have been no imports since.

Capture proteles.PNG

In the intervening time, the population has slowly dropped as individuals have died, as no successful (beyond 30 days) breedings have occurred, although I know of three collections which had DNS-breedings.

My sources have confirmed to me that ZIMS now explicitly states there are now only four individuals remaining in Europe, with the other nine all accounted for in one way or another:

1,1 at Zoo Halle
0,1 at Hamerton
1,0 at Hemsley

The 1,0 at Hemsley is listed as having come from a private collection - and only one private collection is listed as having received stock from RSCC, in August 2015. This tallies with the announcement by Park Exotics that they now kept the species in September 2015.

TL;DR: Much as I dearly, dearly wish there *were* more Eastern Aardwolf in European collections, there are not :( as such, either your source provided you with incorrect information, or you misinterpreted what they said to you.
 
Park Exotics had 2 aardwolves, I assume 1 past away? And did 1 die at Hamerton as I though they had 1 Southern and 2 Eastern?
 
zootiger said:
Park Exotics had 2 aardwolves, I assume 1 past away? And did 1 die at Hamerton as I though they had 1 Southern and 2 Eastern?
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It was reported on the Hamerton thread that one of their pair of Eastern had died
 
Hemsley have posted on their Facebook page that they will be announcing two new insectivorous species over the next few days.
The heavily cropped images attached with the post seem to show an aardwolf and a six-banded armadillo.

In other news, a female black-tailed marmoset has arrived at Hemsley to join the individual already kept there. Again, the news comes from the centre's Facebook page.
 
DesertRhino150 said:
Hemsley have posted on their Facebook page that they will be announcing two new insectivorous species over the next few days.
The heavily cropped images attached with the post seem to show an aardwolf and a six-banded armadillo.

In other news, a female black-tailed marmoset has arrived at Hemsley to join the individual already kept there. Again, the news comes from the centre's Facebook page.
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Good news about the Aardwolf.
They have had at least 2 black tailed marmosets on my last 3 visits over the last year, maybe they were both male and one has moved elsewhere?
 
pipaluk said:
They have had at least 2 black tailed marmosets on my last 3 visits over the last year, maybe they were both male and one has moved elsewhere?
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Just seen another post on Hemsley's Facebook page - there were indeed two males (brothers), one of which has recently left to form a new pair at another zoo.
 
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