Fingers crossed having another big carnivore visible will provide a similar footfall boost to the tigers (both white and otherwise) once this storm passes, too
Hamerton Zoo Park Hamerton news 2020
- Thread starter DesertRhino150
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Fingers crossed having another big carnivore visible will provide a similar footfall boost to the tigers (both white and otherwise) once this storm passes, too
Good luck for the virtual opening!
One question I hope you don't mind answering: my understanding is that Australia banned the export of its fauna. How has Hamerton managed to build up such an interesting collection of Australasian fauna? Are they coming from collections/private collectors outside Oz?
Thanks! Hope to visit hamerton this summer for the first time to see all these unusual critters!
That's fantastic news, and I look forward to seeing the new enclosure - even if it is in virtual form for now. Great to hear that you are ploughing forwards even without contractors' assistance. I genuinely wish you nothing but good luck going forwards, Hamerton is one of the best collections in the UK and is very much loved and needed by zoo fans!
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
Thank you - that's very kind...
Good luck with the virtual opening, @Andrew Swales - I'm excited to see what you have made for them.
cliffxdavis
Well-Known Member
I suggest you contact the BBC and ask them why they are reporting on the plight of German zoos but are ignoring the situation in the UK.
German zoo may have to feed animals to each other
and even the USA carry the story
A zoo is struggling so much that it may have to feed some animals to other animals - CNN
I know they are using the "feed the hoofstock to the carnivores" angle to sensationalise the issue but it is a serious problem here, as clearly you know.
I am suggesting you do it as I think you explain the issues lucidly and would be a good spokesperson for the zoo community.
Really looking forward to visiting again.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
Thank you. We have been in touch with the BBC (TV) locally and nationally several times, and each time they ignore the contact. We have all the attempts in a 'dossier'! Local radio has done one good piece which kick-started our CrowdFunding page, although this has died off now the front page has changed.
The letter I wrote to our MP, and which some might have seen on here before it was taken down, has now had a reply and we hope might be knocking on some doors as it were. I wont detail it further in case the same happens again.
We've still not received the £25k from the LA.
Our bank has still not 'frozen' our loans, as they were instructed to do by the Government a month ago.
All of the official 'help' is either for other 'businesses', charities, capital development etc. Its almost as if the net has been deliberately designed to let us fall through it - and we really wouldn't need very much, in the general scheme of things.
Have a look at
If you change the hat and the accent, Steve could be describing Hamerton - the similarities are uncanny.
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Did not know Steve had an accent? LOL
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
Another small/medium zoo story from down-under, where in NSW it does look as though there has been some help with staff wages...?
ZOO ANIMALS STILL CARED FOR DURING PANDEMIC | NBN News
ZOO ANIMALS STILL CARED FOR DURING PANDEMIC | NBN News
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
We received our £25,000 today - yipee...!
Its been spent already of course, so it makes no difference, except to reduce the overdraft charges the bank is taking by a few pounds...
Its been spent already of course, so it makes no difference, except to reduce the overdraft charges the bank is taking by a few pounds...
Australia banned the commercial export of wild caught native animals. Exchange of captive stock between zoos is a whole different ball game.Put quite simply, your understanding was incorrect
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
Ad a generalisation yes, but not quite right as one of our Barking Owls is wild-caught...
Thank goodness for that last titbit as I - generally - fail to see why regulated trade between breeding facilities across continents (and not just accredited zoos) would not be able to work towards common in situ conservation goals and where some national administrations put in blanket bans without looking at the wider picture nor shared interests and still failing to protect species on the ground.
BTW (when thinking of Australia): I very recently listened in to a BBC WS item on the (past) forest fires in Australia. It seemed pretty bizarre the Government was silent, lacklustre and inactive on action while the fires raged, trying to save people, forests and wildlife and after the fires were pretty much doused by intermittent rain and then floods killed off and poisoned the river systems and poured out dead fish mash and mud, it seems to have had a lapse from drowsy sleep.
The Govt. has now woken up only to start considering what to do for man, property and the like. Not a single mention of the 6 million km2 forests destroyed and or the thousands and thousands of species on the brink now or probably gone extinct as a result of the habitat destroyed completely (consider: in parts of the best habitat for koalas that may have been 30% destroyed the estimates are that 80% koala populations have disappeared and now putting these core habitats for the species at risk).
Normally, one would consider this a natural when discussing palm oil plantations in far-off S.E. Asia or something and be unsurprised that deforestation and mining continue unabated. No, I am not being sentimental and I am fully aware how we in Europe have destroyed and continue to ... destroy our environment in heavily industrialised agriculture and mining and industry. All the same, the Australian forest fires and droughts and the Govt. record on environment makes me wonder too.
Interesting. Probably not regarded as 'commercial'?
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
No, it was a physically perfect wild casualty which had failed several attempts at release, so was classed as un-releasable. Australia has much tighter pre-release protocols, which it had failed, repeatedly. DEFRA UK refused import CITES because it was wild-taken, but eventually backed down when confronted with Aussie documentation. The pair were both partially imprinted, but have slowly grown to tolerate each other; are now well paired and very defensive, and are incubating at the moment.
Not commercial either, so yes!
Not commercial either, so yes!
At PMQs a Zoos Support Fund (£50M ?) has just been announced.
Of course the devil will be in the detail and I suspect that zoos outside the charitable sector may struggle to qualify.
Of course the devil will be in the detail and I suspect that zoos outside the charitable sector may struggle to qualify.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
This presumably is what I posted on here yesterday - 'Help' for Zoos in the UK.
Charitable sector is not really mentioned, but the support (their Zoo Fund) is to help close zoos not keep them open. Failing zoos, those with 'severe financial stress' have to complete a questionnaire confirming by when they will not be able to maintain their standards, and the funding is to allow re-homing of their animals in other collections.
I have asked for detail on how this will be achieved, and the emails have been ignored thus far - but it is only lunchtime...
Very smart, as it attracts the headlines - but if accessing the funding means a zoo has to close and give up its animals, they probably wont get too many takers.
Thus very economical and a headline grabber too - clever buggers aren't they!
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A UK first breeding on the way then
According to Sky's live blog, the question was from a Conservative backbencher, so can't rule out it being a plant. That said, it was the MP for Bosworth (i.e. Twycross!) and it seems the question was worded as asking whether there was support to help zoos through the crisis, not if they can't afford animal care at all, so here's hoping there's more to it now.