Hamerton Zoo Park Hamerton News 2023

JurassicMax

JurassicMax

Well-Known Member
Just before Christmas 64-year old male White-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) Benjamin was euthanised. His health had started to decline and an investigation showed an inoperable tumour. According to the Zoo he was the oldest gibbon in captivity.

Benjamin arrived at Paignton Zoo in 1961, later he moved to Guernsey Zoo where he had lived for 9 years when the zoo closed in 1991. His family and over 80 other animals then moved to Hamerton Zoo.

Source:
Instagram of Zoo Hamerton (09/01/2023)
 
JurassicMax said:
Just before Christmas 64-year old male White-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) Benjamin was euthanised. His health had started to decline and an investigation showed an inoperable tumour. According to the Zoo he was the oldest gibbon in captivity.

Benjamin arrived at Paignton Zoo in 1961, later he moved to Guernsey Zoo where he had lived for 9 years when the zoo closed in 1991. His family and over 80 other animals then moved to Hamerton Zoo.

Source:
Instagram of Zoo Hamerton (09/01/2023)
Click to expand...
RIP, what a grand age to live to!
 
JurassicMax said:
Just before Christmas 64-year old male White-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) Benjamin was euthanised. His health had started to decline and an investigation showed an inoperable tumour. According to the Zoo he was the oldest gibbon in captivity.

Benjamin arrived at Paignton Zoo in 1961, later he moved to Guernsey Zoo where he had lived for 9 years when the zoo closed in 1991. His family and over 80 other animals then moved to Hamerton Zoo.

Source:
Instagram of Zoo Hamerton (09/01/2023)
Click to expand...

That's a fine age, shame to see him go.
 
I always looked for Ben every time I visit, he always looked incredibly healthy for his age.
I noticed he wasn't in the cage on 27th December when I visited to renew my pass and feared the worst, but didn't post as the zoo were probably avoiding an Xmas bad news story. What an amazing character he was, so sad he has gone!
 
Swampy said:
Are there any pure Central lars left in Europe now?
Click to expand...

The animal at Osijek may or may not be pure, as it was born in captivity (at Heidelberg) and therefore depends on the purity of the historical stock at the latter zoo.

Monkey World is believed to have one, due to locality of origin, but they're unwilling to look into the matter.
 
It was a great day today at Hamerton!

We finally saw a Golden Possum, and man, is he beautiful or what?? When you see pictures, the color just doesn't do it justice, then when you see it for real.
Very happy!

We also saw one of the baby Civets. It poked it's head out of the box a few times, then climbed on top of it, stayed for a few seconds and went back into the box.

After that, we saw a baby Binturong, and the Jackal was also briefly visible.

There was only a handful of people today, so extremely quiet.
We were actually there from opening until closing, which was a first aswell.
 
Had a lovely first visit in 2023 to Hamerton today - quite a few visitors as bright and pretty cold but not rainy. Train was running.

Got to see two golden possums today. The male and a younger one came out for some sweetcorn. Think the possums may be lulling me into a false sense of security. Lots of fun to watch them. I do want to go and get the people just walking past and say ‘look the possums are out’ but that would be weird I guess.

Also saw the jackal out running about in the enclosure next to the tigers which was a rare sighting for me.

The grassy access to the raccoon enclosure was taped off, assume it’s got a bit too muddy but you can still see them from the other side.

Got a good sighting of the young civets which was lovely.

Lots of work has gone on tidying all the different aviaries around the flamingo area with the trees / bushes trimmed etc - have to appreciate how much effort it must take to get everything in a good place. Lots of Xmas trees and some planted in which the animals seemed to be enjoying.

The tortoise house looks to be nearing completion now with the inside rocks in place, heating units and front all finished barring the windows.
 
I have just noticed that Hamerton posted an end-of-year review on the 1st January, that hasn't been posted here yet. In terms of animal news there doesn't seem to be much that hasn't already been mentioned here, although the discovery of no fewer than 50 Australian brush-turkey eggs within the male's breeding mound is certainly interesting (it remains to be seen if the eggs are fertile or not).

Looking forward to 2023, the article does say that over 20 new species are due to arrive at the park this year - mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.

The article can be seen here:
Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
 
DesertRhino150 said:
I have just noticed that Hamerton posted an end-of-year review on the 1st January, that hasn't been posted here yet. In terms of animal news there doesn't seem to be much that hasn't already been mentioned here, although the discovery of no fewer than 50 Australian brush-turkey eggs within the male's breeding mound is certainly interesting (it remains to be seen if the eggs are fertile or not).

Looking forward to 2023, the article does say that over 20 new species are due to arrive at the park this year - mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.

The article can be seen here:
Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Click to expand...
I wonder how many crazy surprises there will be out of Hamerton this year! :eek::D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top