Howletts Wild Animal Park Howletts Wild Animal Park news 2024

[Embu]

Some sad news to start the year with

Shumba, 1/9/80 – 26/02/24
We are saddened to announce that Shumba, adopted mother to little Kumbi and beloved member of the Howletts gorilla family, has passed away.

The 43-year-old female was being treated for a brain tumour by our dedicated vet team, but on 26th February Shumba lost her battle and succumbed to her illness with her adopted baby by her side.

Shumba was a truly remarkable member of our family here at Howletts. She gave birth to eight offspring and adopted two babies which were rejected by their birth mothers. Young Kumbi, who is now 18-months old, was the most recent youngster taken in by sweet Shumba. As Shumba was unable to nurse, she looked after Kumbi’s physical care while our incredible keepers took care of feeding him.

The keepers will continue to feed little Kumbi and we expect his gorilla family to rally around to support him as the group mourn their loss.

Sleep well, Shumba. You will be missed.

 

[Tankyboi]

Terrible loss of a wonderful gorilla.

reading n looking up her background showed what a incredible lady she was not only raising 8 children of her own adopting 2 more. I was reading when it came to feeding the 2 she adopted she would carry them over to the keepers and hold them there for the keepers to bottle feed them. Incredible relationship and respect built up between her and her keepers.
That group looks rather disjointed now with a young silverback with no real breeding females now given one is nearly 40 and other in her 30s never had any children and 3 youngsters

 

[darren jl]

is it still the plan for the elephants to leave for Africa. if so how close is it to happening. I know I saw some debate on it here previously

 

[rabbitRob]

i find it weird that Aspinall's daughter(?) is appearing in my facebook reel feed, in a wet tshirt playing with gorillas, with messages saying we shouldn't have apes in zoos.

 

[sloggervlogger]

i find it weird that Aspinall's daughter(?) is appearing in my facebook reel feed, in a wet tshirt playing with gorillas, with messages saying we shouldn't have apes in zoos.

Same on my feed.

 

[Dassie rat]

i find it weird that Aspinall's daughter(?) is appearing in my facebook reel feed, in a wet tshirt playing with gorillas, with messages saying we shouldn't have apes in zoos.

This is confusing as Aspinall's daughter is an ape

 

[conservationistdude]

On my visit today I spotted a couple of changes in the zoo. The lion tailed macaques in the enclosure next to the Javan langurs were replaced by white naped mangabeys, the signage was up but none were visible. The old tapir enclosure was under construction and a sign for servals was put up.

 

[Pertinax]

On my visit today I spotted a couple of changes in the zoo. The lion tailed macaques in the enclosure next to the Javan langurs were replaced by white naped mangabeys,.

Any idea where the Lion-tailed macaques are now?

 

[conservationistdude]

Any idea where the Lion-tailed macaques are now?

No idea. I did not see any lion tailed macaques besides the ones in the dinosaur section.

 

[Smaggledagle]

On April 6th, the zoo announced that a (0.1) white-naped mangabey named Nimba was born in late 2023 and is on exhibit.

Howletts Wild Animal Park

 

[Embu]

Now this could just a PR stunt,

Howletts are advertising on their Facebook stories (currently the story is 15hrs old they only last for 24hrs) about "come meet the herd and see our adorable elephant calf"

anyone been recently and seen a heavily pregnant cow or seen a new baby?

 

[Pertinax]

No idea. I did not see any lion tailed macaques besides the ones in the dinosaur section.

Can anyone tell us where the main Lion-tailed Macaque group has been moved to?

 

[Pertinax]

Can anyone tell us where the main Lion-tailed Macaque group has been moved to?

If anyone is visiting Howletts soon, can you tell me how many White-naped Mangabeys you see- now in the ex Lion-tailed macaque enclosure apparently.

Also(as above) where the main group of Liontailed macaques have been relocated to?

 

[Pertinax]

If anyone is visiting Howletts soon, can you tell me how many White-naped Mangabeys you see- now in the ex Lion-tailed macaque enclosure apparently.

Also(as above) where the main group of Liontailed macaques have been relocated to?

Answer to tĥe Mangabey question is 14 as I asked them directly as well Again it represents how suc essful they can be with some of their primate groups, they started not
so long ago with just a pair or trio of these and now biggest group in UK and maybe Europe.. It's a pity they haven't had the same success with the Golden bellied Mangabeys which don't breed at all AFAIK.

 

[Max Blundell]

As I am planning a trip sometime this year, I noticed on the spring 2024 map it shows Red Lechwe. Has anyone seen them yet?, ZTL doesn't list them.

 

[Tankyboi]

As I am planning a trip sometime this year, I noticed on the spring 2024 map it shows Red Lechwe. Has anyone seen them yet?, ZTL doesn't list them.

They been there around 2 years now there is 4 I believe there in the “deer” park which they share with degass waterbuck greater kudu ostrich and samba deer

 

[Moorhunhe]

I saw on their fb story today that the 2 handraised lion cubs are being prepared for their rewilding journey to South Africa.

I'm not knowledgeable at all, what would a 'rewilding journey' consist of for them? Being handraised.

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

I saw on their fb story today that the 2 handraised lion cubs are being prepared for their rewilding journey to South Africa.

I'm not knowledgeable at all, what would a 'rewilding journey' consist of for them? Being handraised.

The lions that have been 'rescued' by Aspinall's park are not wild born Southern African lions and have no place in any reintroduction project whatsoever in the region to support any credible in situ conservation project.

In South Africa, to put it diplomatically, an entire industry has come up that exploits the concept of lion parks to the extreme in fenced large spaces, but essentially an extension of their captivity elsewhere by design. Part of this industry is actually for pleasure and sport, the so-called canned hunting concept (whereby lions are bred and maintained under captive conditions and sold on a hunting permit to a registered hunter - most if not all foreigners who want to hunt Big Five and sundry for pleasure - and get to hunt a lion that is released on a reserve somewhere ... only to be monitored ... so the hunter can go shoot the individual. Not saying that Damian Aspinall ascribes to this kind of hunting community tourism ..., just observant that is the kind of industry these lions will go to.

For all intense - wildlife management - purposes, these captive facility rescue lions without any origins history have no place in any reintroduction program to South Africa. Further the country has a sufficiently large lion population that hardly needs sustainance from 2 lions of unknown origins maintained for the larger or all part of their life under captive conditions. The IUCN Reintroduction Specialist Group would frown upon participating in this endeavour by Aspinalls' zoo parks. Period!

 

[lintworm]

I saw on their fb story today that the 2 handraised lion cubs are being prepared for their rewilding journey to South Africa.

I'm not knowledgeable at all, what would a 'rewilding journey' consist of for them? Being handraised.

Rewilding of these big cats in South Africa is a joke, as they will still be kept in (large) enclosures, but as they resemble their original habitat, they are rewilded solely for promotional reasons....

 

[Lafone]

The lions that have been 'rescued' by Aspinall's park are not wild born Southern African lions and have no place in any reintroduction project whatsoever in the region to support any credible in situ conservation project.

In South Africa, to put it diplomatically, an entire industry has come up that exploits the concept of lion parks to the extreme in fenced large spaces, but essentially an extension of their captivity elsewhere by design. Part of this industry is actually for pleasure and sport, the so-called canned hunting concept (whereby lions are bred and maintained under captive conditions and sold on a hunting permit to a registered hunter - most if not all foreigners who want to hunt Big Five and sundry for pleasure - and get to hunt a lion that is released on a reserve somewhere ... only to be monitored ... so the hunter can go shoot the individual. Not saying that Damian Aspinall ascribes to this kind of hunting community tourism ..., just observant that is the kind of industry these lions will go to.

For all intense - wildlife management - purposes, these captive facility rescue lions without any origins history have no place in any reintroduction program to South Africa. Further the country has a sufficiently large lion population that hardly needs sustainance from 2 lions of unknown origins maintained for the larger or all part of their life under captive conditions. The IUCN Reintroduction Specialist Group would frown upon participating in this endeavour by Aspinalls' zoo parks. Period!

The South African government has set out plans to end canned hunting and captive lion breeding - which then presents a problem of too many lions in situ. However there is no date for it.

Either way, Aspinall will indeed not help that issue by sending more lions to anywhere in that country.