Longleat Safari & Adventure Park Longleat Safari Park 2025
- Thread starter Dr. Loxodonta
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 2025 longleat safari park news
Springbok
Well-Known Member
Attachments
Dr. Loxodonta
Well-Known Member
From Longleat - “We are sorry to share with you that Wilber, our Kune Kune pig who has been a stalwart of Animal Adventure since 2011, has died peacefully in his sleep. The 14-year-old could often be seen grazing from the Longleat Railway or heard grunting at his keepers asking for more food. Wilber and his late brother Rufus arrived at Longleat in 2011 - keepers say they were both much loved by the team and will be missed.”
Log in or sign up to view
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Longleat have always been pretty quick with this sort of thing but with their management actually becoming competent in the past decade it's staggering how efficient they are. I suppose it also helps most of the exhibit is already there!
The main question now is where are these hippos coming from?
It appears they're constructing this new habitat on a new site. It'll be intriguing to see if they do manage to get it all completed in just three or four months as planned!
It was also announced they'll be receiving a pod, including a bull, which indicates there's an intention for breeding which is exciting. Europe would be my guess for as to where they're coming from.
I believe the gene pool in Europe is quite small so they may have to go slightly further afield for either a new bull or new females I would hazard a guess. I could be wrong though
If we're talking breeding individuals, it certainly lessens the options.
I know Australia certainly doesn't have any to offer, and the same can relatively be said about the USA. Open to correction here.
If not Europe, Asia's a possibility - a lot of facilities over there hold large pods however I don't know whether such an import would be feasible considering the distance and the risks surrounding transferring hippos (especially over long distances).
cerperal
Well-Known Member
The exhibit itself is still Half-Mile Pond and the surrounding grazing space, the only new build is the housing and containment facilities that are being constructed where the old house was which I believe has already been demolished in the past year. Still a lot of work for only a few months but I suppose there's still space for the hippos even if they arrive and the house isn't 100% finished.
As you say, the intention is for breeding. But the problem is Europe hasn't got any spares, and most zoos on the continent are already struggling to replace offloaded offspring. I agree Asia might be a good option, equally I wouldn't rule out Longleat importing new individuals from Africa either.
I would say Hodor at Whipsnade, but he's still too young to act as a dominant breeding bull. Regardless they obviously have a pod lined up so whatever the solution is they've clearly already solved it.
Last edited:
Not necessarily, however one potential source comes to mind - the infamous Escabar hippos. In that case, those plans of sending the hippos to outside zoos/sanctuaries have since floundered. It'll be interesting to see what happens there as that's still a situation in progress.
There are at least 10 hippos that were born in Europe the past years that will need rehoming from their birth location soon. So plenty of options available and we'll just have to wait and see what the EEP coordinator comes up with.
There is no need to import hippos from other continents, the EEP is already struggling to find space for the young born in Europe (which has already let to exports to Asia in the recent past).
Not only is it a struggle to find spaces for young animals. Several european zoos keep older animals in outdated enclosures and would be extatic to offload them elsewhere (and close / buldoze down their exhibit) but can´t due to lack of free space.