Werribee Open Range Zoo Werribee Open Range Zoo News 2025
- Thread starter austrlain zoo gower
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If there was any left, it’d be ideal for containing Indian rhinoceros. Werribee has many greater priorities in their masterplan at this point in time, but it’d be nice if the elephant complex was just the beginning of an Asian Plains expansion.
I believe most of it was already used to also build the new Bison and Mongolian Wild Horse facilities - and also for renovations of the BTS White Rhino habitat where Umgana currently resides.
In what regard are they changing the White rhino holdings?, are they enlarging the area or just upgrading the fencing?
They were just upgrading the current facilities, however there were/are plans to enlarge the facilities to allow the rhinos on the upper savannah to be viewable on foot - although I'm not sure if this is still in the plans.
@WhistlingKite24 reported there was talk of bringing in an additional rhino (unconfirmed). They’re presumably waiting to see what will happen with the two older females (originally scheduled to transfer to Perth).
In the case they do end up acquiring another female (presumably), that would likely mean the older girls (Make, Letaba and Sisi) would be retired to the Upper Savannah. So the recent renovations there likely were completed anticipating more rhinos being moved up there eventually.
Previously it was just the holding site of the bulls - Werribee used to have three; Leeroy and Kapamba mainly spent their time in the two paddocks there. However following the former's death and the latter's departure, they sat empty for quite some time until Umgana was recently moved back up there.
This "could be" part of a new plan to possibly import some new animals from European zoos now that the South African import all came to nothing!
I can definitely see that happening across the region, with Dubbo, Monarto and Orana also having planned to accomodate a large number via the Australian Rhino Project.
An increased number of breeding recommendations have been issued of late (Werribee’s pair will surely be breeding again) which will also address the gap.
One of the reasons for separation of Werribee’s females was the young age of the bull (they felt having a smaller number of cows would be more manageable for Kifaru).
Kifaru is now in his prime and so they will surely aspire to hold a larger cohesive herd long term (with breeding and non-breeding cows).
I am not sure what's happening with Altinas trio but considering one of the cows came from Germany it would be nice to see some breeding taking place!
Nice to hear the herd is flourishing. The 2023/2024 births consisted of 3.1 calves, so hopefully more females will be born this year. The herd numbered 7.9 in June 2024 (following on from the transfer of four females to Melbourne), so additional females would be useful in setting the foundation for a large breeding herd to assist in supplying other facilities.
Hopefully some of the country's regional zoos can benefit from the growing number of young being bred at both Werribee and Monarto zoos, Is there a population list for the Nyala?
No, there isn’t.
It’s a good idea, but unfortunately it would be exceedingly difficult to compile and maintain as data on individuals is scarce (more, ‘We had five nyala born this season’). In large herds (e.g. Monarto’s), I’d be surprised if they were even named. Similarly, many Scimitar-horned oryx across the region have gone unnamed.
Eastern bongo is realistically the only antelope we can track at the individual level at this stage.
I expect if some new Bongo are not imported in the foreseeable future they are due for regional extinction!. If one zoo in asia can import 10 Bongo from the USA there is no reason as far as I know that our majors zoos can not do similar or better!
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Our zoos are not going to import bongo. Im not sure why there was even time spent on the IRA for antelope importation. It has been years and not one majour zoo has important any. Yet plenty of cafes, playgrounds, visitor centres, education facilities have been updated or created. The people running our zoos are more than happy to have, eland, zebra, giraffe, rhino, Nyala and scimitar horned oryx as our African line up. With asian black buck as a filler because no one can be arsed (in the larger gov run zoos) to import actual impala, or any other type of antelope.
I know its very disappointing as there is no excuse any more, I believe there are some major zoos that do have them on their master plan however
Id love to see them be reimported, there critically endangered and can be suited to open range or city zoos. While being a visually impressive species. So I hope that the lack of importation is just a sourcing issue. Especially if it's from the US where imports do take a while to undertake. It would be interesting to see if Werribee attained them where they would go.
Bongos are not really that uncommon in US zoos and also European zoos I believe there maybe even some in private hands within the USA. I believe it's more of a matter of actually wanting them more than anything else!