Darling Downs Zoo Darling Downs Zoo News 2025
- Thread starter Zorro
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The new lion cubs have been named Alexis and Athena. The cubs can be seen across their birthday weekend at 10am. Happiest birthday to the entire team there - reported by 7NEWs Toowoomba.
Thank you @steveroberts the development from a bare paddock to what's there now is nothing less than amazing!
Oh no worries Zorro, yeah so majorly impressive hey, was thinking that whilst watching the timespan of the zoo just from satellite footage over the years from above, so only capturing a nanosecond of time every now and then from space, but when seeing in linear order over 20 years really started to extra appreciate how much work has gone into making that zoo the incredible place it is.
Darling Downs Zoo has posted a on their social media on their impressive Long history with lions and shared details Important Details such as their previous unsuccessful attempts to breed Sassy with Kwanzzaa or Mal prior to the birth of Caesar. The new Cubs Alexis and Athena are indeed the offspring of both Kwanzzaa and Sassy and were also brought into the world via C-section. The Proceeds from Cub encounters will go to funding their bigger more improved lion facilities and they don't plan on breeding any more of the adults in the long term. If we didn't know already than 1.0 Rubani (24/5/2001) is one of their many Cubs from over the years and currently the oldest lion in Australia.
Full link below and congratulations to Steve, Steph and the rest of the Darling Downs Zoo Team.
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Full link below and congratulations to Steve, Steph and the rest of the Darling Downs Zoo Team.
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There is a nice new video on the zoos socials (Facebook) today of lots of the new babies currently at the zoo!
NEWS UPDATE
The planned transfer of a young male Pygmy Hippo has been cancelled.
The European zoo was not prepared to adhere to Australia's strict import protocols.
They were also not prepared to accomodate the length of time that those protocols would take to process.
It was estimated that the male would not arrive in this country until the end of the year. The animal was sent to another European zoo in 3 weeks!
The planned transfer of a young male Pygmy Hippo has been cancelled.
The European zoo was not prepared to adhere to Australia's strict import protocols.
They were also not prepared to accomodate the length of time that those protocols would take to process.
It was estimated that the male would not arrive in this country until the end of the year. The animal was sent to another European zoo in 3 weeks!
How frustrating after all the hard work on the Australian side. This import would have been such an asset to our regional population.
If both zoos are in the EU, I imagine the transfer would be more like moving between states. Our protocols do seem obstructionist at times, and often unnecessarily bureaucratic, but they are there for a reason.
But I would have thought the zoo could have been a bit more flexible.
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
Internal EU moves are pretty much immediate once basic health screen are done. Many mainland zoos will no longer consider sending animals to the UK because it will take a few weeks, and now some do not even bother to answer emails. Keeping animals in approved pre-export isolation for a minimum of a year, reduces the number of collections prepared to send stock down-under.
EU is insanely bureaucratic, but its law on animal movements knows the term "confined establishment". It´s a status granted by respective individual EU state vet administrations. Most EU/EEA licenced zoos currently hold this status. Animal transport between two confined establishments can be done without mandatory pre- or post-movement quarantine or disease testing (unless any exotic disease like bluetongue is present in the area). You just need to deal with TRACES papers. That makes animal transfer between lets say Prague and Lisbon zoos (2000 km and 4 borders apart) as easy as between Prague zoo and Krokodyli Zoo (4 km apart, same city). After the UK decided to do cold turkey Brexit, without negotiating any sort of new harmonised rules, the UK has become an Australia-lite from the perspective of EU zoos and most of them are now unwilling to entertain the idea of sending animals there.
So if I were an Australian zoo looking for an EU zoo willing to export, I would contact those that successfully sent animals to the UK (or elsewhere overseas) in last 1-2 year. They might be willing to at least talk about that possibility.
EDIT: What could help too would be adding more countries that the Australian legislation on hippo imports allows to source animals from. Why were only 15 EU countries chosen? Makes no sense.
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It was a huge shame to learn upon cancellation - as there's a lack of surplus males globally as it is.
This young male would've been a great first step towards re-establishing the breeding program regionally which has currently reach stagnation due to the high relatedness of all remaining individuals. Inbreeding is obviously best avoided if possible.
It's wonderful that Steve and his team are committed to securing a replacement. Fingers crossed all goes well with the search - which is extensive at the present time. Not surprisingly, the future of another species regionally is seemingly being rested in the hands of a private facility yet again....
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
This is quite true, unfortunately.
But the realities are now that it is actually very easy and very quick to export from the EU to the UK, for non-CITES species at least and even then it is usually delays caused by the exporting EU country which causes the problem. The issuing of UK import CITES is currently quite quick..
It is the barriers set up by the individual EU countries for movements IN to them from the UK which are the problem especially as to be difficult every country a van has to drive through, might need its own translation of the documents - certainly France does.
Yes, the lack of harmonised rules is the problem, but that is because the mainland countries wont agree with each other and do it.
Flights by air should be easier, as they bypass all the transit countries, but they can only be affordable for smaller animals and even then the costs are now stupid - and more and more airlines refuse to take anything other than dogs and cats.
A number have road couriers have worked it out and are doing regular moves, for those that can afford it. The issue is that mainland zoos often now refuse to help or even answer questions - unless of course there is something in it for them!
An accurate and realistic explanation @Jana
Sorry for being Advocate for the Devil in the Porcelain Elephant Room and feel compelled to observe this, .... but.... honestly!
This indicates and shows up how Australia's local - resident bureacracy - laws are not in a good position to deal with .... and has draconian measures in place for import of exotic wildlife and exotic plants. Basically, the IRA's the country is so well known for and the Australian National Government congratulates herself on and the Federal States' individual administrations with is actually a law onto itself that is preventing ex conservation breeding (and I am not even talking about CITES-trade restrictions and what-not....).
Truthfully, this whole concept of IRA's is and has been an uninformed Catch 22 own goal...and does little to nothing to protect native species from the dansers of actual invasives nor the eradication of the dangerous real invasives (see below for some named ...).
IMO the laws governing exotic species wildlife/zoos/aviculture/herps and horticulture/exotic plants in Australia are just ignoring the very real dangers from biosecurity issues, where f.e. zoonosis and through the backdoor are absolutely inviting problems with the regular import/export of domesticated animals / pets / and most important livestock (viz the big Running Horse scandal a few years back) as well as the the real invasive species that the country is failing to deal with effectively (feral cats and dogs, rats, cane toad, dromedary, water buffalo, various deer species et cetera et cetera. Oh yeah, citing the economy and saving jobs and ignoring animal welfare, well-wellbeing and pandering to industry, agriculture and the hunting community.
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This may be ... but the laws are an own goal and do nothing in effective measures to prevent invasive species becoming a threat and least of all eradicate the damages done by quite a few invasive species already present in the Australian outback and environment (viz my earlier post).
BTW: The same is true in Continental Europe (musk rat, American river lobsters, raccoon, raccoon dog, American mink, North-American beaver et cetera ...).
NOTA BENE: The laws only affect exotic species and actually prevent ex situ conservation breeding happening. It is the window dressing by Govt. administrations to be seen to be doing something, while ignoring the real issues because of hypocrisy cum economic interests and jobs cited over having to deal with the real resident evils....
I may be misunderstanding you however the laws in this case are not to prevent the importation of potential invasive species. Rather they are to prevent the arrival of animal diseases that are not present in Australia, of which there are quite a list.
If the species was regarded as an invasive species threat, we would not be having this discussion as importation would be banned absolutely.
In my essay I also signalled the resident evil of zoonosis - which for all purposes and by design is an issue in the livestock, agriculture mass industry ... in my list of reservations on the current import/export exotic wildlife / plants.
Biosecurity as a considerans for the current protocols in place in Australia may be all well and good ..., but when this applies to exotic wildlife and plants it holds very little water as ex situ conservation breeding facilities and zoos are required (inter-)nationally by laws of the land to adhere to stringent stop-gap measures like veterinary health tests required, pre export/after import quarantaine procedures in place, all paper work needed for import/export, following IATA guidelines on transport and a whole lot else.
This is a drop in the ocean compared to what goes on with commercial livestock industry and agriculture enterpreneurs and companies importing and exporting animals / plants for commercial purposes ... were the real issues with zoonosis and parasites and plants diseases may exist. Generally, speaking the regulations and procedures around commercial use are lax and beyond the meagre compared to what Biosecurity is in place for exotic wildlife/plants....
So, my argument still stands....
Frankly, it is difficult to understand what your argument is. It seems to be that due to the fact it is impossible to guarantee 100% barriers against the introduction of foreign organisms, all controls should be dropped for zoo imports, at least.
Australia does take biosecurity extremely seriously as anybody who has visited here can attest. In fact, beef imports to Australia are the major factor in trade disputes between Australia and the USA, who like you think Australian regulations are of no importance. Commercial operators do not get a free ride, far from it.
I find this paragraph particularly mystifying. Surely this is the core problem, the exporting zoo was not prepared to go through the required quarantine, paperwork, etc. Or is it that European regulations are fine but Australian regulations the work of a petulant child?
You forgot two of the most threatening to the Australian environment, rabbits and foxes. Control measures are in place for all those species. Yes, they are invariably inadequate. That is why we (Moonlit) financially support the work of the Invasive Species Council. But it does not help having Europeans opposing, for instance, the lethal control of cats.
Please explain how the holding of any exotic species of mammal or bird in Australian zoos contributes to the conservation of that species, besides potentially educationally or the raising of some funds. Talk about porcelain.
What on earth has this got to do with anything? This was a racehorse doping scandal.
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