Taronga Zoo Recent history of Taronga and developments etc

[Zoofan15]

I think you'd be surprised to find how many animals back in the day had all sorts of different names; nicknames the whole lot!

Peter pretty much took over his father as the breeding bull, but there was a short period following his father's death where his half brother Oigle was the parks breeding bull. Oigle, however, passed within a few years and Peter was consequently the breeding bull of the 70's. Peter was later replaced by his son, Jamie, following his passing in 1977 at the age of 14.

The Keepers and the Kept included some information about Jan Smuts, which noted his dark colouration that came with age and how he eventually stopped mating with females. Looking at records, it appears Jan Smuts impregnated no females after 1966 (he died 1968); with some of the Oigle sired calves conceived before Jan Smuts died. There was no separation of these bulls, but due to Jan Smut’s age, he was more tolerant of his male descendants than you’d expect from a prime aged bull.

 

[steveroberts]

I think you'd be surprised to find how many animals back in the day had all sorts of different names; nicknames the whole lot!

Oh can imagine with the many names, especially with discovering some of the house names and other alternative names. Interesting with the giraffes histories too.

 

[Zoofan15]

Oh can imagine with the many names, especially with discovering some of the house names and other alternative names. Interesting with the giraffes histories too.

Taronga were among the worst for using different names, complicating attempts to research animals. They seemed to have countless female Common hippopotamus breeding at one point until we discovered that Mumsy and Lindy were formerly known as Hilda and Henrietta.

Then there was Bruce the Andean condor, known as Diablo for some reason. To take a guess, perhaps participating in the free flight shows meant they didn’t want audience members distracting him or something.

To this day, house names persist for elephants and great apes. I’ve never met an elephant keeper who calls Perth’s bull ‘Putra Mas’. They’ve all called him ‘Silup’ in conversations I’ve had with them, which is his (very well known) house name.

 

[steveroberts]

Taronga were among the worst for using different names, complicating attempts to research animals. They seemed to have countless female Common hippopotamus breeding at one point until we discovered that Mumsy and Lindy were formerly known as Hilda and Henrietta.

Then there was Bruce the Andean condor, known as Diablo for some reason. To take a guess, perhaps participating in the free flight shows meant they didn’t want audience members distracting him or something.

To this day, house names persist for elephants and great apes. I’ve never met an elephant keeper who calls Perth’s bull ‘Putra Mas’. They’ve all called him ‘Silup’ in conversations I’ve had with them, which is his (very well known) house name.

 

[Abbey]

Taronga were among the worst for using different names, complicating attempts to research animals. They seemed to have countless female Common hippopotamus breeding at one point until we discovered that Mumsy and Lindy were formerly known as Hilda and Henrietta.

Then there was Bruce the Andean condor, known as Diablo for some reason. To take a guess, perhaps participating in the free flight shows meant they didn’t want audience members distracting him or something.

To this day, house names persist for elephants and great apes. I’ve never met an elephant keeper who calls Perth’s bull ‘Putra Mas’. They’ve all called him ‘Silup’ in conversations I’ve had with them, which is his (very well known) house name.

While you're correct that a number of house names do persist, it seems they are being done away with in some circumstances. Man Jai the elephant's house name of Bob was mentioned on Mega Zoo, while the orangutan once publicly known as Menyaru has been consistently referred to as Malu in recent years.

Johari the gorilla at Taronga was publicly known as Jumatano when at Melbourne. Upon her transfer to Taronga, she was publicly called by her house name, Johari, and has been referred to as such ever since. That being said, considering Putra Mas is such a well-known animal, I doubt a change would be made, not only to prevent the public from calling to him but to prevent confusion more generally if it seemed like a much-loved animal was being 'renamed'.

 

[Zoofan15]

While you're correct that a number of house names do persist, it seems they are being done away with in some circumstances. Man Jai the elephant's house name of Bob was mentioned on Mega Zoo, while the orangutan once publicly known as Menyaru has been consistently referred to as Malu in recent years.

Johari the gorilla at Taronga was publicly known as Jumatano when at Melbourne. Upon her transfer to Taronga, she was publicly called by her house name, Johari, and has been referred to as such ever since. That being said, considering Putra Mas is such a well-known animal, I doubt a change would be made, not only to prevent the public from calling to him but to prevent confusion more generally if it seemed like a much-loved animal was being 'renamed'.

Having house names for elephants is arguably less necessary now they’re managed in PC. If a keeper is working freely with an elephant, they need to have some level of control over the elephant which could be affected by the public yelling out their names etc.

Having house names for great apes is less necessary. I’ve seen members of the public bellow the names of great apes in the past and make various attempts to get their attention. The apes have seen it all before and unless it’s their keeper calling their name (they can recognise voices), they know there’s no point to the interaction.

In any case, what’s largely replaced house names/media names is nicknames. Hamilton Zoo’s chimps all have nicknames (also common at Taronga and Monarto). Interestingly, one of Lucy’s is ‘Lulu’, which was her mother’s name:

 

[FrankGrimes]

Names can be useful things.

 

[steveroberts]

Not sure if this one has been shared before on here. It's nice to see the harbour seals again in the footage, miss them. The last 60% of video is capturing still shots of some of the animals. But is footage of the fur seals and harbour seals in old bottom of the zoo seal pools (Seal Cove and Macquarie Island after the geographical theming was no longer in use after the elephant seals had all passed). Lucille, Mr Hobbs & Victoria the sun bears a year into their living at Taronga, and one of the red pandas climbing in a tree.

Brief one too that has Coldplay's Dont Panic as accompanying soundtrack for anyone who might want to mute:

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The platypus footage in this one especially really like.

 

[Zoofan15]

Not sure if this one has been shared before on here. It's nice to see the harbour seals again in the footage, miss them. The last 60% of video is capturing still shots of some of the animals. But is footage of the fur seals and harbour seals in old bottom of the zoo seal pools (Seal Cove and Macquarie Island after the geographical theming was no longer in use after the elephant seals had all passed). Lucille, Mr Hobbs & Victoria the sun bears a year into their living at Taronga, and one of the red pandas climbing in a tree.

Brief one too that has Coldplay's Dont Panic as accompanying soundtrack for anyone who might want to mute:

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The platypus footage in this one especially really like.

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Moore Park Zoo in 1912 few short years before move across the harbour to Mosman (site now Sydney Girls High School and Sydney Boys High School)

the bear pit still there today (Log in to Facebook)

Thanks for sharing @steveroberts. There were a number of nice photos in the 1998 video including Shiva (1985) the Sumatran tiger and Mouila (1972) the Western lowland gorilla.

At a glance, Mr Hobbs lacked the traditional features of an adult male sun bear (prominent, wrinkled forehead) in the first video; but then I realised he was barely three years old.

The giraffe calf in the 2000 video must have been Andara (born 28/05/1998 at Dubbo). She arrived at Taronga Zoo in 1999, aged 15 months and was the first giraffe calf they’d had on site since breeding wrapped up with the last calves born 1992.

 

[steveroberts]

Moore Park Zoo in 1912 few short years before move across the harbour to Mosman (site now Sydney Girls High School and Sydney Boys High School). Wow is that an anaconda in first video roaming the grass with a toddler right next to it!!

Didn't realise there was a black wildebeest and cape buffalo at Moore Park Zoo (and is that a Sumatran tiger?? well before they were classified as own subspecies in 1929 seperate from Javan tigers from what understand).

The poor brown bear

the bear pit still there today (source) (Google Maps man it is one tiny pit, those poor bears back in the day)

a tree was planted or removed from near it recently from the looks of

 

[Zoofan15]

Moore Park Zoo in 1912 few short years before move across the harbour to Mosman (site now Sydney Girls High School and Sydney Boys High School). Wow is that an anaconda in first video roaming the grass with a toddler right next to it!!

Didn't realise there was a black wildebeest and cape buffalo at Moore Park Zoo (and is that a Sumatran tiger?? well before they were classified as own subspecies in 1929 seperate from Javan tigers from what understand).

The poor brown bear

the bear pit still there today (source) (Google Maps man it is one tiny pit, those poor bears back in the day)

a tree was planted or removed from near it recently from the looks of

The first tiger at 1.30 looks to be a Bengal tiger; but the second tiger at 1.38 could be a Sumatran. The shot of it isn’t very clear, so it’s hard to be certain, but it’s face looks Sumatran in my opinion.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, India was a popular source of wild animals for animal dealers - Indian elephants, Bengal tigers, Indian leopard etc.

 

[steveroberts]

 

[Zoofan15]

The giraffe calf in the first video is Gerry (1955), who was the third offspring of his mother Betty (1948).

The narration on the second video was painful, but it was great to see footage of the Common hippopotami Dizzie (1898) and Fatima (1928). They formed a successful breeding pair with their daughter Nada later sent to Auckland Zoo. Cuddles and her daughters at Dubbo are descendants of Nada.

The young giraffe was a bull named Paddy (1931). He unfortunately died 1933.

The chimpanzee would have been Casey. He arrived 1920 and died in 1936.

 

[steveroberts]

In my view I believe that the late great John Kelly had a big positive impact on Taronga zoo also one can add that he imported a whole Gorilla troop from Holland and was behind the importation of the black rhino imports from South Africa!

John Kelly was a phenomenal director by all accounts. It seemed everyone who worked with him had a very positive opinion of him and like you say, he got a lot done. With the chimpanzees moving to the Chimpanzee Park in 1980, the orangutans had the run of the cage block; but it was outdated accomodation and far from the image of the modern zoo.

The opening of Taronga’s Orangutan Rainforest in 1994 was in line with the regional shift towards immersive exhibits; though thinking critically, it aged poorly due to its size and was soon regarded as outdated compared to other orangutan exhibits in the region such as Auckland Zoo’s Orangutan Park, which had opened seven years prior.

100% agree with you guys.

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber/hansardr/1997-10-27/0019;query=Id:"chamber/hansardr/1997-10-27/0029"

obituary-kfOaB2an7J

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1323879322-16272

 

[Zoofan15]

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber/hansardr/1997-10-27/0019;query=Id:"chamber/hansardr/1997-10-27/0029"

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1323879322-16272

John Kelly was certainly a legendary man and a great loss to Taronga Zoo.

I thought this paragraph was interesting:

He has led the development of links with Indonesia, including the contribution of his expertise to Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta and an active program to assist in the preservation of the endangered Sumatran tiger.

Tuka the Komodo dragon was of course imported from Ragunan Zoo in 1991; and around this time, Taronga also had plans to import a female Sumatran tiger from Indonesia, that sadly never came to fruition.

The loan of a pair of Sumatran tigers from Indonesia was something Taronga attempted to arrange in the late 2010’s under Cameron Kerr, but again, sadly never came to anything. It was to be a five year loan and the 2-3 litters they tigers could have produced in this time would have been valuable additions to the captive breeding programme.

 

[steveroberts]

giraffes, tigers, lions, tahrs, (''oh my!'' jks, need bears too for that joke to work).

 

[Zoofan15]

Taronga 1964

Great video from 2.10 onwards. Really interesting to see their impressive tiger collection in both the cages and the pit adjacent to the lions. The majority look like hybrids, but I did see a few that had Sumatran characteristics, possibly descendants of Taronga’s first known Sumatran tigers, Max and Cija.

 

[steveroberts]

Taronga Zoo Sumatran Tigers - Early History ....Shiva (born 1985) was then paired with Selatan (born 1990), who arrived in 1992 from Melbourne Zoo. Shiva and Selatan produced three litters at Taronga Zoo:
Litter One:

Kemiri (F)
Born 18 November 1994
Sent to Adelaide Zoo 1995 (Died 2017)


Unnamed (M)
Born 18 November 1994
Died <30 days


Litter Two:

Juara (M)
Born 26 October 1995
Sent to Taronga Western Plains Zoo 1996 (Died 2014)

Ramalon (M)
Born 26 October 1995
Sent to Taronga Western Plains Zoo 1996 (Died 2014)

Lari (M)
Born 26 October 1995
Sent to Taronga Western Plains Zoo 1996 (Died UNK)

Litter Three:

Unnamed (U)
Born 01 May 2001
Died <30 days

Unnamed (U)
Born 01 May 2001
Died <30 days

...

Shiva’s daughter, Kemiri (born 1994), died at the Adelaide Zoo aged 22 years in 2017. This is currently the regional record for longevity in captive Sumatran tigers.

News footage of Kemiri as a very young cub with veterinary director Dr George Russ being interviewed by Neil Mercer about her keeper hand-rearing upbringing, in late 1994:

 

[Zoofan15]

News footage of Kemiri as a very young cub with veterinary director Dr George Russ being interviewed by Neil Mercer in late 1994:

Wow, great clip!

It’s shows how much husbandry knowledge of this species has progressed in the 31 years that have since passed. First of all, we can conclude Selatan’s rejection of the cub was due to the stillbirth of Kemiri’s twin reducing the litter to a single cub. This triggered a natural response in Selatan where her milk dried up and her maternal instincts decreased.

Second of all, there was zero chance of reintegrating Kemiri with her mother (I note they say parents, though I don’t believe Shiva cohabited with Selatan and their mother reared 1995 triplets). Kemiri was removed from her mother and upon reaching the age she could be reintroduced, Selatan wouldn’t have recognised her.

The choice to hand-raise a Sumatran tiger cub isn’t something we’d expect to see today in an accredited zoo. Auckland for example elected not to intervene when Zayana’s first litter yielded twins (one stillborn) and she cannibilised the remaining cub. As we know, being handraised in the absence of peers impaired Kemiri’s social skills and she failed to breed with her mate as an adult. She did nonetheless make a friendly and much loved ambassador animal and her impact on the staff and visitors of Adelaide Zoo was never more evident when she passed at the age of 22 years of age, setting the regional longevity record for Sumatran tigers at the time (since surpassed by her cousin Mencari at Hamilton Zoo).

An interesting comment Taronga had bred seven Sumatran tigers, clearly a reference to the seven offspring of Nico and Meta that survived to adulthood. As we know, an eighth (Lunka), survived to be named; and they had a total of 19 cubs, including those who died as neonates.

 

[steveroberts]

Wow, great clip!

It’s shows how much husbandry knowledge of this species has progressed in the 31 years that have since passed. First of all, we can conclude Selatan’s rejection of the cub was due to the stillbirth of Kemiri’s twin reducing the litter to a single cub. This triggered a natural response in Selatan where her milk dried up and her maternal instincts decreased.

Second of all, there was zero chance of reintegrating Kemiri with her mother (I note they say parents, though I don’t believe Shiva cohabited with Selatan and their mother reared 1995 triplets). Kemiri was removed from her mother and upon reaching the age she could be reintroduced, Selatan wouldn’t have recognised her.

The choice to hand-raise a Sumatran tiger cub isn’t something we’d expect to see today in an accredited zoo. Auckland for example elected not to intervene when Zayana’s first litter yielded twins (one stillborn) and she cannibilised the remaining cub. As we know, being handraised in the absence of peers impaired Kemiri’s social skills and she failed to breed with her mate as an adult. She did nonetheless make a friendly and much loved ambassador animal and her impact on the staff and visitors of Adelaide Zoo was never more evident when she passed at the age of 22 years of age, setting the regional longevity record for Sumatran tigers at the time (since surpassed by her cousin Mencari at Hamilton Zoo).

Absolutely. Yeah it's very interesting and unfortunate that if (a) littermate(s) do not survive, how it triggers that response in the mother felids with their milk drying up.

The man interviewing Dr George, Neil Mercer, is a really nice person, and was super impressed by how well researched he was with Taronga's Sumatran tigers' history before the interview and knew about some of the zoos overseas Kemiri's aunts and uncles had gone to like San Diego and Japan (Ueno).

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There's this video too from 2006

includes
-American alligator
-Squirrel monkeys on island
-wild noisy miner
-Koala in Koala Walkabout
-Agouti in one of old aviaries opposite Serpentaria complex
-(The late great) Tuka the Komodo dragon in his enclosure at front of Serpentaria complex
-Snake-necked turtle behind underwater viewing glass in the outdoor enclosure shared with Freshwater crocodiles (not shown)
-Serpentaria Indoors: tree frogs, sheltopusiks, baby saltwater crocodiles, tuatas, pythons, star tortoises, sailfin lizard, river cooter turtles, Jackson's chamelen, diamondback rattlesnake, mata-mata turtle, Fijian banded iguana, plumed basilisk, green iguanas, (Murray) short-neck turtles (I think), a small desert monitor and desert skink, spiny-tailed skink (someone will now specific species) , frilled-neck lizard, small very showy water monitor, black-headed python, tawny crevice dragon (think, might be other species of small dragon lizard)
-Common tree shrew
-Giraffes and plains zebras
-Chimps' in 'Chimpanzee Park'
-Barbary sheep
-Dromedary camel & scimitar-horned oryx
-Eastern bongo
-Himalayan tahr on 'Tahr Mountain'
-Kwanzaa the south-central black rhino'
-An Egyptian goose wandering the 'African Waterhole' pathway
-A Chilean flamingo in the old exhibit that was Cleo or Katrina the pygmy hippo's formerly
-Western lowland gorillas. According to a commentor, the first one seen is Shabani, and apparently he was living alone at the time in the seperate exhibit that used to have De Brazzas' guenons (I reckon someone will even know which other individuals are seen)
-Saltwater crocodiles in old exhibit (two of them) one peeping out from the water and another basking in the sand in their old very small sandbox enclosure (not sure if one of them was Rin Tin Tin or his predecessor)
-either Bethyl or Cynthia asleep in a rocky alcove at side of their 'Bear Canyon' exhibit (now Mary the sun bear's of course)
-Aldabra giant tortoise with its mouth open then cloed
-View of 'Free Flight Bird Show' ampitheatre and the harbour view
-The full 'Free Flight Bird Show'
-Andean condor (Bruce or Connie perhaps?) playing with a milkcrate
-Mandarin ducks
-Berani or Denise the Malayan tapir (sadly with one of their eye mask veils covering their eyes, as is known by all of us on the Australasian forums, they lost their sight from the intensity of the Australian sun rays, and as a result went blind, and had to wear eye-veils/masks to protect their eyes from further damage and general comfort against the sunrays)
-Brooke(?) the leopard seal in old seal pool exhibit with two male fur seals or sea lions (the look of their coats makes me think they are either male California sea lions or male Australian sea lions. This was very much the final years of those seal pools existance as pinniped occupied.
-The full 'Seal Show' at the old Seal Theatre (where ARC is now)
-Fur seal in one of the smallerst (and wire fronted) pool of the old seal pools
-Emu and red kangaroo (male one chilling on the ground, female ones having a look around), and a blue peacock on top of the stones mound, in the old (non walk-through) kangaroo & emu exhibits that are now under the 'Wildlife Retreat' hotel grounds (back in late '90s recall tree kangaroos had one of these exhibits too)
-Goodfellow's tree kangaroo in a wire-fronted exhibit (dont have much memory of this exhibit) sharing with a wallaby species (swamp?), good footage of the tree 'roo
-Platypus swimming in the old Platypus House (nice footage of)
-The old macropod walkthrough (now part of the larger Gulamany Nura walk-through) red kangaroos, agile wallaby, another wallaby (red-necked? or parma?) or pademelon (red-necked?) and emu (the footage of both the female & male agile wallabies found the best thing about the footage, they climb on top of one of the small feeding 'kennels' & the other wallaby species or pademelon are very lovely too
-A blue peacock hovering around one of the upper eateries areas
-Lengthy footage back at Koala Walkabout of the Koalas again brings the video to ab end (Koala Walkabout, Chimp' Park, Gorilla Forest, Wild Asia/Rainforest Trail, Bear Canyon, squirrel monkey island, empty alligator pond + exhibit, b.t.s and tahr-less Tahr Mountain (heritage listed), empty saltwater crocodile exhibitz, and the outer foubdations/facade of the old seal pools (minus the smallest wire fronted one, all traces of that are removed), and (also heritage listed) old giraffe house, are the animal exhibits in this footage that still exist today (some renovated like Chimp' Park since) the other exhibits have either been demolished, or renovated as part of an expansion of the precinct's theme like the old longstanding giraffe exhibit with the zebras too, they still live in that part of the zoo but have about 3 times more exhibit space, and same with the kangaroo, wallaby, pademelon, emu walkthrough area.