I wonder where they keep them to prevent any hybridisation with existing Sika. Seperate paddock from PTA I presume? I don't think their Sika are Japanese incidentally.
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ZSL Whipsnade Zoo ZSL Whipsnade Zoo News 2025
- Thread starter Lafone
- Start date
I wonder where they keep them to prevent any hybridisation with existing Sika. Seperate paddock from PTA I presume? I don't think their Sika are Japanese incidentally.
Hi Kalaw, could you please them when you get a moment? That certainly is good news for Whipsnade.
Visayan Spotted Deer, Tufted Deer, White-Lipped Deer, Vietnamese Sika Deer and I admittedly can’t think of the 5th off the top of my head.
I assume this is what you meant?
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
The five species are as follows:
- 2.0 European Forest Reindeer (October 2022 from Highland WP)
- 1.0 Philippine Spotted Deer (September 2023 from Chester)
- 0.2 Michie's Tufted Deer (April 2025 from Twycross)
- 2.0 Vietnamese Sika Deer (May 2025 from Woburn)
- 0.2 White-lipped Deer (June 2025 from Highland WP)
So five new cervid taxa across the course of the 2020s decade, and 3 within the last five months, some of them really rare in British and even European zoos.
There is of course a glaring issue there: they are all same sex groups so no prospect of breeding them. Fingers crossed that is only temporary and mates will be acquired soon, but in the time being I am absolutely not complaining about all these new hoofstock, especially as that is a department Whipsnade has historically excelled in but less so over in recent years.
Lafone
Well-Known Member
They hold two male Philippine Spotted deer - according to a talk they plan to move one on and add a female but obviously pending programme recommendations etc.
It is really good to see new stock being added.
Did the Prince Alfred's deer (Philippine spotted deer) really arrive in 2023? The species isn't listed in the 2024 animal inventory.
Lafone
Well-Known Member
I believe the first arrived in the latter part of 2024 (I photographed one in late November and the signage in December) and they were reported in the Whipsnade thread in early November (one male at the time) by @popslck
Philipine Spotted Deer signage, ZSL Whipsnade - ZooChat
The male was off show before being added to the enclosure of course so could have been there for some time. Not sure it would have been somewhere else in the zoo for 10 months though given they did add it to the warty pig space with partitions etc.
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Thank you. Arriving towards the end of 2024, too late to feature in the 2024 animal inventory, seems about right.
It's good to see Whipsnade's deer collection being enriched with some interesting new species; this almost compensates for the loss of the hippos!
You stole the very words from me....
I think the key word though is 'almost'.Regarding the White-lipped deer, I had presumed they were from HWP who have the only regular breeding herd in UK (Watatunga got their two recent females from there also with first breeding this year). I hope Whipsnade will try to source an unrelated stag to go with them, currently the only one unrelated to the HWP group in the UK is presumably the one at Watatunga, which I believe came from Berlin several years ago now..
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
It definitely softens the blow! There is definitely an upwards trajectory overall with Whipsnade's hoofstock collection, which is really good to see as a fan; it's as though they've remembered what makes them special again.
Off-topic, but I'd be interested to know what actually happens in private to make these moves come to happen. Does, for example, Highland Wildlife Park, notify other zoos that they have some unwanted deer and allow zoos such as Whipsnade to volunteer to take them? Or do Whipsnade query about the possibility of getting the deer first? I know that some moves are orchestrated by EEPs, but surely not one like this where it is a same sex group so will not contribute to the breeding programme at all. And I often see enthusiasts praise certain zoo curators or departments for being instrumental in acquiring certain species.
I do wonder if someone with a particular interest in deer has recently joined the team there and engineered some/all of these recent acquisitions. Regarding the White-lipped deer in particular, I don't know the current size of the HWP group or how many female calves have been produced in the last few years but they probably only have holding capacity for a certain number and would want homebred females to go to other locations to prevent inbreeding. Within the UK Watatunga was no doubt top of the list as they had a single unrelated stag. Whipsnade have the space to take them too, and will hopefully aquire a male too but will need to import it.
Regarding the other 'same sex' groupings, its very possible that the opposite sex will follow at a later date from elsewhere, or when obtainable, in order to provide unrelated partners. This has already been outlined for the Phillipine deer.
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To many of the public a deer is just a deer but the loss of the Hippos were an intrinsic part of Whipsnades appeal for decades as was the loss of the Polar bears!
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
I can assure you that the loss of the hippos hasn’t affected Whipsnade’s wider public appeal whatsoever. Most Londoners who know of its existence still view it as a fun alternative to London Zoo for a full day out with its broader collection and open setting, with the presence of elephants and others still a massive draw. And as far as those who don’t know about it, the hippos alone were hardly ever going to make them go out of their way to visit. Most of the zoo’s marketing revolves around elephants or giraffes and I’ve never seen hippos on an advertising board. As much as I loved them and lament their loss, I don’t think more than a few people were ever visiting Whipsnade exclusively for the hippos.
A deer is just a deer to some people, yes, but that is their loss, and for many people who are familiar with Whipsnade and visit annually they will notice the arrival of new species and will like it. Zoo enthusiasts will complain about the reduction of Whipsnade’s herbivore collection, and then when it starts to improve complain about how the collection is too homogenised and repetitive as though we wouldn’t be fuming were it the other way around and the zoo lost 5 species of deer. ZSL really can’t catch a break on this forum…
Whipsnades collection is nothing like it use to be whatever way you would like to box it I have been a visitor since the 1960s and its a fact they have lost a lot of interesting and iconic species
I think they (the common Hippos) featured on some Whipsnade advertising somewhere, not very long before they departed which I thought was a bit ironic. Longleat are certainly featuring them prominently on their summer advertising.
The thing about Whipsnade is its big enough to house all these different species(and more) so there doesn't need to be an issue of loss or gain. Exactly what they keep is down to availability, collection planning etc but it can never really become too homogenised I don't think. General visitors certainly don't go to see the lesser known ungulates but Passage Through Asia works well as a mini-safari park, presenting a rather different approach than the rest of the collection, and even for the non-specialist, the more variety that can be seen in there, the better. I don't understand why they recently removed the Barasingha( or rather some of them) and the Hog deer from the main area, but presume it is due to some management plan or issue that I'm not privy too.
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Further to that, a quick look at the most recent HWP inventory shows they had 2.8 W. L. deer at the end of 2024. This means that after the two recently sent to Whipsnade they should still have 2.6 - the two females Watatunga received were from the previous year 2023. (One of the males at HWP is listed as born in 2024 meaning they have only one mature stag.)
Does any UK zoo have a species lineup comparable with what it held in the 60s and 70s? Unfair to single out Whipsnade when this is a trend everywhere.
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
That much is undeniable, yes, but I don't think that this has quite the impact on the general public's perception that you seem to suggest it might.
I also find it quite irritating that we've spent ages on here asking for more investment into the hoofstock collection and the arrival of more interesting species, and when it finally happens some people on this forum (not just you) still find reason to complain; in this case, you're taking issue with the fact that it's just deer, though there have also been banteng, babirusa, anoa and warty pigs which are perhaps a little more diverse, and that's only looking at hoofstock (as recently as 2019 there was a whole aquarium that took the fish collection from essentially non-existent to very large). Complaints about the loss of the hippos, of course, are wholly justified and I too find that upsetting. But there is a lot of reason to celebrate about ZSL's current trajectory. So often people seem to choose to overlook this because the existing collection isn't as big as it was in the past.