The Only Ones In Britain

grantsmb said:
Colchester may bnot have the Spotted Hyaena any more. THey were down to one several years ago now.. A pity a few Safari Parks don't try to display this species...its very 'African'
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Grant some of the English safrai parks did try many years ago (early 1970s) to have Spotted Hyenas in the same area with the lions, I saw at the time the Hyenas were fenced right next door to the lion area, I guess it never went ahead as it was very unlikely to have worked. ;) , I once saw a pride of lions attacking a tractor that was parked in their park.
 
gentle lemur said:
Don't forget Chester's pair of Mauritius kestrels. How about Colchester's striped & spotted hyaenas? I suspect there are many more . . . .

Alan
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The Hawk Conservancy at Weyhill also has at least a pair of Mauritius kestrels so Chesters are not the only ones in the U.K.
 
They probably are not there due to a number of things:

They were reintroduced
They were moved to other zoos where they sunsequently died.
They just died of old age or possibly virus.
 
I would think Jersey discontinued their breeding of Mauritius Kestrels. They are now safe from extinction. The pair at Chester only bred once in 1995, whent wo chicks were hatched but only one was reared. I don't know if anyone else bred them.
 
Yes tell us more zoogiraffe - do you work at the zoo? Any info you have on the masterplan would be very welcome here!

There's a separate topic somewhere about the Superzoo plans too
 
Chris79 said:
Yes tell us more zoogiraffe - do you work at the zoo? Any info you have on the masterplan would be very welcome here!

There's a separate topic somewhere about the Superzoo plans too
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No don`t work for the zoo just a member with friends in the right places within the zoo,so as a result sometimes have to be carefull with what i write here as it `s not always know out side of the management of the zoo!
 
MARK said:
Grant some of the English safrai parks did try many years ago (early 1970s) to have Spotted Hyenas in the same area with the lions, I saw at the time the Hyenas were fenced right next door to the lion area, I guess it never went ahead as it was very unlikely to have worked. ;) , I once saw a pride of lions attacking a tractor that was parked in their park.
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I didn't know that. I'm not very up to date as to what happens in Safari Parks. I just visited Woburn- my first visit to a Safari Park in maybe twenty years and that was only to find out about the elephants and Somali asses..

I'm sure you could never keep Hyaenas actually IN with lions- they'd catch them sooner or later. Unless perhaps there was an area the lions couldn't access but it would be difficult. I suppose having the hyaenas in an adjacent enclosure wasn't regarded as an interesting exhibit so they gave up...
 
I agree Grant it was not a good idea, I could not see it ever working in a captive situation even in a "Safrai park" the way i saw that group of lions attacking the Tractor in there park was quite surprising so anything else in there would not live too long, the idea of running the Hyaenas next to the lions was to gauge or test the lions reaction with them.

I saw the first group of Siberian tigers arrive at Woburn in the early 70s, they were amazing animals, I still have many of the zoo booklets from the first days of Woburn, longleat and Winsor Safari parks.

Longleat was the best of them at the time all their animals looked in great condition,

Winsor had at that time dolfins and one Killer whale and a nice collection of big cats.

Grant I did never get to see any of the "Northern Safrai parks" but from what I can see on their websites the Midlands Safrai park "looks about the best of them, how do you see it?
 
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I imagine that in a captive 'Safari Park' situation, a group of lions would attack anything that triggers their hunting reflexes- so a tractor would stimulate that reaction. Because their hunting instincts are not utilised very much in captivity, I guess they would go for anything, be it a tractor- or a hyaena.

I've never been to West Midlands or Knowsley Safari Parks.(Longleat I have been to a number of times but not for many years). They both seem to have interesting collections though. After visiting Woburn, I'm now more interesting in seeing the other Safari Parks too(!!) so maybe I will do so in the coming months.
 
Hope you get some good pics, LOL.

I looked at the website for Knowsley Safrai park, it looks interesting,

They are breeding African elephants there, but I dont know how many or how big the herd is?.

The tractor I saw attacked was not even moving it was just sitting there with a keeper inside watching things.
 
Most of the UK safari parks seem to gave improved, certainly Woburn and Longleat have benefitted from losing their involvement with the chipperfield organisation, although I don't know when this came about.
 
ZooMania said:
Knowsley is a much better safari park than Longleat, and has a far better collection.
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I thought it probably was. Their website is better presented and far less tacky than the others- indicating the organisation as a whole is better managed too...;)
 
The curator of Knowsley, used to be the curator of mammals at Chester, so that is why they have lot's of species that Chester has.
 
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