Animals in private collections

ZooMania said:
Polar Bear, Penguins, Mandrills (the Southport Animals??) and many others. Would all these animals have come from Heythrop then.
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I imagine the Mandrills featured would have been his (3) original 'trained' ones. The Southport ones wouldn't have been trained for filming -unless they simply had to be Mandrills, of course. If there were a lot, it must have included the Southport ones though, as he only had three before.

Incidentally, does anyone know exactly how many Mandrills went from Southport to Heythrop?
 
I once led a group of students on a ramble which passed through Heythrop park (there are public footpaths which cross the land). This was before I knew about the private zoo. The footpath went past a paddock with zebras and llamas, then past a large barn with all sorts of strange growling noises coming from within (presumably bears or cats, though we couldn't see inside). Some of the students were foreigners and were quite impressed with our exotic native fauna!
 
The Frost episode was filmed entirely at Heythrop and a farm just down the road (for one of the first scenes, with an Alligator in a bathtub).

One of the Giraffes was also in Dalziel and Pascoe a couple of years ago (some of this was also filmed at Dudley). In one scene you can see one of the Heythrop staff leading himon a collar and lead.

The Mandrill's could have been any of the Mandrills at Heythrop as I think they were only filmed inside their cage in the background of one scene.

The Mandrills at Heythrop live as one group now. The Male from Southport is top dog. A young male was born last year but it is not known if his father was of original or Southport stock.
 
I remember the Dalziel and Pascoe episode aswell. Was that entirely fimled at Dudley as there were some species featured which are not at Dudley??
 
Paradoxurus said:
The Mandrills at Heythrop live as one group now. The Male from Southport is top dog. A young male was born last year but it is not known if his father was of original or Southport stock.
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Do you know exactly how many there are in the group?

What is their enclosure like- good, bad, spacious, small?
 
two other private collections i have read about are a collection belonging to the late martin bourne outside manchester which included markhor, chilean pudu, lesser malay chevrotain, brazilian tapir, zorilla and a large collection of lemur. Dr bourne died a few years ago and his family vowed to keep his collection going. There is also the private collection of Raymond sawyer where he keeps a world class collection of birds and achieved many british first breedings, but he is most famous for the worlds first captive breeding of Aldabran giant tortoise.
 
He`s normally got about 150 to 200 species at any given time its been a few years since i last went their.
 
The late Dr Bourne's collection has been dispersed, if not in its entirety then the vast majority. I went to see it shortly after he died while it was still nearly all together. It was being overseen then by David Armitage. Lemurs were the speciality and it was the mosty diverse assemblage in the country at the time including many taxa that were seldom or not represented in any zoos outside of Madagascar (the White-collared Lemurs, that went to Linton, stand out as one of these and the pure White-fronteds that went to Blackbrook.) Most of the Lemurs were split between Blackbrook and Linton and the remainder to Cefn-yr-erw.

The small mammal house had gone with the stock going to various private keepers. His successfu group of Long-nosed Potoroos (the founders of the UK population) went to a private keeper in Hertfordshire who continues to breed them regularly.

Raymond Sawyer's for many years maintained the collection belonging to Ruth Ezra. They married a couple of years ago. Ruth died recently. I presume Raymond is still keeping the birds. It is/was one of the best collections of softbills I have ever seen and, as with Dr Bourne's, contains/ed many taxa not represented in any UK zoos. I am guessing that the recent import ban will have a dramatic effect on the collection.

There are members of this group who will have stocklists for Raymond Sawyer's. Mine is not to hand at the moment I'm afraid.
 
Some species from Raymond Sawyers collection,
Crested Guineafowl
African Pygmy Goose
White Woodpecker
Crimson-winged Woodpecker
Greater Yellownape
Rufous-collared Kingfisher
Red-throated bee-eater
White-throated Bee-eater
Northern Carmine Bee-eater
Red and Green Macaw
Pink-headed Fruit Dove
Demoiselle Crane
Blue Crane
Grey-winged Trumpeter
Pallas`s Sandgrouse
Peruvian Thick-knee
Kittiltz`s Plover
Three-banded Plover
Long-toed Lapwing
Southern Lapwing
Three-banded Courser
Burchell`s Courser
Greater Flamingo
Chilean Flamingo
Banded Pitta
African Pitta
Long-tailed Broadbill
Guianan Red-Cotinga
Golden-breasted Fruiteater
Banded Contigua
Spangled Cotinga
Pompadour Cotinga
Purple-throated Fruitcrow
White-throated Magpie-Jay
Black-throated Tit
Black Bulbul
Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush
Copper Sunbird
Golden-winged Sunbird
Brazilian Tanager
Paradise Tanager
Seven-coloured Tanager
Scarlet-headed Blackbird
That just what i can rember seeing and all the species i had seen nowhere else before i visited their.
 
Well done David, I knew you could do it! Still a pretty mouthwatering collection 2 years ago. I would love to have seen it back in its heyday when there were hummingbirds, ****-of-the-Rock, birds of paradise and, a bit of a diversion, blackbuck. I well recall the most amazingly-coloured Bearded Dragon in the desert-house where all the bea-eaters are kept.

Do I recall Stella's Lorikeets too? And, perhaps not so exciting, there were definitely kookaburras.

(just noticed that the hosts have programmed the forum to censor certain words - how funny)
 
A few more from Raymond Sawyers collection for you,
White-breasted Kingfisher
Ruff
Aldabaran Giant Tortoise
Red-footed Tortoise
Yellow-footed Tortoise
African Spurred Tortoise
Vietnamese Box Turtle
European Pond Turtle
Leopard Tortoise
Red-necked Wallaby
 
Has anyone any pics of Rays collection? is it ever opened to the public? I have a video from cage and aviary birds where he takes a guy on a tour of the collection. it looks brilliant! He breed cough! I would like to see some pics of the desert house as I dont think it was featured in the video..
 
Vulpes said:
Has anyone any pics of Rays collection? is it ever opened to the public? I have a video from cage and aviary birds where he takes a guy on a tour of the collection. it looks brilliant! He breed cough! I would like to see some pics of the desert house as I dont think it was featured in the video..
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The Avicultural Society used to visit every year. I never heard of the public being admitted.
 
Paradoxurus said:
Basic training has been done with both Giraffes. One is unmanageable but the other can be led freely on a collar and lead. They'e appeared in Harry Potter, League of Gentlemen Appocalypse, A Touch of Frost, Jeckyll and Hyde and been guests at Elton John's House.
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Their training is interesting. I have always thought of the potential for positive reinforcement training in giraffe to perform standing only surgery / light anesthesia. Several zoo collections do train their giraffe in FC and some like Zoologicka Praha have done standing OP.
 
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