Southport Zoo Mandrills.

Southport Mandrills IZN Article

I wrote about the Southport Mandrills a few years back, and reading the information on here then my old headkeeper from the 1990's is a member of this forum. It was a strange day when he returned to the zoo and I was the headkeeper interviewing him for the primate keepers job. Of course it was in the bag!! A great loss to UK zoos when he hung up his broom, he was certainly one of the top 10 animal keepers I have worked with over the last 15 years, and once Southport closed I guess he just didn't have the heart for it anymore.

Anyway, I just thought that I would say that all of the info about the Southport Mandrill group he has posted is 100% correct. It was a great shame when the collection disbanded and the group was split up. I had plans to build a new enclosure and mix the American and original Southport animals, but that was never to be.
 
It took me a long time after Southport closed to find out where the Mandrills went to- apart from the Trotters ones. That group has now grown quite rapidly too- I think they are into double figures now. The Jim Clubb group is possibly the 2nd largest in the Uk now after Colchester's.
I think Mandrills are a species that could be suitable for a 'safari park' drivethrough reserve -if the numbers could be bred up sufficiently.

Collections in Uk with Mandrills that I know of are;

Colchester. 24 animals.
J.Clubb. 13 approx.
Trotters. 13(?)
Chester. 7 approx
Paignton 6/7
South Lakes ?

Only South Lakes group does not originate from the Southport/London bloddlines. Theirs were imported from abroad.
 
Pertinax said:
I think Mandrills are a species that could be suitable for a 'safari park' drivethrough reserve -if the numbers could be bred up sufficiently.
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You ever seen a large male? I've only seen one, at Liberec Zoo and i tell you that's one big thing you'd have on your hood...

Are there allready baboons used in drive-through exhibits because i doubt they would be suitable. I'd stick with the smaller macaque species...
 
jwer said:
Are there allready baboons used in drive-through exhibits because i doubt they would be suitable. I'd stick with the smaller macaque species...
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Knowsely Safari Park in the UK has quite a large troop of olive baboons in a drive-through enclosure.

However, I believe that most safari parks now opt for species such as rhesus macaques instead (longleat et al), or simply don't keep monkeys any more (i.e. West Midlands Safari Park)
 
uakari said:
Sorry I can't remember exactly how many we sent him its been over 4 years, but it would have been in the region of 8 to 10 animals I believe
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This person worked at Southport and gave me the above quote... I added the 3 existing Mandrills already at J. Clubb to make a (possible) total of 13.

If there are only 7, then presumbly only about 4 of these came from Southport? Either Southport had less Mandrills than I thought when they closed, or some were unnacounted for.

Can you give me any details of the 7 current Mandrills- e.g. Age, sex, if breeding?
And do you have a female that at Southport was named 'Mickey'?
 
jwer said:
You ever seen a large male? I've only seen one, at Liberec Zoo and i tell you that's one big thing you'd have on your hood...
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Plenty...
There have been many Safari Park drive through reserves with Grass or Hamadryas Baboon colonies- those males are nearly equivalent size to 'Mandrillus'. I'll agree baboons(and monkeys generally) are probably less common in Safari Parks than formerly though.

I think there could be a Safari Park somewhere in Europe- Spain? that has Mandrills but I have no idea where. If not in a drive thru area, then at least a really big 'horde' exhibited in a forest/wooded setting would make a great display.
 
I'll dig out the details for the Southport Mandrills at Heythrop. I thinks some of their names might have changed. There is no Mickey but there is a Milly.

One of the females from Southport went to Cefn-yr-erw (where she now lives with a Spider Monkey) but that would be the only one that didn't go to Trotters or Heythrop. Only four or five went to Heythrop all together including the male now named Kelvin (who has grown into a very fine specimen).
 
Do you mean a mandrill living in the same enclosure as a spider monkey? Is that one of the southport two that went to Cefn yr erw? Does anyone know why the spider monkeys were not placed with other zoos? Are they generally hard to rehome or was it because on of the two southport animals had no tail?

Also, does anybody know what became of the two Syke's Monkeys at Southport during the early-mid nineties?
 
Paradoxurus said:
I'll dig out the details for the Southport Mandrills at Heythrop. I thinks some of their names might have changed. There is no Mickey but there is a Milly.

One of the females from Southport went to Cefn-yr-erw (where she now lives with a Spider Monkey) but that would be the only one that didn't go to Trotters or Heythrop. Only four or five went to Heythrop all together including the male now named Kelvin (who has grown into a very fine specimen).
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That would be great- thankyou. I'm just very interested in tracing which went where if I can. (I have a UK studbook but its very out of date now and so won't include the younger animals). If you read the earlier posts in this thread by the ex Southport people, it gives more on their history and how the groupings of Southport- bred and USA animals were organised before their departure.
Evidently there were only 8/9 Mandrills still at Southport when it closed
and not more as I'd thought.
 
Hadley said:
Do you mean a mandrill living in the same enclosure as a spider monkey? Is that one of the southport two that went to Cefn yr erw? Does anyone know why the spider monkeys were not placed with other zoos? Are they generally hard to rehome or was it because on of the two southport animals had no tail?

Also, does anybody know what became of the two Syke's Monkeys at Southport during the early-mid nineties?
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The two Sykes monkeys died around 1992 possibly early 1993, they were housed in the old monkey house ( Terrible old building ), We built the new monkey house between 1992 & 1993 and then moved the Spider monkeys over and Squirrel monkeys and brought in Colobus and Ruffed Lemurs, The sykes had died by that time so it's around 92 or 93.

The Spider monkey without a tail was called Missy, She was wild caught in 1958, She suffered a stroke many years ago and had her tail amputated due to it being paralyzed.

I couldn't tell you why they were not placed with another zoo, possibly because A) either no one wanted them, or B) Cefn yr erw had already said they would take all the primates.

I don't remember a mandrill from southport ever going to Cefn yr erw, but as I said it was nearly 4 years ago, so I might be wrong it was a bad time within the zoo saying goodbye to everything that you had looked after for many years
 
PJ said:
I wrote about the Southport Mandrills a few years back, and reading the information on here then my old headkeeper from the 1990's is a member of this forum. It was a strange day when he returned to the zoo and I was the headkeeper interviewing him for the primate keepers job. Of course it was in the bag!! A great loss to UK zoos when he hung up his broom, he was certainly one of the top 10 animal keepers I have worked with over the last 15 years, and once Southport closed I guess he just didn't have the heart for it anymore.
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Well thank you for that Mr PJ, Indeed I have hung up my broom, I couldn't imagine anything or anywhere topping working at Southport, too many rules and regs nowadays, give me the old fashioned way of animal husbandry, none of these suits telling us what we can & can't do with our beasts.

It was a special place for me, holds a lot of memories
 
Fair enough, I seem to remember that the Mandrill at Cefn-yr-erw did come from Southport but it arrived indirectly. Must be via Trotters. I'll try to dig a photo (a poor one mind) of the Mandrill and Spider Monkey in the same cage.

Believe me, there is a few places tucked away that still practice the "old fashioned way of animal husbandry"! Character-building places.
 
uakari said:
Well thank you for that Mr PJ, Indeed I have hung up my broom, I couldn't imagine anything or anywhere topping working at Southport, too many rules and regs nowadays, give me the old fashioned way of animal husbandry, none of these suits telling us what we can & can't do with our beasts.

It was a special place for me, holds a lot of memories
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I too, worked at Southport zoo. As I'm sure you'd agree, Mr and Mrs could make a saint spit. But although I left on bad terms with the P's it was a wonderful place to work.

The old school teachings are simply the best, and to me every keeper should have some decent form of old school teaching. Why stress an animal out with a dart, to then wake up and get stressed again form not having a clue where it is or what happened. Just take a net open the door, let it quickly do a wall of death around you then bag it and crate it. Job done.

One of my best memories was of taking water out to the C.A.P.S. idiots, who'd brought there dogs on a hot day and had not given them any water.
Oh the debates we used to have.

Oh and hello PJ.
 
uakari said:
Thats correct with the names, We bought them back from Chicago Brookfield zoo in around 1989 Mica and Mickey went to Belfast on loan and we kept Wild Bill and Opal, Sadly Wild bill died around 1993-1994 leaving us without a breeding male, I believe Belfast were going out of mandrills or we had asked for them back at around that time because we took back the Belfast group which at the time consisted of Mica, Mickey and 1.1 offspring and intergrated them into the group with Opal who also had an one offspring.

We built them another enclosure along side the UK bred mandrills, unfortuantely Mica for whatever reason did not take to Opal and over a period of a few months subjected her to a lot of bullying which resulted in Mica picking her up and throwing her against the concrete walls, her face was smashed in, teeth broken, etc before the vet could get in she died from the stress and shock.

Which left us with Mica and Mickey and the offspring, over the years they bred more.

Mika died unexpectedly from arthritic septicaemia in 2000. One of Mika's male offspring took over the breeding of the US side a few years later when he had become sexually mature.

From there Trotters took that US male and UK females and private indivdual took US females and offspring + what was left on the UK side.

So Trotters definately has a US+UK mix bloodline giving them a new bloodline to run in the UK. ( But not Mica or Bill because they had died ), Charlie is probably a name they gave him, I cant remember a beasty being named as charlie in our collection.
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Charlie was a Southport Mandrill, Think it was US side (Took over when we lost Mica). He bred with one of the females and she gave birth to a male called Kelvin or Kalvin.

At the time I was there, Markus was the main Male of the UK side.

I gave All the Mandrill that were un-named, names. However for some reason this was never inputed into isis ( I expect it was to much hassle).
 
keeper19er said:
Charlie was a Southport Mandrill, Think it was US side (Took over when we lost Mica). He bred with one of the females and she gave birth to a male called Kelvin or Kalvin.

At the time I was there, Markus was the main Male of the UK side.

I gave All the Mandrill that were un-named, names. However for some reason this was never inputed into isis ( I expect it was to much hassle).
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From this I'm still assuming 'Charlie' the male at Trotters, is descended from the Mica/Mickey USA line, so Trotters are breeding with a mix of the US animals(the male) and the original Southport group(females)

Do you remember how many went to Trotters- was it a pair or trio? (they have 7 now I believe)

Nearly all Mandrills in the Uk are from the Southport x London bloodlines. These two groups mixed when a male from Southport was sent to London. Other London and Southport-bred animals made up new pairs or trios at Colchester and Paignton. Nowadays only South Lakes and Paignton groups have no Southport/London blood (Paignton's used to) while the Colchester, Chester, Trotters and Heythrop groups all do.
 
I guess it must be the same US male that went to trotters.
I'm afraid I couldn't tell you how many went to trotters but I have a collegue that works (quite high up) there, If he's still there I'll give him a call.

Sadly I left Southport before it got closed down. Was a nice place.
 
keeper19er said:
I'm afraid I couldn't tell you how many went to trotters but I have a collegue that works (quite high up) there, If he's still there I'll give him a call.

Sadly I left Southport before it got closed down. Was a nice place.
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Thanks- anything you can find out about their Mandrills- such as current number and sex ratio etc would be interesting too.

I never saw the Mandrills at Southport as I never managed to visit there, but they were quite famous really...
 
I loved working with them. I was with Mica the day he died, broke my heart, just sat with him, giving him orange juice (we never knew what was wrong til the post mortem results). Cried my eyes out.
 
keeper19er said:
I loved working with them. I was with Mica the day he died, broke my heart, just sat with him, giving him orange juice (we never knew what was wrong til the post mortem results). Cried my eyes out.
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I heard he was a very impressive adult male. At least his genes are still going strong...
 
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