European zoos with koalas

Mr T

Mr T

Well-Known Member
I was reading on the Edinburgh zoo website that the koalas they keep are part of the European breeding program and the zoos role in the program is to hold males that are either too young for breeding or that have been retired.

I looked on ISIS but unfortunately the stats are not available to the public at the moment.

So could anyone please tell me which European zoo currently keep koalas and which of these have groups intended for breeding?
 
Edinburgh - 2 males
Beauval - breeding group
Madrid - not known to me
Plackendael - not known to me
Vienna - not known to me
Duisburg - breeding group
 
Planckendael - breeding group 1.2 if I am correct. If I m correct the current male did not father any young yet.
 
Mr T said:
I was reading on the Edinburgh zoo website that the koalas they keep are part of the European breeding program and the zoos role in the program is to hold males that are either too young for breeding or that have been retired.

I looked on ISIS but unfortunately the stats are not available to the public at the moment.

So could anyone please tell me which European zoo currently keep koalas and which of these have groups intended for breeding?
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You should check zootierliste it gives you an entire list of all Koalas currently kept in Europe collections; www.Zootierliste.de

Current situations;

Edinburgh; 2.0 held until recommended to breed and move to a new zoo, or breeding situation. The males came from Duisburg and Lisbon.
Beauval; breeding group numbers unknown.
Planckendael; 1.2
Lisbon; unknown.
Madrid; unsure of there current situation.
Vienna; unsure of there current situation.
Duisburg; First Koalas arrived in in March 2002

Edinburgh's first Koalas, Chumbee and Jammali (sp?) were moved to Vienna and Duisburg respectively, Jammali is the father of Goonaroo (At Edinburgh) - Edinburgh's other male 'Yabbra' was born at Lisbon.
 
Are all of these koalas on loan from the San Diego Zoo koala program, or do some of these zoos have their own koala programs?
 
@Jordan, Duisburgs Koala's arrived 1994 from San Diego.

@DavidBrown, I believe all European koala's descend from the San Diego line. Europe's most successfull breeder imported it's stock from San Diego.
 
lintworm said:
@Jordan, Duisburgs Koala's arrived 1994 from San Diego.

@DavidBrown, I believe all European koala's descend from the San Diego line. Europe's most successfull breeder imported it's stock from San Diego.
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Could of been a typo or something else but there website says March 2002, or they opened there Koala exhibit/house my Google translator messed up. Thanks for clearing it up.
 
Zoo Antwerp received 2 koalas in April. According to the zoo's website, it is the 10th European zoo to exhibit koalas.
 
Budapest have also received Koala's this year

It's about time we had another UK holder - ZSL again maybe?
 
Lisbon Zoo received Koalas in 1991 from San Diego. It is commonly said to have been the first European Zoo to get Koalas.
 
Yeah, I could never find pieces of evidence for that statement but it is said commonly by the zoo itself.
 
London's Koala is many times mentioned as the first of its kind in an European Zoo. Afaik it was a very tough animal and died not because of the wrong food it got, but by an accident (I read it in a book but can't remember what the exact reason was). - Tim?
 
zoomaniac said:
London's Koala is many times mentioned as the first of its kind in an European Zoo. Afaik it was a very tough animal and died not because of the wrong food it got, but by an accident (I read it in a book but can't remember what the exact reason was). - Tim?
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There is a paper, of which I can find only the abstract ("Disease and mortality in Australian marsupials held at London Zoo, 1872-1972"), which says that the zoo kept six Koalas during that period.

This page gives more information though: Image rights unavailable - Koalas - Fossil Hunters


A Koala or native Bear of Australia (Phascolarctos cinereus), purchased April 28, being the first example of this peculiar Marsupial that has been brought alive to Europe. Many attempts have been made by the friends and correspondents of the Society in Australia to induce specimens of this animal to live in captivity; but all have hitherto failed. The present example, which was purchased of a dealer in London, was brought home fed upon dried leaves of Eucalyptus, and had been several weeks in this country before it was acquired by the Society. 2

To the keepers' great credit they kept the koala alive for 14 months by feeding it on dried leaves initially and, later, fresh eucalypt leaves brought from Australia. Unfortunately the koala came to a tragic end on the night of 14 June 1881. The animal was allowed to roam free in the superintendent's office at night and, on this particular evening, it caught its head between the top and bottom rails of the room's fixed washing-stand. Despite or perhaps during its struggle to free itself, the koala died from asphyxia.3

A second animal received by the Zoological Society on 23 May 1882 was fed leaves of Tasmanian blue gum and a 'little bread and milk', but its longevity is not recorded.4 Lee Crandall's history of the management of captive animals tells of several koalas being shipped to England in 1908. The animals refused to eat the eucalypt leaves once they had withered, but ate a mixture of bread, milk and honey, and even Eucalyptus throat pastilles 'which they ate with every appearance of joy!' Unfortunately the ship ran into extremely cold weather in the Great Australian Bight off southern Australia, and the koalas perished. Two more koalas were purchased by the Royal Zoological Society of London on 10 November 1927, but neither survived for little more than a month.5

There is no list of references on the page so the text may have just been cut-and-pasted from somewhere else.
 
zoomaniac said:
London's Koala is many times mentioned as the first of its kind in an European Zoo. Afaik it was a very tough animal and died not because of the wrong food it got, but by an accident (I read it in a book but can't remember what the exact reason was). - Tim?
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Chlidonias said:
There is a paper, of which I can find only the abstract ("Disease and mortality in Australian marsupials held at London Zoo, 1872-1972"), which says that the zoo kept six Koalas during that period.

This page gives more information though: Image rights unavailable - Koalas - Fossil Hunters
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W. A . Forbes examined the body of London Zoo's first koala after its death and then contributed the paper "On Some Points in the Anatomy of the Koala" to the "The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1882)".

The introductory paragraph of Forbes' paper provides a useful account of this animal's time at London Zoo and the information in the article quoted by "Chlidonias" appears to have been obtained directly from this source.

The koala was a young female; it was purchased on 28th April 1880 and died overnight on 14th June 1881.
 
Jordan-Jaguar97 said:
You should check zootierliste it gives you an entire list of all Koalas currently kept in Europe collections; www.Zootierliste.de

Current situations;

Edinburgh; 2.0 held until recommended to breed and move to a new zoo, or breeding situation. The males came from Duisburg and Lisbon.
Beauval; breeding group numbers unknown.
Planckendael; 1.2
Lisbon; unknown.
Madrid; unsure of there current situation.
Vienna; unsure of there current situation.
Duisburg; First Koalas arrived in in March 2002

Edinburgh's first Koalas, Chumbee and Jammali (sp?) were moved to Vienna and Duisburg respectively, Jammali is the father of Goonaroo (At Edinburgh) - Edinburgh's other male 'Yabbra' was born at Lisbon.
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But there are also koalas at Zurich and at Longleat Safari Park. Or am I missing something.
 
MRJ said:
But there are also koalas at Zurich and at Longleat Safari Park. Or am I missing something.
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It's a post from 2012, Longleat and Zurich received theirs in 2018. Antwerp, Dresden, Leipzig and Pairi Daiza are also not on the list for the same reason, they only got koala's after 2012.
 
Jarne said:
It's a post from 2012, Longleat and Zurich received theirs in 2018. Antwerp, Dresden, Leipzig and Pairi Daiza are also not on the list for the same reason, they only got koala's after 2012.
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Thanks, the problem with resurrected threads.
 
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