Woburn Safari Park Woburn !

one reason this will probably never happen is the fact that it is believed that Noor Jahan is already pregnant due to AI. If they've had one successful AI attempt they'll probably stick with that rather than go through all the effort of transporting elephants to Woburn and back.
 
Bobby_21 said:
one reason this will probably never happen is the fact that it is believed that Noor Jahan is already pregnant due to AI. If they've had one successful AI attempt they'll probably stick with that rather than go through all the effort of transporting elephants to Woburn and back.
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woh, I'm probably really really slow, can you give me a website with the details? This is great news ( probably old great news) Thank you a lot.
 
MARK said:
we have alreadly spoken about the all female herd at Twycross on the forum before which could be rotated between the two zoos for breeding, even the distance for this is not far
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Twycross have got themselves into a difficult situation over this. What I'd really like to see is the four females from Twycross relocated permanently to Woburn, who have a bull, a brand new house and large paddocks and are actually comitted to breeding, whereas Twycross aren't really- I am pretty sure the current AI pregnancy of Norjahan is more because they feel obligated to try & breed from these females, not because they really want to build up a breeding herd. Their accomodation/space is not large enough anyway. Twycross should keep only non-breeders then there would be no critisism about them not having a bull etc.

Of course things will probably just stay as they are, but it is a pretty ridiculous situation...:(
 
MARK said:
Woburn has always had a "taste" for the rarer type of animal and from the start wanted animals like Bongo (which they still have) which was not as common in UK zoos then as they are today, they wanted Okapis many years ago which they did not aquire, they must be one of the few Safari parks that do have Przewalksi horse ;).

I hope they do get their elephant breeding program off the ground and maybe even add a couple more to the small herd they have now.
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I guess its a historical thing as Woburn already kept rare species e.g. Prezwalski horses, Wisent etc long before the days of Safari Parks.

Two more breeding age female elephants, provided all four then start to breed, would give them enough founding stock to build up a herd, (as whipsnade is now doing with only two breeders in their group..) But where to get them from? There's a zoo in the midlands that begins with a 'T'.......;)
 
Pertinax I completly agree with you on that what is the point having young females in a facility for no breeding puropse, if its just for show than that is completly ridicoulous indeed. There was so much protest in Australia about the import of elephants for breeding. This is a real shame, in my books elephants should only be in zoos for:

Breeding
Confiscation/protection
And a retirement home, this is the only time that elephants can just only be for our pure amusement and viewing.

By the way how is the exhibit in Twycross?
 
I think Woburn will try to import more elephants direct from Asia if they are serious about adding to the 1.2. they have now.
 
I read the Twycross threads, I probably can't read very well but who is the Donor of Noor jahan's baby?
 
dragon(ele)nerd said:
By the way how is the exhibit in Twycross?
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Twycross built a modern elephant enclosure some years back. Its fine as it goes- house, large sand yard and larger paddock and outside it has been extended more recently. But its not really big enough for any more adult elephants than they have now- one young female born there has been sent semi-permanently to join the whipsnade group.
 
So Karishma is staying at Whipsnade for a long time,
Are there any future plans for Tara?
 
Hmm, Emmet is the father of Many A.I calves isn't he three inculding this one I believe, hopefully Raja will be as if not more successful
 
Pertinax said:
Not that I know of except possibly they plan AI for her too in due course.. The reason Karishma was sent away was she was becoming unruly in the group.
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I wonder why she would become like that? She grew up in a good family am i mot wrong? Then again elephants are much like humans they can become a certain way for no reason
 
From what I have heard, the keepers had a problem with her, not the other elephants. We'll see how long it takes before she gets self-confident enough to make trouble in Whipsnade too - breeding herds of elephants should really be managed in protected contact. Moving "unruly" teenage elephants around in the hope that they will behave better without the protection of their family has failed too often and is cruel for the young female involved.
 
Yassa said:
We'll see how long it takes before she gets self-confident enough to make trouble in Whipsnade too - breeding herds of elephants should really be managed in protected contact.
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Its very interesting how they manage the Whipsnade elephants. The females are NEVER all together in a single group & I was told this time its because the alpha original whipsnade, and alpha ex London females( I can't remember the correct names of these two, sorry) fight for dominance. So they are kept in pairs or trios with one of these two females as leader in each. But within that framework they move the subordinates between the subgroups. This visit Karishma was with one female and calf, while the other three + the 2 calves made up the other group. This larger group were exercised out in the Park in the afternoon. Incidentally, the newest calf is male and has a very odd name for an elephant- he's called 'Donaldson' !!:confused:
I haven't seen the bull in with the females since they started breeding them.
I have a feeling Karishma will be kept in line better at Whipsnade- if only because the keepers- possibly more experienced than at Twycross(?)- also have more elephants to control, including a bull. She does 'seem' perfectly happy there but how do we know?
 
Karishma didn't have a particularly 'normal' upbringing, she was born into a group consisting of three females that had been removed from their natal groups while they were still babies, and so are very loosely 'elephants' in terms of learned social behaviour. Karishma was born into a regime of 'experience days' and various training displays, which require the keepers to dominate the elephants in order to make free contact safer. I'm not surprised that a stronger-willed animal became disruptive. I have no idea what the difference is at Whipsnade but as much as free contact training bothers me, it does mean that she gets to walk the grounds at Whipsnade.

I really don't think temperate zoos are the place to try and propagate such a complex animal, given how much 'culture' is lost when you transfer young animals to captivity before they are fully weaned, but I think the multi-generational groups are exceptional in welfare terms and I hope places like woburn will continue this trend without feeling the need to import animals from asia. The UK population is healthier in this respect than it has ever been, and it will be great when the elephant population in this country has been fully consolidated into large social groupings in just a few institutions.
 
When I last went to Whipsnade, they only had one elephant seperated, and then two days later they had 2 of the adult females and baby Donaldson (cute name lol) seperated. It confuses me :-s
 
I guess elephants will be elephants and they will change like humans when they become adolescents, Thank you guys for the write backs,

Mind me but I think Donaldson sounds kinda like a circus name,
 
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