Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo News 2013

Davef68 said:
Looks like there has been a reshuffle of the Asian Golden cats again - only one now in carnivore row, the other two enclosures in the small mammal house next to the sun bears (or at least labelled as such as neither had a cat that was visible, nothing new there!) Does Edinburgh have 2 or 3 these days?

..............

Barry was mentioned above - I do hope the management at RZSS realise what a huge asset he is - his enthusiasm and knowledge shines through, and my kids love him! He even remembers them from visit to visit.
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I went on Tuesday, as it happens, and I got a full set of all three golden cats :) the youngest male, Ipoh, is in the usual enclosure in the small mammal house. His sibling, the female Swai-fai, is the cat in the old aardwolf enclosure. Kahn, the older male and the newest arrival, is the cat on carnivore row who loves his barrel :p

I very much agree about Barry being an asset to RZSS; once I have finished my general explore of the zoo to see what has changed, I tend to tag along with his various talks and have a chat with him about the carnivores held at Edinburgh, as I did on Tuesday. I suspect the fact I tend to ask about obscure things like the margays and golden cats makes me easy to remember! :p
 
TeaLovingDave said:
I went on Tuesday, as it happens, and I got a full set of all three golden cats :) the youngest male, Ipoh, is in the usual enclosure in the small mammal house. His sibling, the female Swai-fai, is the cat in the old aardwolf enclosure. Kahn, the older male and the newest arrival, is the cat on carnivore row who loves his barrel :p
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Brilliant! I am going in a week specifically for golden cat, and now there are three separate exhibits for them? Fantastic!
 
Arizona Docent said:
Brilliant! I am going in a week specifically for golden cat, and now there are three separate exhibits for them? Fantastic!
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There have always been three separate enclosures; the change is in which enclosures are being used. The enclosure with the female in has visible sleeping quarters, which may or may not improve visibility of the individual - she didn't use them whilst I was there on Tuesday.
 
Oh, it's a shame about the reshuffling of the golden cats, the empty exhibit was/is a good oppurtunity to put the margay on show
 
epickoala123 said:
Oh, it's a shame about the reshuffling of the golden cats, the empty exhibit was/is a good oppurtunity to put the margay on show
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The reshuffling was in order to make room for the clouded leopard I believe; the margays were earmarked for the exhibit which now has scottish wildcats in, but the need to house the latter species for HWP took precedence.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The reshuffling was in order to make room for the clouded leopard I believe; the margays were earmarked for the exhibit which now has scottish wildcats in, but the need to house the latter species for HWP took precedence.
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oh, I would of thought the small carnivores building would be more suited for a quite secretive animal
 
epickoala123 said:
oh, I would of thought the small carnivores building would be more suited for a quite secretive animal
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As would I; but the enclosure on carnivore row is both tall and thickly planted, which is the more important factor for a semi-arboreal carnivore. Hopefully they will go onshow there some point.
 
I was told in August by a keeper that the Margays might go in the (now) old Aardwolf enclosure. It seems it has changed several times... and yet they are still off show! One day perhaps.
 
JamesB said:
I was told in August by a keeper that the Margays might go in the (now) old Aardwolf enclosure. It seems it has changed several times... and yet they are still off show! One day perhaps.
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Or, as it used to be, the old Margay enclosure! They were usually pretty visible when they were in there, one in particlar liked sleeping near the window at the side.

IIRC from HWP last year that litter of Wildcats were a bit of a surprise, being very late in the year (They were only 12 weeks in October)
 
Oh I didn't realise they were in there before! So they moved them off-show to attempt to breed them? I heard they have been attempting to get them to mate, if I'm right?
 
JamesB said:
Oh I didn't realise they were in there before! So they moved them off-show to attempt to breed them? I heard they have been attempting to get them to mate, if I'm right?
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Not quite; the current female actually arrived whilst the margay were offshow - I do not know whether there was another female which has since left or died. The margay originally went offshow because of all the disruption and noise caused by the building work required to convert the old polar bear enclosure into the current sun bear enclosure, I believe - as did the other occupants of the small carnivore house. It's just been delays in getting them back onshow I think.

That said, they have indeed been trying to get the current pair breeding, I believe.
 
The pandas are hopefully going to be introduced this afternoon and tomorrow... people with viewing times for tomorrow are being emailed.. this is according to their twitter posts :)
 
Someone on the zoo's facebook page has reported the arrival of 3 kiang, up the hill somewhere?
Can anyone confirm?
 
Giant Panda AI.

I wonder what the behavioural signs in the female were that indicated she would not mate? Also why they ruled out even trying them together for a mating attempt if both were showing other mating behaviours. Would it be to avoid stressing the female and therefore making the AI less likely to succeed? Its perhaps surprising they have to resort to this with two proven breeders (or were they AI subjects previously perhaps?).

I often wonder what it is about captive Giant Pandas generally that makes natural mating often difficult and therefore AI (or attempted AI) so often necessary. After all, mating must be successful enough in the wild.
 
Facebook just said:yuang guang was showing promising signs. Tian tian was also shiwing good signs but also indications that she didn't want to mate
 
epickoala123 said:
Facebook just said:yuang guang was showing promising signs. Tian tian was also shiwing good signs but also indications that she didn't want to mate
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all the news releases carried the same report. Its muddled- both were showing 'good signs'. but the Chinese expert also detected TianTian wouldn't mate-its a bit of a contradiction- good signs and bad signs together?:confused:
 
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