Taronga Western Plains Zoo Taronga Western Plains Zoo 2015

yeah, all the Geoffroy's spider monkeys in Australasia are mixed-race, although I have seen some zoos try to add subspecific names to their stock on occasion. There are so few left in Australia though (about thirty or less) that it wouldn't be hard to just phase them out and bring in pure ones (of any species) if the ZAA really wanted to. They did it with the squirrel monkeys and emperor tamarins, for example.
 
The situation with the spider monkeys is/was (circa early 2000s) that essentially the population was split into two management groups: the golden/Nicaraguan type and the dark/Mexican type. While the much larger golden population has alot of question marks regarding known ancestry, mostly from various US importations, the dark population was actually well documented and could be easily traced. The original imports were (again if I remember correctly) from the US, and went directly to Dubbo and Orana Park in NZ. These were unrelated until a pairing was made from one of each at Dubbo (at least this was the plan when I was last keeping up to date). In my mind the ZAA should have focused on maintaining both types seperately with a particular focus on the dark/Mexican group.

By mixing up populations and creating cross-breeds, the ZAA are saying the spider monkey population is worth nothing beyond a display animal. No animals will ever leave the region because other regions will not touch them. A similar situation was tabled for zebras, and already mentioned squirrel monkeys. I fully appreciate the difficulties that Australian zoos pose with imports, but I think it will be a decision that they will rue in the future.
 
tetrapod said:
..... the dark population was actually well documented and could be easily traced. The original imports were (again if I remember correctly) from the US, and went directly to Dubbo and Orana Park in NZ. These were unrelated until a pairing was made from one of each at Dubbo (at least this was the plan when I was last keeping up to date). .....
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at the time of the imports (1978 for Orana) the Mexican spider monkeys were thought to be pure, but they weren't. They came from San Francisco.
 
Chlidonias said:
at the time of the imports (1978 for Orana) the Mexican spider monkeys were thought to be pure, but they weren't. They came from San Francisco.
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Interesting, I hadn't heard of this development. I take it that the San Francisco group are a mixed bag? A real pity as I felt that Australasia could manage to have one viable group of pure NW primate... well larger than marmoset/tamarin.
 
I was at Dubbo today and saw the Black Rino Calf.

The Hippo talk and display was good.

Other than that I was under impressed, less animals every time I visit and I believe it is over expensive. $112 for me and 3 kids for the day.

I believe Altina is much better value.
 
With Taronga splitting it's elephant herd, and moving some elephants to TWPZ, does anyone have any info regarding the next step of their breeding programme?
 
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