Wellington Zoo Wellington Zoo News 2016

yes, thanks Tygo. I wanted to see if it had been updated (i.e. if it showed where the capybara would be) but it hasn't. The pelican is still there as well.
 
Zuri the female Giraffe is on her way to Wellington Zoo from Auckland Zoo.
Auckland Zoo's giraffe to reunite with Wellington relatives | Environmentsci | Newshub
Auckland Zoo's giraffe to reunite with Wellington relatives
Monday 30 May 2016 6:00 a.m.
A one-year-old Auckland giraffe is setting off on the adventure of a lifetime.
The city's zoo is bidding farewell to Zuri, who is due to be reunited with relatives in Wellington.
She'll be exposed to a lot of unfamiliar sights during her 12-hour truck journey, but Auckland Zoo Pridelands team leader Nat Sullivan will be there for support.
"What we can do is give her familiar faces and familiar food," she says. "There's myself and Henry, and we both worked with her her entire life, so she knows us really well and she should get a lot of comfort out of seeing us, and we're going to be following behind her."
Zuri, who will travel in a specially constructed crate, will join her grandmother and aunt at Wellington Zoo.
Ms Sullivan says zookeepers have been working for weeks to get Zuri prepared.
"Zuri is almost three and a half metres. The crate that she'll be in is four metres tall. All up, once she's sitting on the truck the whole height is about five metres."
Zuri's trip's been meticulously planned so she doesn't strike bridges or buildings along the way.
"Her mother was actually born in Wellington Zoo, so she'll be going down to relatives -- she's got her grandmother down there," says Ms Sullivan. "There is a family resemblance. It's quite nice that she'll be going down there and having that connection with them."
Zuri won't be sedated, but a vet will be with her for her entire epic journey.
Newshub.
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Update on Wellington's plans for the future: Snow Leopards, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Wombats as part of a $2 million refresh of Neighbours (which was just opened, but will also include a new aviary for the zoo's Aussie birds and hopefully be much less garish) and a much-needed new entrance. All sounds good to me, except replacing the Hamadryas Baboons (where will they go? why?) with lemurs.

Story here: No pandas for Wellington, but snow leopards, wombats and ring-tailed lemurs are on the way | Stuff.co.nz

Snow leopards, wombats and ring-tailed lemurs are all in Wellington Zoo's future, but don't expect to see giant pandas chewing bamboo in the capital any time soon.

The zoo has revealed its priorities for the next decade in a report to Wellington City Council – and conspicuous by its absence was any mention of getting a deal done to acquire giant pandas from China.

Chief executive Karen Fifield said on Thursday that the zoo had plenty of rare animals on its wish-list, but it was not preparing a business case or engaging in talks with the Government about giant pandas.

Talk of bringing pandas to Wellington caught fire last year after it was revealed Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee had delivered a city council pitch for the bears to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in Chengdu while there on unrelated business.

Prime Minister John Key added his endorsement to the idea, saying pandas would be a great tourism boost for the capital. He also promised to discuss the idea with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"Personally, I think New Zealand will get there ... but there are costs. Eventually I think a couple of pandas will turn up," Key said at the time.

He declined to comment on pandas when approached by Stuff on Thursday, suggesting the animals had fallen well down the Government's list of priorities.

The cost of bringing pandas to Wellington has been hotly debated, with estimates ranging from $10 million to $100m.

Fifield said that if the Government was of a mind to cover the bulk of the costs, then Wellington Zoo would find space for giant pandas. But it was not actively pursuing the prospect.

"Giant pandas are an icon around the world ... but Wellington Zoo and the city council can't fund that."

Much more likely was the aquisition of rare snow leopards, which could happen in 2018 if the zoo can find $3.5m to bring them here.
Ring-tailed lemurs are also on Wellington Zoo's wish-list.
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/ FAIRFAX NZ

Ring-tailed lemurs are also on Wellington Zoo's wish-list.

With only 7000 or so of the big cats left in the world, the zoo would join the international effort to save them, Fifield said.

Wellington Zoo is also planning to replace its baboon exhibit with rare ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar.

Fifield said the lemurs could potentially arrive sooner than the snow leopards if the zoo can secure the $500,000 needed to bring them here.

Wombat were also on the zoo's wish-list. The zoo is planning a $2m refresh of its Neighbours exhibit, which would see all its Australian birds moved into a new enclosure with the wombats, but this is not likely to happen before 2022.

The zoo is also keen to start drawing up plans for a $5m "welcome plaza" complete with a new admissions area, retail space, staff offices, a cafe and a learning/discovery space.

Three new keepers will also start work at Wellington Zoo from July 1, after the zoo decided to increases staffing levels to improve safety in the wake of Hamilton Zoo curator Samantha Kudeweh​ being mauled to death by a tiger in September.

The zoo's future plans have been revealed as it prepares to record the highest annual visitor total in its 110-year history.

It has already welcomed 257,954 through the doors since last July and expects to surpass 260,000 before the end of the financial year on June 30. The previous financial year generated 225,927 visitors.

GORILLA TACTICS
Cincinnati Zoo were forced to kill 17-year-old Harambe the gorilla after a 4-year-old boy fell into his enclosure. Wellington Zoo says it would not necessarily taken the same action.

Harambe the gorilla might have stood a chance if he had been a resident of Wellington Zoo.

Harambe was shot and killed by staff at Cincinnati Zoo in the United States in May after a child climbed into his enclosure.

The decision to shoot rather than tranquillise the gorilla caused controversy across the world, with many feeling the zoo acted too harshly.

Prime Minister John Key even weighed in on the debate, saying he would not have shot Harambe.

In light of the incident, Wellington city councillor Nicola Young asked zoo chief executive Karen Fifield on Thursday whether she took a "stun or bullet" approach to such incidents.

Fifield said those decisions were made on a "case by case" basis. But she reminded councillors the zoo's priority was to protect human life, and that chimpanzees were considered a more immediate threat than lions and tigers.

"People think the lions and tigers are the things you need to worry about. But no, it's the chimps … the lions and tigers would likely go to ground."

Wellington Zoo has previously revealed that chimpanzees sit atop its hit-list in the event of mass escape, because they can be 10 times the strength of a person and are known to hunt other primates in the wild.
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zooboy28 said:
Update on Wellington's plans for the future: Snow Leopards, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Wombats as part of a $2 million refresh of Neighbours (which was just opened, but will also include a new aviary for the zoo's Aussie birds and hopefully be much less garish) and a much-needed new entrance. All sounds good to me, except replacing the Hamadryas Baboons (where will they go? why?) with lemurs.
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Wellington Zoo's target market is 5 to 10 year olds. The Baboons are big and scary and they do not have additional fund raising appeal; you can't do a meet the Baboon experience. A Ring-tailed Lemur experience will prove to be very lucrative. (Sorry I am just being an old cynic this morning!)

Great news about the Snow Leopards. They will be a welcome return to Wellington.
Thankfully if they do bring in Wombats they will have a much better enclosure than the last Wombat at Wellington Zoo. In the 1970's I can recall one in a solid concrete enclosure about 5m by 2m , where it ran backwards and forwards all the time I viewed it. It was the most active Wombat I have ever seen. Every other Wombat I have seen has been asleep. I personally think that Wombats are a poor choice and that Wellington would be better off considering Quolls as they are more active and of a smaller size that would appeal to the target market.:)
 
I'm excited that Snow Leopards are still on the plan. I couldn't think of a more suitable species for the rocky terrace of the old sun bear enclosure.

I'm not impressed to hear that baboons are being replaced. I believe Wellington Zoo hold the largest troop in Australasia, and they are an interesting exhibit, as are the troop at Auckland Zoo. Does anyone know when the last offspring in the troop was born, or what the plans are for the existing troop at Wellington?
 
Zoofan15 said:
I'm excited that Snow Leopards are still on the plan. I couldn't think of a more suitable species for the rocky terrace of the old sun bear enclosure.
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klipspringers and rock hyrax?

Zoofan15 said:
I'm not impressed to hear that baboons are being replaced. I believe Wellington Zoo hold the largest troop in Australasia, and they are an interesting exhibit, as are the troop at Auckland Zoo. Does anyone know when the last offspring in the troop was born, or what the plans are for the existing troop at Wellington?
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Melbourne's group is comparable, perhaps larger, but I don't know the specific numbers - they're both somewhere around 15 or 16 animals. I think the last baboon baby at Wellington was in 2010.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I'm not impressed to hear that baboons are being replaced. I believe Wellington Zoo hold the largest troop in Australasia, and they are an interesting exhibit, as are the troop at Auckland Zoo. Does anyone know when the last offspring in the troop was born, or what the plans are for the existing troop at Wellington?
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According to Wellington Zoo's website "Wellington Zoo is home to a group of seven Hamadryas Baboons, which is just one of the five Baboon sub-species. You can easily spot the alpha males with their impressive long silvery capes, while the younger males are brown."

When I was last at the Zoo in several years ago there was a large troop of at least 25. An Internet search shows that several moved to Melbourne.
"Privileged to be involved with the #export of SINEAD, ZARA, ABEBA, QETESH #baboons #flying today from #WellingtonZoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Melbourne "
"Privileged to be involved with the export of MACY, BETH & GREET #baboon #flying today from #Wellington #zoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Adelaide"
The Zoo Annual report for 2010-2011 states "The baboons have bred well in the past year producing four new babies."

IMHO it would appear that the decision to phase out the Baboons at Wellington Zoo was made some time ago and has only just been made public.
 
oh, interesting. That is dead right and it had escaped my notice. As a point of interest, Wellington seems to now only have male baboons. Melbourne's group is now about 21 animals, while most of the other holders in Australasia have groups of around 7 to 9 animals.
 
Chlidonias said:
klipspringers and rock hyrax?
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I'm afraid I'm in the majority group of zoo visitors who are mostly interested in the megafauna species and are largely ignorant of lesser known species which if displayed well, could be equally as intriguing. I'm sure rock hyrax would adapt well to the enclosure, as would klipsringers (I had to Google them), though wouldn't have the pull factor of Snow Leopards! Having read more about baboons habituating cliff faces etc., I'm sure the enclosure would not be entirely unsuitable for them, though they are from Africa and Snow Leopards will compliment the Asian theme they have going in that area.
 
kiwimuzz said:
According to Wellington Zoo's website "Wellington Zoo is home to a group of seven Hamadryas Baboons, which is just one of the five Baboon sub-species. You can easily spot the alpha males with their impressive long silvery capes, while the younger males are brown."

When I was last at the Zoo in several years ago there was a large troop of at least 25. An Internet search shows that several moved to Melbourne.
"Privileged to be involved with the #export of SINEAD, ZARA, ABEBA, QETESH #baboons #flying today from #WellingtonZoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Melbourne "
"Privileged to be involved with the export of MACY, BETH & GREET #baboon #flying today from #Wellington #zoo #WLG #NewZealand to #Adelaide"
The Zoo Annual report for 2010-2011 states "The baboons have bred well in the past year producing four new babies."

IMHO it would appear that the decision to phase out the Baboons at Wellington Zoo was made some time ago and has only just been made public.
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Thanks for that info. I saw on the WZ page, that they were down to 7 and wondered where they'd all gone. Now I know. I thought they had at least 15, so assuming 1 died, that would leave 7 after the export of the 7 you mentioned (all females I take it?) I'd imagine there would be many institutions willing to take females, while the males obviously would be harder to relocate. I still think it's dissapointing to lose them as a species from the zoo. It looks like Melbourne is the place to see a large group now.
 
According to The Wellington Zoo Annual Report for 2015-2016 the only births recorded at the Zoo "Our Meerkat mob welcomed four pups that are all thriving".
A bit sad for a Zoo that is celebrating its 110 anniversary. Too busy being "Carbon Zero" and "sustainable" to breed anything else???
 
kiwimuzz said:
According to The Wellington Zoo Annual Report for 2015-2016 the only births recorded at the Zoo "Our Meerkat mob welcomed four pups that are all thriving".
A bit sad for a Zoo that is celebrating its 110 anniversary. Too busy being "Carbon Zero" and "sustainable" to breed anything else???
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you seem to have a real beef against the zoo. All your posts seem to be for the sole purpose of putting them down.

As it happens, meerkats aren't the only births in the year-period. There were, for example, pigmy marmosets and nyala. Not sure why they didn't mention them and others, but your criticism is based solely on you not having any information to the contrary.

And what about the good news you could have mentioned from the report? In animal news alone, the import of new grey kangaroos and agoutis for their groups is pretty significant!

(But that brings me to my main criticism of the zoo at the moment - no publicity for some of their imports/new animals. The new cottontop tamarins, capybaras, and bongo are examples of animals given press releases which is great. But I have seen nothing outside of member emails and non-public sources for - as examples - the veiled chameleons [except a random X-ray photo on Facebook], the new agoutis, the giant millipedes, the emperor scorpions, the grey kangaroos [the latter were the only totally new ones to my information, but most people who haven't visited the zoo wouldn't know any of these had happened]. It would be nice if prominent newcomers like these got some wider releases to the public).

The report: https://wellingtonzoo.com/assets/Resources/Wellington-Zoo-Annual-Report-2015-16.pdf
 
Chlidonias said:
you seem to have a real beef against the zoo. All your posts seem to be for the sole purpose of putting them down.

As it happens, meerkats aren't the only births in the year-period. There were, for example, pigmy marmosets and nyala. Not sure why they didn't mention them and others, but your criticism is based solely on you not having any information to the contrary.

And what about the good news you could have mentioned from the report? In animal news alone, the import of new grey kangaroos and agoutis for their groups is pretty significant!
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I am sorry if I appear to have a real beef against Wellington Zoo. I guess I just expect an institution that is "Driving a Zoo Keeping Revolution" to actually breed and keep animals in healthy viable populations.
The births of the pygmy marmosets, and nayla were all mentioned in the previous years annual report and did not occur in the year ending 30 June 2016, leaving the breeding success for the year at 4 meerkats. For an organisation with a total revenue of $7.2 million NZ dollars, I expect slightly better breeding results.
 
fair enough.

But FYI, for the births I specifically mentioned: pigmy marmosets were born in September 2015 and nyala in October 2015, both with the year-period of the 2015-16 annual report.
 
The lack of breeding of the higher profile animals is partly circumstantial:

Lions: The three females (born 2001) are post reproductive.

Tiger: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permission by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017.

Cheetah: Wellington Zoo will only ever hold non breeding males, as will Auckland and Hamilton Zoo. Only Orana have the space to breed cheetah.

Sun Bears: The pair are father and daughter.

Giraffes: They currently hold a single sex herd, as do Hamilton Zoo and Orana Wildlife Park.

Chimpanzee: They have had three infants born between 2010 to 2014, and all females are currently on contraception to avoid overcrowding.

Hamdryas Baboon: These are being phased out, and only males remain as they await relocation.

Red Panda: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permision by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017/2018.

Otter: They hold an all male group.
 
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Zoofan15 said:
The lack of breeding of the higher profile animals is partly circumstantial:

Lions: The three females (born 2001) are post reproductive.

Tiger: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permission by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017.

Cheetah: Wellington Zoo will only ever hold non breeding males, as will Auckland and Hamilton Zoo. Only Orana have the space to breed cheetah.

Sun Bears: The pair are father and daughter.

Giraffes: They currently hold a single sex herd, as do Hamilton Zoo and Orana Wildlife Park.

Chimpanzee: They have had three infants born between 2010 to 2014, and all females are currently on contraception to avoid overcrowding.

Hamdryas Baboon: These are being phased out, and only males remain as they await relocation.

Red Panda: They have a breeding pair but have not been given permision by the species coordinator to breed them until at least 2017/2018.

Otter: They hold an all male group.
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Auckland Zoo plans to build off-display breeding enclosures for cheetah at the back of the zoo, as per their 10 year master plan. So you would assume that in the future Auckland will breed cheetah. Any ideas to where the remaining baboons will be relocated?
 
ZooBoyNZ said:
Auckland Zoo plans to build off-display breeding enclosures for cheetah at the back of the zoo, as per their 10 year master plan. So you would assume that in the future Auckland will breed cheetah. Any ideas to where the remaining baboons will be relocated?
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Off display breeding enclosures were constructed for Golden Cat back in the 2000s and worked well.

For optimimal breeding cheetah require a combination of space, distance from apex predators (in particular lions), privacy and a selection of males for the female to choose from.

Orana have a raceway boardered by several enclosures containing males. She can display a preference for a male this way and they can be paired for breeding. Out of several males, the breeding females have both chosen a male called Jonah. Must be the Beauden Barrett of the cheetah world. :D

I have no idea where the remaining baboons will go, and I'm not sure whether Wellington Zoo do at this stage. Auckland, Adelaide and Melbourne all curate the species but have males already and wouldn't desire more.

Optimistically, I'd guess a low profile zoo in Australia which may be happy to simply display Hamdryas, irregardless of the fact they'll be holding a bachelor group. I think there was a new zoo opening up near Sydney which talked of baboons?
 
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