@Jambo It should allow them to better manage breeding, with two females now of reproductive age. Werribee taking on two young bulls indicates their long term commitment to holding a bachelor herd, so that will enable Melbourne to keep breeding.
@Zoofan15 Melbourne also have the luxury of sending any bulls down to Werribee going forward, although I assume with two cows they'll manage breeding a little.
Nakuru will soon be twelve so there's a chance this may be her one and only calf; with Iris as the designated breeding female going forward (as initially planned).
@Jambo I’m not sure if Nakuru breeding was planned or a contraception failure? She’s from a well represented maternal line, so isn’t particularly genetically valuable compared to her half siblings via Kiri and Kay.
@Zoofan15 From what I know the plan was for Klintun and Iris to be the breeding pair. With that in mind it may have been a contraception failure. Hence why the zebras where transferred out rather quickly and after the pregnancy was discovered.
@Jambo Yes good point, the zebras could have otherwise remained on site a bit longer. I thought Iris had a slight roundness to her and had she been a little older, I would have speculated she was around six months into a pregnancy.
@Zoofan15 Would be great if so! Two giraffe calves within a year at Melbourne would be awesome and the first time Melbourne's had multiple giraffe calves in more than three decades too.
@Jambo Along with Perth, it’s likely they’ll be one of the only main zoo in the region to achieve this with several zoos only have a single breeding female (Auckland, Wellington etc. have elderly or non breeding females).
