Here is a recent article about him and his tusk being injured in October.
Zoo Miami elephant treated after injuring tusk – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
Australian and ( NZ) Elephants news and discussion
- Thread starter Jambo
- Start date
Here is a recent article about him and his tusk being injured in October.
Zoo Miami elephant treated after injuring tusk – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
I wonder how many other elephants are at Miami MZ now?
They also have an bull named Dalip and female named Nellie, both over 50. As well as 2 African elephants in a separate complex.
Ongard is actually owned by San Deigo, but he is at Miami so he can be mentored by Dahlip, and to hopefully breed in the future.
It would give him another few years before transferring him to a zoo with cows of breeding age!
I tend to agree having Putra Mas there as well would give another breeding option.
I am really pleased Werribee are giving 50 acres for its elephant complex that looks good for the long term future. I am a little surprised that the Western plains zoo as you have mentioned above has only given 9 acres for its elephants, I would of thought it was somewhat more than this?.
I know Australia zoo made a point of saying it has/had the largest elephant area in Australia with 13 acres, I believe this may of been referring to the public exhibit area with the concrete swimming pool. It has now built two holding yards with a night barn joined to the two yards, also just north of this area is a fenced forested area which looks quite large which can be seen on Google maps. Just to the south side of the holding yards are two earth dams which I would believe is used or will be used for swimming. So all up it does look like a huge area adding the public view paddock,the two off exhibit holding yards and the very large wooded area, I would out of interest like to know how many acres they have all up, one resent comment on the zoos website does state that they have hundreds of acres to play in!
Last edited:
toothlessjaws
Well-Known Member
Many years back, I read a statement from the Perth Zoo that indicated Putra Mas and Permai had naturally mated at least once or twice. But if this is true, then it seems odd that he didn't move to Melbourne (or anywhere with breeding cows) years ago.
It also always bugged me that Heman was moved from Taronga before the new cows arrived. This seemed to be entirely to counter the poor design choices and small size of the new exhibit being built at the city zoo and was in no way in the best interests of the breeding program or perhaps even the elephants. They couldn't accommodate any protective contact elephants and so he and Burma had to go, and poor Heman never really got to meet any other asian cows before his death a few years later.
Whilst I hope its not the case, I wonder if we are going to see Taronga take Aucklands animals, and ship Pathi Harn down to breed there?
I agree they should have at least considered it. they may have seen it as losing one of their big draw cards. It seems odd when I was there at Perth zoo in 2000 they were crate training Putra Mas so they could ship him over to Fort Worth in the US., That was mentioned to me by a elephant keeper at that time.
Yes I also agree with you I would of liked to have seen He-man and Burma to have been part of the new group they may have even got a breeding from him.I feel there has been some lost opportunities missed within the elephant program over the years, Sometimes it appears to be a mis-mash of what one zoo here or there are doing there own thing rather than a co-ordinated plan (apart from the Taronga/Melbourne zoo import). And now with Australia zoo has its focus with the Sumatran sub-species so now one would believe not being included in the regional program!
Last edited:
Perth Zoo posted an extensive article about this on their website in 2005; but all I can find online now is a brief summary of the mating in the Perth Zoo Annual Report 2005:
During the year, Perth Zoo recorded the first known natural mating of elephants in an Australian zoo. The mating followed the carefully planned pairing of 16-year-old male Putra Mas and 16-year-old female Permai as part of the Zoo’s breeding program for the endangered Asian Elephant. The pairing was timed to coincide with Permai’s reproductive cycle. Subsequent blood analysis revealed that Permai was not pregnant.
https://perthzoo.wa.gov.au/PerthZooWebsite/media/PerthZoo/Resources/Annual Reports/CORP_Perth-Zoo-Annual-Report_2004-05.pdf
The decision to not retain Heman as Taronga’s breeding bull was an interesting decision. Protected contact would not have really made any difference as Gung was the same. Heman never breed, despite being around four females that he could have breed with during the 1960’s. He was proven fertile, so it may have been the fact that he didn’t know how to mate the females naturally like Bong Su at Melbourne. Even if this was the case, he should have been kept and retained for AI.
Burma wasn’t that compatible and had some behavioural tendencies so that, alongside space issues was why Taronga decided to send her to Western Plains. It might be possible that Heman was sent there as her companion.
Theoretically, if Heman was able to naturally mate the females, he should have been retained by Taronga for about five years. In this time, Gung could have been sent to Western Plains were he could develop before they could be swapped in about five years time. This would have many added benefits, adding Heman’s genetics to the region and allowing Pak Boon and Porntip to mate naturally earlier, as Gung wasn’t able to mount them because he was too small.
That seems plausible. Fort Worth was looking for another bull at the time as Groucho, their resident bull wasn’t breeding. They ended up importing a circus male a few years later. Do you know why the plans never eventuated?
I’ve emailed Taronga in regards to their future plans with their elephants but they haven’t gotten back to me yet (not suprising). This could be possible, but space is an issue. Four cows alongside calves could be a lot, but if Taronga does things wisely, they could manage.
Personally, I would send Pak Boon and Tang Mo to Western Plains and Anjalee and Burma to Melbourne. Man Jai could then be sent up to Western Plains in the future, as he isn’t related to any of their females. It’s a mystery re. Pathi Harn. He could breed with Thong Dee, Pak Boon or Anjalee so it’s interesting what they will decide with him. Maybe Australia Zoo?
Keepers initially had full contact with Gung, who was six years old when he arrived. He lived full time with the female herd until 2009, when he moved to the separate bull exhibit. This was likely the justification for exporting Heman, who would have required a separate exhibit earlier if he had remained at Taronga Zoo. Also, Gung was bonded with the female herd - and was a play mate for Thong Dee and Tang Mo. Transferring him (alone) to Dubbo at the age of six would have been stressful for him.
On hindsight, the most productive thing they could have done was perform AI with Heman on the two older cows ASAP; but to be fair, they wanted to give the herd time to settle in and they didn't know Heman was going to die so soon after the move.
That’s right, the protective contact thing with males wasn’t until recently. Taronga has two parts to their female Asian Elephant exhibit, that can be separated if needed, so they could have done that for the time being until the Bull exhibit was completed. You have really strong reasons, so Taronga really could have done it either way, but remember Heman wasn’t trained for AI so Taronga would have had to spend a bit of time training him. His age wouldn’t have helped as well with him mounting females (he was 50).
It’s worth noting that Heman died just one month after the females arrived at Taronga anyway, so it might not have worked out as planned if they decided to retain him as a breeder.
In this case, I'd say the greater danger would have been him injuring the two younger cows. A cow at Singapore Zoo has permanent injuries caused by being mounted by a fully grown bull, when she was still an adolescent; and in the wild, older cows often block attempts by older, larger bulls to mount the adolescent females in the herd.
Of course, the whole breeding programme would look very different today if Gung had gone to Auckland Zoo as was the original plan. Aside from the fact that Auckland Zoo may have been able to establish a breeding herd; upon Heman's death, Putra Mas may well have been sent to Taronga Zoo, when Perth Zoo realised Permai was never going to sustain a pregnancy.
I was told at that time (20 years ago) that they were having problems crate training him. I was outside at the back side of the barn taking photo of him with the crate in the back ground, I also was also told not to get to close to the fence as he throws things.
Last edited:
Young females are mated by fully grown males all the time in Europe, without any ill effects.
I d like to see a source that in the wild, adult females block mature males from mating with young females - I think the opposite is true: the other females of the family are making calls that attract many males, and the most dominant bull (which is usually the oldest and biggest) is the one who gets lucky!
I d like to see a source that in the wild, adult females block mature males from mating with young females - I think the opposite is true: the other females of the family are making calls that attract many males, and the most dominant bull (which is usually the oldest and biggest) is the one who gets lucky!
The status of Radza's 10 sons is truly an enigma. Of the 10, 7 of them are basically all genetically the exact same (for 6 of them, their mothers are full sisters, and for the 7th, his mother was the mother to the two sisters as well). The other three are full siblings out of a wild caught cow.
There is no shortage of Radza boys, yet instead of exports to the US, Canada, or Oz, they're all just sitting in bachelor holdings in Europe, and it looks like it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I think at least part of the reason is that lots of them are in "smaller" facilities that simply aren't insterested in the process of an overseas transport, but ultimately, who knows. Apparently one was supposed to come to the US at one point, but that ended up not happening.