Chester Zoo bengal tigers still at the zoo

Well said Johnstoni about the rotation of the Tigers at Chester,wouldn`t mind but when i was told my a senior member of staff at Chester that West Midlands would take them back when Chester got Sumatrans,i said to him that they would not have the space to take them back looks like the experts were wrong and the zoo nerd was right.
 
tetrapod said:
one could imply that no white tiger would be purely Bengal as Amur genes were introduced

Even normal-coloured Bengals in the UK must be considered suspect.
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AFAIK there are NO pure Indian(Bengal) tigers- either white or normal anywhere outside India nowadays.

Probably the last to enter the UK were the 'Rewa-bred' white tiger pair which Bristol obtained in the 1960's, the subsequent pure offspring from them, and a normal tigress(which was never bred from) they obtained from the same Indian source. Sadly there are no purebred descendants from these among British zoo tigers today.

'Tara' the tigress returned from Twycross to India was an unlucky mistake which couldn't happen nowadays.
 
johnstoni said:
...Is there are shortage of space for Amur and Sumatran tigers within the UK and europe? Chester, Howlettts and the Kent Big Cat foundation have all added Sumatran tigers in the last few years. Longleat has switched to Amurs in the last couple of years and Dublin added them alongside the existing sumatrans. Has the recent increase in African lion births in UK safari parks been due to a demand for African lions by zoos, or was it unplanned and put pressure on collections to rehouse their cubs? Someone else mentioned there aren't as many asiatic lions available to collections that would otherwise opt for them, would this be connected to it?...
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I would hazard a guess that there is probably more of a problem of a shortage of surplus pure-bred Sumatran and Amur tigers, such as with the Asian lions. As happens, genetically over-represented lines are halted from breeding, but then there is difficulty in acquiring unrelated lines. I believe that this has been the main sticking point with the Amurs.

I'm not sure the recent breeding of African lions has been due to a demand (although numerous collections seem to be forming display prides), but due to unregulated breeding. What happens to these excess cubs - who knows. I cannot imagine that West Midlands will continue to breed unregulated without some sort of plan. Then again the plan to take back the Chester Bengals has been a 'roaring' success.
 
I just mentioned the lion breeding because there seemed to be a sustained period of no African cubs for about 10 years, until maybe four or five years ago, when all the safari parks seemed to be breeding them again in large numbers.
 
johnstoni said:
I just mentioned the lion breeding because there seemed to be a sustained period of no African cubs for about 10 years, until maybe four or five years ago, when all the safari parks seemed to be breeding them again in large numbers.
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Correct, in the last couple of years most of the SP websites have featured new litters of Lion cubs quite frequently. Maybe they decide periodically that they need to rejuvenate their lion populations a bit, and just coincidental that they've all been doing it at about the same time.
 
Pertinax said:
Correct, in the last couple of years most of the SP websites have featured new litters of Lion cubs quite frequently. Maybe they decide periodically that they need to rejuvenate their lion populations a bit, and just coincidental that they've all been doing it at about the same time.
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Or is it just that they have realised baby animals bring visitors through the gates.
 
I think they realised that back in the 1960s. With notable exceptions (dartmoor wildife park's previous owner for one), my point was that even the safari parks all seemed to stock for most of the 90s and into the early 2000s, but that the last 5 years seems to have been a minor population explosion of African lions. Even the precious Barbary lions at Port Lympne were on contraceptives for most of the 90s. I just wondered if there was any reason for the seachange..
 
The Bengal Tigers are supposed to be going before the end of the month but we have been told this before so i won`t hold my breath.
 
zoogiraffe said:
The Bengal Tigers are supposed to be going before the end of the month but we have been told this before so i won`t hold my breath.
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Thanks for the update Zoogiraffe, does mean that there is a female available for the Male?

I know the current situation is not ideal but they will not be able to get a female in if the two benegals are still there.
 
taun said:
Thanks for the update Zoogiraffe, does mean that there is a female available for the Male?

I know the current situation is not ideal but they will not be able to get a female in if the two benegals are still there.
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I believe a female is available when they can get rid of them but West Midlands have to take them first.
 
Im surprised they haven't decided to bring in new genes from North America as I know in the past few years,sumatran cubs have been born at Toronto,Sacramento,Woodland Park,Los Angeles and alot of other places including newborns at San Fransisco
 
Just a quick update on the Tigers Chester should be getting a new PAIR of Sumatrans before the end of November,by which time both the Bengal females and the present male Sumatran should have left the collection.
 
zoogiraffe said:
Just a quick update on the Tigers Chester should be getting a new PAIR of Sumatrans before the end of November,by which time both the Bengal females and the present male Sumatran should have left the collection.
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Good news :D
 
Paulkarli08 said:
But why decide to get rid of Kepala? I thought he was genetically important? Where is he off to then?
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I have a theory, perhaps when Edinburgh move their Amur tigers upto the HWP at the end of the year they will have room for a Sumatran tiger, which i know they are looking to get.
 
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