Bored / depressed animals

dragon(ele)nerd said:
Not many Africans live to very old in captivity, can anyone track down a very old African?
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Have you checked on the female 'Flora' which was formerly at Dudley Zoo and was for quite a while the oldest African in UK? She is now somewhere in either Belgium or France. Not really, really old though..
 
johnstoni said:
As for gorillas, I can think of a few long-lived individuals here in the UK in fairly dire exhibits. I would expect them to live longer than their wild counterparts with all the care afforded them, but I wouldn't say most captive environments I have seen for gorillas are suitable.
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Interestingly, I can't... The only UK Gorilla set-up nowadays that strikes me as dire is Twycross' and thats split between the housing and the husbandry...

But one aspect that can't be replicated in captivity for Gorillas is space & distance to travel in. Gorillas spend quite a lot of time in the wild moving from A to B and on to C and cover considerable distances on their journeys. Wandering around the same open air island, grassy lawn or strawfloored enclosure every day is the best we can offer them. Only Aspinall in his early days ever tried to replicate this facet of behaviour by 'walking' the original group through the Howletts parkland and of course that had to stop when they opened to the public.
 
johnstoni said:
Here in the UK, even some of the more progressive zoos with elephants have had their breeding programmes riddled with stillbirths, neonatal deaths, rejection of calves, and the deaths of mothers during or as a result of giving birth.
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I would say it holds true to some extent for ALL the zoos that are breeding elephants in the UK- Chester, Colchester, Whipsnade & Aspinalls(the Asians at least).
Only Twycross is so far an exception but theirs is a very different story...
 
Twycross made a wise husbandry decision to restrain their cows and remove the calves as soon as they were born until the mothers had calmed down. They almost certainly would have kicked the calves to death had this not been done. This reflects the absolute lack of reference point that the first-time mothers had, given the age at which they arrived at Twycross, and I think this is part of the issue, that to calve successfully required a huge amount of intervention by the staff. It was however a great success within the context of a captive birth situation.

In the UK, I don't think Longleat, Belfast, Edinburgh (while they still had them), Twycross or Blackpool have been great examples of Gorilla husbandry in recent years, although admittedly Longleat made the best situation they could with two ex-circus animals. Jersey and the John Aspinall parks have always been good examples of how to keep this species, and Chessington has done well with less room but a good group dynamic until recently, my point was not that gorillas are not suited to captivity, more that it is possible to have long-lived individuals in less-than-ideal social groupings or enclosures, and that longevity alone is not a justification for the conditions the animal is kept in.
 
Quite a bit of Africans live in America and quite a large amount have been successfully bred,

Does the EEP have a descendant limit before bulls are shipped off to a non-breeding facility like Asians,

Then again not many Africans have a descendent list of over 12-13,
 
I see the name Echo again the docomentary I saw on her said that she was around 50, was that footage a decade old? Or is estimation different with elephant.se?
 
johnstoni said:
tion.

In the UK, I don't think Longleat, Belfast, Edinburgh (while they still had them), Twycross or Blackpool have been great examples of Gorilla husbandry in recent years.
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I haven't been to Belfast, but I agree the outdoor enclosure is far from ideal- very bleak.

Edinburgh had a very poorly designed house and it was good news to me when they went out of Gorillas. I agree Blackpool's enclosure is very dated too but they've made improvements where they can and there is plenty of space indoors- though a completely new house is overdue. Longleat have only 'Nico' now and I hope when he goes they don't have anymore.
 
johnstoni said:
Twycross made a wise husbandry decision to restrain their cows and remove the calves as soon as they were born until the mothers had calmed down.......... It was however a great success within the context of a captive birth situation.
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yes, left to their own devices it would probably have been a very different story. I wonder how the current pregnant female 'Nor Jahan' will get on when her time comes? She's grown up with the calves of the other two, though this is again now not a good social group- its 3 adult and one subadult female and no small calves... The one that went to Whipsnade can see mother-rearing all the time.
 
I definately agree and fear for the birth of Noor Jahan, there is unfortunately also of high chance of stillbirth,the 33% of first time mothers and problems with A.I
 
dragon(ele)nerd said:
I definately agree and fear for the birth of Noor Jahan, there is unfortunately also of high chance of stillbirth,the 33% of first time mothers and problems with A.I
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She is quite young so I don't worry about a stillbirth so much- more that she may try to reject the calf -though she does have the other two experienced mothers(Tonzi & Minbu) present to calm her.
 
That is true hopefully during the birth another cow will stand by to Noor Jahan, the stress might immediatly turn Noor Jahan violent,
 
Although it's mentioned in a book I have that Noor Jahan has had plenty of experience with calves at her previous home, so she should be ok with her own...
 
ashley-h said:
Although it's mentioned in a book I have that Noor Jahan has had plenty of experience with calves at her previous home, so she should be ok with her own...
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That's good news, What book is it titled or is it just a book that you can get at the sovenir shop?
 
ashley-h said:
Although it's mentioned in a book I have that Noor Jahan has had plenty of experience with calves at her previous home, so she should be ok with her own...
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The problem as i see it is the shock of giving birth will be the main problem which might leave her distressed and rejecting the calf. Surely this is one of the main reasons of first time mums rejecting infants, where as the next time around they know exactly what is going on.

Like all animals you can't second guess them, we will just have to wait and see.
 
Hypothesising on that note, stress might not only lead her to reject the calf, srtess might also lead her to kill, it, based on the incident in Amersfoort mother elephants usually prod their babies to check for life and help them up.
But Indra didn't stop and ended up killing the calf. Research has shown that elephants can react very violently when stressed. Many first time mothers reject their calves but many look after them and nuture them,
 
I was just stating the fact, that although she has grown up with other mothers who have reared their own calf's doesn't mean she will.
 
dragon(ele)nerd said:
Oh no I wasn't trying to disrespect you or prove you wrong,
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Dragin(ele)nerd I was just clarifying the point, that depending on how the mother reacts while giving birth is a huge factor in whether the baby is rejected or worst killed.

Just that no-one seemed to consider this point.
 
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