Melbourne Zoo Dokkoon is pregnant!

I think Jubilee`s lack of sexual interest and female-like body were caused by the health problems he had in his youth and not by a lack of male company. There are a lot of bulls who grew up with females only in European Zoos and most of them are good breeders and look like "real" bulls. Some examples from Germany: Tembo/Animal Park Berlin, Tusker/Wuppertal (both african eles, though), Gajendra/Munich, Bindu/Cologne (may have contact with another young bull in his youth but never with an adult), Mekong/Leipzig (huge beautiful bull and not a sucessful breeder but he knows how to mate!). Actually i think most of today`s breeding bulls in Europe grew up with females-only and without a male role model and they do breed well. So I don`t think bulls necessarily need adult bulls as role models to become sucessful breeders, although I agree that young bulls benefit greatly from social contact with adult bulls.

My guess for Bong Su is that he will breed naturally in the future if he gets some more time to practise. Just that this won`t happen if they do AI on all females...
 
I guess the bring up of elephants is kinda like Human behaviour as well. In some ways,
 
i think that in the future Bong Su will probably mate naturally with a female and produce a calf that way, but in the mean time the AI is, as long as Dokkoon goes full term, minimising the risk of his line not being carried on.
now that the breeding programs are reaching their second phase and actually resulting in pregnancies I would hope Taronga and Melbourne consider long-term the option of expanding the existing facilities. particularly Melbourne which still stands to lose Werribee as a potential staging facility for bulls etc...
 
I'm sorry if i don't understand but what is it about Werribee and bulls?
 
Yassa said:
.

My guess for Bong Su is that he will breed naturally in the future if he gets some more time to practise. Just that this won`t happen if they do AI on all females...
Click to expand...

I certainly agree with you here. And if all the new cows were made pregnant
by AI he wouldn't get the necessary practise so I hope one or two are 'left free' for him.
 
Pertinax said:
I certainly agree with you here. And if all the new cows were made pregnant
by AI he wouldn't get the necessary practise so I hope one or two are 'left free' for him.
Click to expand...

I agree on that as well, but I don't think that A.I is that bad if you follow, as long as it has a successful rate I think it is great for the species. Yet Bong Su should learn how to mate naturally. He is the world's most fertile bull, so it won't take as many turns to get one of the cows pregnant. Compared to other bulls,
 
They could let Bong Su try to mate the females naturally if he can and still do an AI just in case he can not do the job so it covers both ways
 
because of the age structure of the herd at Melbourne its hardly a race against time to get the other two females pregnant ASAP. In Sydney on the other hand Pak Boon is older than Thong Dee and will need to be mated relatively soon.
Securing Bong Su's genes is important to the program's future, but so to is incoprating the genes of other founder stock such as the bull at Perth (if mixing sub-species is something u believe in?) so for the time being using whatever tools the zoos have to acheive this is important.
For this reason I think in the future he should be given the opportunity to mate naturally but I also believe Perths bull is a priority.
 
dragon(ele)nerd said:
I agree on that as well, but I don't think that A.I is that bad if you follow, as long as it has a successful rate I think it is great for the species. Yet Bong Su should learn how to mate naturally. He is the world's most fertile bull, so it won't take as many turns to get one of the cows pregnant. Compared to other bulls,
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with AI at all. It just depends on the situation its used in. Where there is no bull or an infertile one, its a very valuable tool. But in this case, where there is a bull you may prefer to breed from naturally, successful AI on all the females might prevent this happening. But as Glyn says, probably the younger Melbourne females won't be AI'd yet anyway, so maybe Bong Su will have time to improve his technique..

Regarding the claim for 'world's most fertile bull' I imagine not very many have actually been tested so its rather meaningless.
 
On what Glyn said, will Pak Boon also be inseminated as well as Pornthip?
 
While we are waiting on our very FIRST baby elephant to hit the ground, it could be some time before we have many babies to worry about, I am sure any excess numbers could be placed in a few other zoos here, and there is aways our three open range zoos that could take a number of these, maybe in time others herds could be founded at WPZ and Werribee, Maybe one day we could have a National Elephant centre at one of the open range zoos if every thing works out well.
 
Last edited:
I think Perth would also want some as well because they've done lots of renovations to their exhibit and now they've only two elephants to put in it.
 
PAT said:
I think Perth would also want some as well because they've done lots of renovations to their exhibit and now they've only two elephants to put in it.
Click to expand...

Yes and the exhibit area is about three times the size now too :cool:
 
It would be excellent if Australia could have a breeding center for elephants, but if we were to import elephants again, what could happen this time?

Can I ask this though, why did Perth only put two of their elephants in the new exhibit? Is it just for the breeding pair?
 
Maybe Perth should look at importing a couple of young females to re-kick start their breeding program
 
did I miss something? last time i did my sums, one bull elephant plus two cows equalled three elephants? all the same it is true that Perth Zoo does now have a large exhibit with capacity to hold more elephants long-term.
previously I have worked out the potential holding capacity for zoos in this region for Asian Elephants, by factoring in the inevitable passing of aged stock across TWPZ, Australia Zoo and Perth.
Basically, I dont think were in danger of running out of space for elephants in Australian zoos but without expanding Taronga or Melbourne's exhibits there is no chance that all the Thai females and their offspring will be able to remain together, which is where the AI tool comes into its own.
Splitting the Thai herds isnt ideal, nor is splitting mother/daughters but I recognise it will probably have to be done. On the other hand, if in the future the zoos need to make space they may be able to transport mother and calf to other zoos. For example, if Pornthip conceives to the Singapore male and bears a female calf they could remain together at Taronga and both breed with Gung, whilst it might be decided that Thong Dee and offspring could go to another zoo to form the nucleus of a breeding herd there, for example, Auckand or Perth.
Within both the Taronga and Melbourne herds the elephants, however cohesive do seem to spend time hanging around other individuals more than others, with Pak Boon and Pornthip socialising alot more with eachother than with Tang Mo or Thong Dee. Perhaps if all 4 females do end up having calves it might be more sensitive to the elephants to split the adults up and allow mothers and calves to stay together; delivering on the zoo's promises of developing multi-generational herds and at the same time remaining realisitc of the complexities of managing a social herd species like the elephant.
Given that Australian Zoos have never produced a baby elephant before we should look to the Europeans who routinely transfer female elephants.
We should also be confident that with time and patience a herd of elephants can be 'constructed' from non-related animals and encouraged to breed, which goes against what opponents say.
 
I am so looking forward to these births, I thought I'd have to wait until I was about 18 until the zoos could successfully breed their elephants,

Australia doesn't have a very large population of elephants compared to Europe, when or if the gene pool in australia isn't diverse enough in the future, I agree with glyn. It would be very interesting to see the construction of these non-realated herds,
 
it is true what youve said but relative to the size of the regional herd we are lucky in having about 50% as potential founders, as well as incorporating the genetics of the Singapore male already.
Currently, if all reproductively viable animals breed in the next few years we're looking at a founder base of twelve animals (thats including Perth's female).
Australia Zoo may import elephants in the near future, as there will most likely be a lapse between their elephants passing on and Australian-born elephants becoming available.
If that becomes the case then the program's viability increases yet again.
I would already guess that Asian Elephants are rapidly heading toward the 'viable' category alongside such species as Sumatran Tiger, Red Panda, Southern White Rhino, Giraffe and Lions, Chimpanzee, Gorilla and Hunting Dogs.
 
Australia zoo would be a great place to start a breeding program, the elephantasia exhibit is fantastic, only thing is it isn't baby proof,:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top