Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo news 2011 #2

Thanks for the update Lesley. The births in Living Links are they capuchins, squirrel monkeys or both?

A question for Pertinax. When you say generic chimp, what exactly do you mean? Is she a mix of chimps from different regions in Africa?
 
Juat realised i could have just posted the link to lifelinks mag... must have been having a blonde moment!..lol... here it is...

http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/expo...documents/Lifelinks/LifeLinks_Winter_2011.pdf

Julz i think that was the plan but i think there was a correlation between the death of the baby and the chimp being inexperienced...so because Lindsay is experienced they are allowing her to breed... the enclosure is big enough to hold more chimps
 
Mr T said:
A question for Pertinax. When you say generic chimp, what exactly do you mean? Is she a mix of chimps from different regions in Africa?
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Edinburgh's original group of Chimps originated from various sources and the ones born in the group descended from them. As such their ancestry is likely to be mixed although either one or two of the wildcaught ones (was it Louis and Ricky?) were proved by DNA test to be pure West African, like the Dutch group.
 
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Lesley4444 said:
..so because Lindsay is experienced they are allowing her to breed... the enclosure is big enough to hold more chimps
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Their profiles in the Budongo section of the website show that two females of the new group have bred in the past (Eva is the mother of two others in the group, and another female has had nine births.) Maybe Heleene hasn't bred before?

It also says 'Budongo' is designed for up to 40 Chimps. So they can allow the group to increase by breeding and very gradually as the old 'mixed race' Chimps from their original group die off, the Group will eventually become all West African.
 
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It does seem strange to let one of the original group breed if there are some experienced females in the new ones who could provide a role model. It is breeding a chimp that you don't intend will be allowed to breed itself in the future which is not the end of the world but does increase the length of time until th group would be 'pure'.
 
OrangePerson said:
It does seem strange to let one of the original group breed if there are some experienced females in the new ones who could provide a role model. It is breeding a chimp that you don't intend will be allowed to breed itself in the future which is not the end of the world but does increase the length of time until th group would be 'pure'.
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It indicates they think Lindsay will either get pregnant more quickly or because she is an experienced mother. Without knowing the exact breeding history of the dutch females,there could be several reasons why they have done this;

The females that have bred previously in the dutch group either didn't rear their young, or they aren't likely to get pregnant soon (e.g. have been contracepted a longer time?)-or some other reason I can't think of. But yes, it will give them another impure chimp,and one much younger than the other impures, but maybe they would relocate it at some later stage.
 
Pertinax said:
It indicates they think Lindsay will either get pregnant more quickly or because she is an experienced mother. Without knowing the exact breeding history of the dutch females,there could be several reasons why they have done this;

The females that have bred previously in the dutch group either didn't rear their young, or they aren't likely to get pregnant soon (e.g. have been contracepted a longer time?)-or some other reason I can't think of. But yes, it will give them another impure chimp,and one much younger than the other impures, but maybe they would relocate it at some later stage.
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Which of the chimpanzees are West Africans [Pure-ones?]
 
So how many chimps are there at Edinburgh zoo? How many are west African and how many a mixed?
 
Jordan-Jaguar97 said:
Which of the chimpanzees are West Africans [Pure-ones?]
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I think its 22, eleven in the original group(impure) and eleven in the dutch group(or did one die so now 10?)- these are all pure West African. They DNA tested their originals and either one or two of the wildcaught males proved pure West African too(its on another Edinburgh thread somewhere).
 
Pertinax said:
I think its 22, eleven in the original group(impure) and eleven in the dutch group(or did one die so now 10?)- these are all pure West African. They DNA tested their originals and either one or two of the wildcaught males proved pure West African too(its on another Edinburgh thread somewhere).
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Thank you, Chester were planning DNA's on there's but I don't think they'll annouce it.
 
Mr T said:
So how many chimps are there at Edinburgh zoo? How many are west African and how many a mixed?
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There are 21 (10 males and 11 females). 2 of the original Edinburgh males are pure , 3 of the newer males are pure and 4 of the newer females are pure western.
 
Jordan-Jaguar97 said:
Thank you, Chester were planning DNA's on there's but I don't think they'll annouce it.
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Chester are doing dna testing as and when they have a reason to knock one of the Chimps out,so it will be along drawn out process before they have all been tested,and at that point I believe the zoo will update its holdings in the annual report to reflect what the dna results tell them!
 
The male Asian Golden Cat, Ipoh, has underwent keyhole surgery in an attempt to ascertain the cause of recent ill health - this was announced on the Edinburgh Zoo site yesterday, as the technique used is a new one.

Pioneering Surgery on our Golden Cat
 
Lesley4444 said:
Another big cat that was calling to each other were the Amur leopard... both looked to be really enjoying the frankly artic weather we had today.
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That's interesting - according to the keeper talk I heard on them last year, she absolutely hates him. Perhaps she is coming into season. Amur leopard cubs would be just so cute!
 
The blog at the time stated that the new Chimpanzee group was 'mostly Western Chimpanzees' - the DNA tests of the original group was:

This week, another adult male Chimpanzee, David, also underwent a vasectomy operation. As with Qafzeh, Kindia and Liberius, David’s DNA test proved that he is not a pure Western Chimpanzee and therefore will not breed in the future. Once again, the operation went very smoothly, and David is recovering well. We can now confirm that the only pure western Chimpanzee males in our group are Ricky and Louis. Of the females, Cindy, Lyndsey, Emma and Kilimi have also been found not to be of pure Western lineage. These females will be given contraceptive implants, to allow them to continue mating behaviours, without producing any offspring. The lineage of the final female, Lucy, has not yet been confirmed, and will require further tests. We will keep you updated here on the future breeding plans for our chimpanzee group.
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Bram was the male who died.
 
A very positive message has just been emailed out to members about the success of the pandas so far, the zoo is stable and the possibility of generating surplus income from the pandas to support reinvestment plus some stuff about increased communication with members-so here's to a positive and exciting next year at edinburgh zoo!
 
There is a requirement from the studbook keeper at Cobenhavn Zoo, that allows Western Chimpanzee females having 5 babys in their lifetime depending on their parentage. These was made to preserve high genetic diversity.

For example: Leipzig Zoo is keeping 12 adult pure females (from Rijswijk (TNO), Netherlands or Basel), but only two of them are allowed to breed, the rest is getting contraception or is living in a group without a fertile male.
 
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