Taronga Western Plains Zoo female indian rhino in australia!

J

jay

Well-Known Member
20+ year member
From the abc website
John Cleese to visit Dubbo for rhino program

John Cleese to visit Dubbo for rhino program
Tuesday, 26 September 2006. 08:31 (AEDT)Tuesday, 26 September 2006. 07:31 (ACST)Tuesday, 26 September 2006. 07:31 (AEST)Tuesday, 26 September 2006. 08:31 (ACDT)Tuesday, 26 September 2006. 05:31 (AWST)
English comedian and actor John Cleese will visit Dubbo next month for a fundraiser for the Western Plains Zoo.

The Taronga Foundation is working to raise $200,000 towards the cost of expanding facilities to begin a breeding program for the greater one-horned rhinoceros.

The zoo's general manager William Garton says it was able to secure the famous actor through his friendship with author and conservationist Bradley Trevor Greive.

"Through the planning and assistance of Bradley we've been able to get John Cleese to come out and perform in a one-off occasion here in Dubbo," he said.

"[It will be] in a format that's very much an intimate kind of night with John Cleese in support of some fundraising for our greater one-horned rhino breeding program."

Mr Garton says the wild asian wetlands exhibit is undergoing a $750,000 expansion.

"We've imported a female mate for Dora just as recently as last week," he said.
"And once that quarantine's up we're going to be able to start making introductions, once the facility's built - and construction's already under way - so it's all steam ahead."
 
The female was born at San Diego Wild Animal Park, 10 May 2003, and is named Kua. She arrived directly from San Diego Wild Animal Park and is currently undergoing quarantine at Taronga Zoo.
 
great stuff. they seem to be bout the only zoo in the world that i know of that breed indians really well. there seems to be alot of singletons about in zoos...
 
I've been trying to find out info about her bloodline but cannot find any newspaper articles oir anuthing on the zoos website. Any pointers?
 
Kua's sire is named Arun, international studbook number 0190, wild caught in Nepal in 1990. Her dam is named Jakichu, captive born at San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1997. Jakichu's sire is Rabha, captive born in Hyderabad (India) in 1981, and her dam is Jumia, captive born, San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1986.

Data on the ISIS web site is generally only updated about monthly for most institutions, and the transfer was more recent than that.
 
well i hope introductions btween dora and kua go smoothly and as planned. i thinks its a shame WPZ didn't have the foresight to build a mixed species paddock for the rhino. hopefully, a successful breeding program for indians might spur another zoo to build an indo-nepalese terai type display, particuarly in the light of a decline in african hoofstock availability (asian, deer, bovines and antelope however are in large numbers and viable). still i wouldn't be supprised if they just become another black rhino - destined to remain a dubbo only attraction.

why is that?
 
Probably because there isn't really enough holding area in this region for sustainable breeding groups of three rhino species. In reality metropolitan zoos aren't going to be able to hold much more than a pair each, and that leaves four or five "open range" type facilities. To maintain viable groups, we'd really need upwards of 20 animals per species, and that means around 60 animals in total.
 
ZooPro
If you need 20 animals per species, which sounds fair enough, could not the three open range zoos already in existance in Australia hold that many? If you add in the Australia Zoo, Mareeba and Orana Park, that would be four animals eack. The city zoos and smaller ones such as the National and Mogo could hold indiviuals or pairs, perhaps animals that are not needed for breeding purposes, that could be another eight sor so animals. I would just hate to see yet another species getting off to a promising start, only to gradually disapear because of lack of interest or whatever, aka the Malayan tapir.

Jay
 
Mogo is going white rhinos, and has not really room or resources to hold 2 species, mogo is getting whites from oz and nz, 1 from nz and 2 oz.

mareeba would be great, but lets see if the owners to better than previous.

australia zoo will get everything, terri said it will be bigger than ever before, and i have herad whites and more elephants are on the list

as for tapir, i did get of well,taronga and adelaide breed theres, but no 1 else followed suite, even though melb had an exhibit
 
no room for more rhinos....?

thats because of the eye problem Zoo_Boy. every malayan in australia is blind - our zoos have stopped any attempts at breeding them since (quite reasonably) they feel they need to resolve the cause first (brazilians meanwhile have run out of unrelated animals - the last pair that are not too closely realted was the pair at dubbo that just recently produced young. threre will be no more unless imports come through).

white rhino have always been on mogo's plans. they seem to be doing an african savannah thing. australia zoo wanted to house sumatrans at one stage, but soon realised ths was not only totally unrealistic, it was also not currently in the best interest of the species. there was talk on the forum of monarto going into holding black rhino. but that seemed unsubstantiated.

what gets me is this - if WPZ can manage hold 3 rhino taxa why can't monarto and werribee as well? whilst space comes into play with the city zoos, its obviously not an issue for the open range zoos. would it be fair to say that on the other zoos part, its not so much for lack of space but lack of interest and reluctance to spend the money on more rhino facilities when they already display one species - which seems to satsify the public just fine?

sure southern white rhinos may be quite easily sourced in large numbers from private reserves in south africa - but the indians and especially the blacks are the much more endangered. indian rhino would be particuarly good at raising funds for asian rhino specific conservation projects also, such as the vitally important breeding centers for sumatrans or expansion of the javan rhino habitat.

i suppose the other side of the coin is this - why on earth did dubbo import two additional species when there was no regional interest? well, if dubbo is willing and has the expertise i suppose they could argue why should they let other zoos lack of interest hold them back? its certainly not as if one can argue that dubbo holds indian and black rhinos at the expense of their obligations to breeding white rhino, or any other species for that matter...

i wonder when australian zoos are going to realise that by constantly citing "lack of space" as an excuse not to spend money on holding more of the same (or in this case similar) species, they are not only compromising their breeding for conservation message, but shooting themselves in the foot also?
:confused:
 
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I think that's a little harsh, and somewhat unrealstic Patrick. We probably need a minimum of 60 places for 3 species of rhinos. Also discussed on the forum are the very real need for additional spaces for giraffes, elephants, zebras, nile hippos, pygmy hippos, tapirs, orang-utans, baboons and cheetah. Add to this the multitude of other species that zoos currently have in their collections in numbers that are too low to maintain effectively, and combine it with the relatively low number of spaces realisticly available in the larger zoos in the region, and you start to see the dilema that the zoos face.

And this list only includes exotic species, and does not cosider the needs of our native fauna which in many cases require intensive captive management, often for coordinated release programs.

Lack of sufficient numbers of spaces in this region is a real problem and is not just a matter of penny pinching.

If we had enough numbers (and therefore spaces) of many of the smaller exotic species that we have lost from the region over the past 10-20 years, we might not have lost so many of them.

I'll get off my soap box now!
 
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