Melbourne Zoo Future of Melbourne Zoo 2022 (Speculation / Fantasy)

Snow leopard breeding
In the next year i belive the females cubs willl be moved to new exhibit at Wellington zoo and Miska and kan-gu will have break from breeding and i belive we could have another litter mid 2023 to mid 2024
 
I will try to ask all the questions if i have the chance i will certainly ask about Gorrila, gibbons and mandrills and ill ask about an import of female hippo
 
austrlain zoo gower said:
I have some answers from my previous visits
Regarding the baboons all females are contriceptive and no baby’s for the next year or so but the troop is decreasing in size id be betting around late 2022 to early 2023
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That suggests the infant born last year was unplanned. Some females were transferred to Adelaide, so further transfers would be the obvious way of decreasing troop numbers. They need to be wary of unbalancing the gender ratio as they have several males that won’t be in demand at any other zoo. If you could ask for details on the troop (names and ages etc). that’d confirm which baboons are still in the troop and why they’re decreasing the troop size?

Re. the other questions, if you could please ask nonetheless as at the moment you’re just guessing like the rest of us. This isn’t a criticism as it’s all we can do. An answer directly from the staff would confirm these guesses and assumptions.

Also, please condense your posts. Your five posts above could have been said in one post.
 
Also i will ask about tiger exhibits with binjai gone i belive there are two tiger exhibits at trail of the elephants will they don something with that
Ok will do
I will go to the keeper talks and ask some questions
With the baboons i have some names and genders but no birth dates
 
Melbourne zoo allowed the breeding females to have 4 babies then they would put them on contraception as confirmed on mega zoo that will probalry be a cycle as there are 2 dominant male
As of 2021 they had 4 breeding females confirmed on mega zoo
Around 2020 to 2021 they has 24
At the end of 2021 they has 9males and 13 females two female deaths and one female baby
They were allowing the females to have 4 baby to Bost the population and they reached that target early
 
austrlain zoo gower said:
Dokkon will be giving birth around November to December 2022, nam-oi and Mali will give birth around January to March allthought i don’t have dates but that will come with time
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I was told December at earliest for Dokkoon, although the keeper said there's a chance she could also give birth in Jan 2023. Num Oi and Mali were said to be in the following months after that, but specific dates would be good.
 
austrlain zoo gower said:
Snow leopard breeding
In the next year i belive the females cubs willl be moved to new exhibit at Wellington zoo and Miska and kan-gu will have break from breeding and i belive we could have another litter mid 2023 to mid 2024
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The female cubs have already been seperated from Miska. Due to Melbourne being the only zoo in the region breeding them, I don't see Melbourne breeding them frequently. It's likely Miska and Kang Ju will have a break in between (two or three years).
 
Agree I would say if they dont have dates when i visit they will have it soon
Melbourne zoos empour tamarins are a breeding pare i hopefully will have baby’s in the near future
 
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austrlain zoo gower said:
Also i will ask about tiger exhibits with binjai gone i belive there are two tiger exhibits at trail of the elephants will they don something with that
Ok will do
I will go to the keeper talks and ask some questions
With the baboons i have some names and genders but no birth dates
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One is in the Trail of elephants (housing Hutan), the other in the Carnivore trail (housing Indrah). Future breeding will likely take place in the enclosure in the trail of elephants as there's space there to hold up to four tigers.

What are the names you have for the baboons?
 
Jambo said:
I was told December at earliest for Dokkoon, although the keeper said there's a chance she could also give birth in Jan 2023. Num Oi and Mali were said to be in the following months after that, but specific dates would be good.
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Both Dokoon’s previous calves arrived a month later than predicted, which could very well happen again.

Although gestation is typically 22 months, Thi at Chester once had a record breaking 25 month gestation - though through past ultrasounds the staff will at least have an indication of how developed the pregnancies are in relation to each other.

This species has an ovulation cycle of 3-4 months, so through monitoring, they should be able to date the pregnancy based on the fact a foetus could be differentiated from one that’s 3-4 months ahead or behind in development.
 
Zorro said:
I believe the IRA for hippo’s has still got to be formulated so they can’t import any time soon
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Yes, it’s still a long way off. Monarto will no doubt be adding their support to this though, given their intention to house Common hippopotamus; as well as Werribee and Dubbo requiring new breeding bulls.

It’s possible Melbourne Zoo may arrange to loan the young female Pygmy hippopotamus from Darling Downs Zoo for breeding in the meantime. It’d be wise to create a second breeding pair within the region while all the hippos are still young (and alive for that matter).
 
Zoofan15 said:
Yes, it’s still a long way off. Monarto will no doubt be adding their support to this though, given their intention to house Common hippopotamus; as well as Werribee and Dubbo requiring new breeding bulls.

It’s possible Melbourne Zoo may arrange to loan the young female Pygmy hippopotamus from Darling Downs Zoo for breeding in the meantime.
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It's possible Kamina will be sent to Melbourne on a loan (to produce one calf at least). Felix is getting on in his years, and although he could have up to a decade left; it may be years off before the hippo IRA is processed.
 
Zoofan15 said:
Yes, it’s still a long way off. Monarto will no doubt be adding their support to this though, given their intention to house Common hippopotamus; as well as Werribee and Dubbo requiring new breeding bulls.

It’s possible Melbourne Zoo may arrange to loan the young female Pygmy hippopotamus from Darling Downs Zoo for breeding in the meantime. It’d be wise to create a second breeding pair within the region while all the hippos are still young (and alive for that matter).
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Perhaps some of the regional zoos might want river hippos I recall the Sydney zoo were interested at one point?
 
Jambo said:
It's possible Kamina will be sent to Melbourne on a loan (to produce one calf at least). Felix is getting on in his years, and although he could have up to a decade left; it may be years off before the hippo IRA is processed.
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Felix will hopefully live at least another decade. Petre produced her last calf at the age of 31 years and males similarly remain fertile well old age, so time is on his side at 16 years of age.

Breeding from Petre only at the eleventh hour really highlights what a waste was made of her first two decades. Given the dwindling population and the lack of success at Taronga of late, it would be foolish to delay things any longer when there’s a potential pairing to be made.
Zorro said:
Perhaps some of the regional zoos might want river hippos I recall the Sydney zoo were interested at one point?
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Unfortunately Sydney Zoo don’t currently have the space as it’s been reallocated to other African ungulates including the recently arrived rhino. I think that (and gorillas) will sadly remain aspirations for them, though I’d love to be proved wrong.

I’m not sure if any of the smaller zoos would have the finances to house this species (the filtration set up alone is astronomical), but we can surely count on Australia’s three open range zoos holding them well into the future.
 
Zoofan15 said:
Felix will hopefully live at least another decade. Petre produced her last calf at the age of 31 years and males similarly remain fertile well old age, so time is on his side at 16 years of age.

Breeding from Petre only at the eleventh hour really highlights what a waste was made of her first two decades. Given the dwindling population and the lack of success at Taronga of late, it would be foolish to delay things any longer when there’s a potential pairing to be made.


Unfortunately Sydney Zoo don’t currently have the space as it’s been reallocated to other African ungulates including the recently arrived rhino. I think that (and gorillas) will sadly remain aspirations for them, though I’d love to be proved wrong.

I’m not sure if any of the smaller zoos would have the finances to house this species (the filtration set up alone is astronomical), but we can surely count on Australia’s three open range zoos holding them well into the future.
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Our zoos really dropped the ball with the pygmy hippos they languished for years with the holders at the time not bringing them together much sooner it’s just bad management also as we have mentioned before exporting hippos out of the country when they were desperately needed here with no importation allowed is just again pure plain bad management and nothing else
 
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Zorro said:
Our zoos really dropped the ball with the pygmy hippos they languished for years with the holders at the time not bringing them together much sooner it’s just bad management also as we have mentioned before exporting hippos out of the country when they were desperately needed here with no importation allowed is just again pure plain bad management and nothing else
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Perhaps most frustrating of all was the loss of the female that had survived feral for years, only to be shot by someone who mistook it for a pest species.

If the pairing of Kamina at DDZ and Felix at MZ goes ahead, it's reasonable to assume we won't see hippo imports within the next five years. They're a closely related pair, so any breeding will be carried out under the logic that inbred hippos are better than no hippos in the absence of an alternative (i.e. imports).
 
When kamina arrived at ddz they said
Kamina is a young female Pygmy Hippopotamus - one of only five specimens of her species in Australia. Fortunately Pygmy Hippos like to live alone as the other four are all related to her.

At the moment the law does not permit the import of Hippos so it is not possible to import a mate for her or any of the other four.

We are working with industry colleagues to assist the government to amend the law to permit such an import. but it will be several years before this will be accomplished.

In the meantime Kamina is being waited on hand and foot
There would only be a bit of inbreeding as it isn’t like for example obi breeding with now deceased petra
 
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Zoofan15 said:
Perhaps most frustrating of all was the loss of the female that had survived feral for years, only to be shot by someone who mistook it for a pest species.

If the pairing of Kamina at DDZ and Felix at MZ goes ahead, it's reasonable to assume we won't see hippo imports within the next five years. They're a closely related pair, so any breeding will be carried out under the logic that inbred hippos are better than no hippos in the absence of an alternative (i.e. imports).
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Yes I was a real shame that someone didn’t go out to recapture her I believe she was feral for about 6 to 7 years just a real waste of a potential breeding female. It will depend on what the estimated timeline for a possible importation if and when Kamina would be paired up.
 
As much as I want to have a baby Pygmy hippo in the near future I can’t see ddz and mz wanting to inbreed Pygmy hippo and even if they did the hippo couldn’t be a pair for obi as Felix’s is his dad seeing and importation if 2 to 4 hippos would be great one one for Melbourne Adelaide and ddz do you think there will be another calf for Taronga
Are kambiri and Felix realated
 
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