Giraffes in Australia

[Chlidonias]

The Sydney/Taronga stock is mixed camelopardalis/giraffa/tippelskirchi plus a few additional bloodlines from the mixed bag SSP reticulata/rothschildi (not totally watertight as they threw all generic into this mix, even the purebred rothschildi and reticulata stock in NA / SSP). It all went wrong way before the ill fated Honolulu Zoo imports - which were effectively all hybrids -.

I still have to look at the Auckland and Melbourne founder stock in more detail and follow back the bloodlines to the founder stock.

All the giraffes in Australia descend from four animals at Taronga (a pair imported from Africa in the 1930s, a female from the USA in 1950, and a male from Honolulu in 1983 which was related to the 1950 female), one female Rothschild's at Melbourne (from Ouwehands in 1997), and since the 1990s additional imports from New Zealand (from the Orana and Auckland stocks).

 

[Zoofan15]

Orana also imported a female from Melbourne in 1987 who disappeared (not sure what happened to her, whether she died or was sent elsewhere, but she never bred)

I believe this was Mandy:

Orana Park Giraffe: I didn't realise this until recently, but another female giraffe was imported from Melbourne Zoo in 1988. She was called Mandy and was born in 1987. Mandy did not conceive prior to Jaffa's death in 1991 (at four years of age she could have potentially conceived that year) and she did not get another oppotunity to breed until Harold arrived in 1994. Harold had four females to breed with initially: Celeste, Sarita, Nathalie and Nathalie. Mandy died on the 3rd January 2000, her first and only calf was stillborn that same day.

 

[Zoofan15]

All the giraffes in Australia descend from four animals at Taronga (a pair imported from Africa in the 1930s, a female from the USA in 1950, and a male from Honolulu in 1983 which was related to the 1950 female), one female Rothschild's at Melbourne (from Ouwehands in 1997), and since the 1990s additional imports from New Zealand (from the Orana and Auckland stocks).

Three of the Taronga founders were:

0.1 Mighty (born 1933 in Tanzania) - purebred Masai Giraffe (G. c. tippelskirchi).

1.0 Jan Smuts (born 1943 at Johannesburg Zoo) - purebred South African (Giraffe G. c. giraffe).

0.1 Clara (born 1950 at the Smithsonian National Zoo) - purebred Nubian Giraffe (G. c. camelopardalis).

Jan Smuts and these two females subsequently produced many hybrid offspring and therefore all descendants of these offspring are also hybrids:

- Jan Smuts and Mighty bred to produce a female named Betty; Jan Smuts then bred with his daughter Betty to produce Hazel; Jan Smuts then bred with his granddaughter Hazel to produce Willoughby (sent to Auckland Zoo); Jan Smuts then bred with his great granddaughter Willoughby to produce two calves. Therefore Jan Smuts was Willoughby’s father, grandfather and great grandfather.

- Ricky and Tisa (Wellington Zoo's last breeding pair) both descended from Jan Smuts and Clara.

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

Dear @Chlidonias, we speak the same language here. I am not contesting your findings, I just only checked by way of denoted (sub-)species assignments and in the ole NA AZA/SSP studbooks the 1994 born Chicago LP male is assigned to reticulata/rothschildi and ye take your pick from there. To me, that should signal generic or hybrid. Truthfully, I am far from happy with that and truly find this IMHO to be somewhat lacklustre record-keeping. I just fail to understand how in Europe EAZA/EEP can clearly define their current breeding stocks to founders and imported individuals with general locations thanks to their meticulous record-keeping versus the AZA/SSP which seems unable to even begin to weed out the unknowns and trace back their stock to founders (even if this would be only by photographic evidence on import - these records should exist with individual zoos).

Having said that: I will take your observation on board that Zuri / Harold was from a different import (this is certainly interesting and it is very frustrating that they just use the reticulata / rothschildi tag if clearly he is a rothschilde pure-bred (that can be traced to wild founders).

 

[Chlidonias]

in the ole NA AZA/SSP studbooks the 1994 born Chicago LP male is assigned to reticulata/rothschildi and ye take your pick from there.

They pretty much apply that to almost every North American giraffe in the studbook. However I just went and checked the parents and indeed that male was a hybrid, so where-ever I originally got the info that he was from the unrelated import was incorrect.