Hi from Sydney Australia - help on Sun Bear information

M

MKO

New Member
Hi,

I am a 13yo and a high school student from Sydney, Australia.

As part of a combined Science, Technology, English and Math (STEM) assignment, I have to research a vulnerable or endangered animal of my choice. I have chosen the Sun bear. Part of the assessment requires me to research and answer questions about the cost price of food, shelter, veterenary care etc., for Sun bears in a zoo.

I just a few questions that I was wondering if anyone could answer.

1. How much food do Sun bears (in a zoo) eat each day?

2. How much does all the food cost per day/week/year?

3. How much water do Sun bears drink?

4. How much does veterinary care cost for the bears per month or year?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my questions.
 
Hi,

I actually did ask Taronga Zoo, and 5 other zoos, but they all said they get 1000's of emails a day from students and can't reply to everyone. So ZooChat is my plan b!!!!
 
Welcome to ZooChat @MKO!

From my experience and from what others have said on ZooChat, Taronga Zoo are notoriously poor at answering questions. It irritates me when I ask a zoo a specific question and they say due to the volume of people asking that same question, they don't have time to reply. If that's the case, wouldn't it be an FAQ?

Did you email WildlifeHQ? Smaller zoos in my experience are better at replying to emails and are generally quite helpful. They curate a single sun bear so the costs you are enquiring about would be simpler to work out than if they had a bunch of them and had no idea who was drinking what. Also, their bear is relatively young so unlikely to have an age related conditions that would increase the cost of vet treatment beyond what could be considered the average.

You mention you've chosen the sun bear, do you have the option to change to a different animal? An elephant or a tiger that is more widespread in zoos would be far easier to research. You often see wildlife sanctuaries asking for donations saying it costs x amount to feed our tigers, elephants a day etc. and how they would appreicate donations to cover vet costs.

Here is some info on big cats in case you decide to switch:

Cost of Feeding the Cats?

And some additional info on the additives they put into the food for additional nutritional benefits, you could really go to town on all the vitamins/mineral etc:

Diet, Feeding And Nutritional Care Of Captive Tigers Lions And Leopards
 
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MKO said:
Hi,
I just a few questions that I was wondering if anyone could answer.

1. How much food do Sun bears (in a zoo) eat each day?

2. How much does all the food cost per day/week/year?

3. How much water do Sun bears drink?

4. How much does veterinary care cost for the bears per month or year?
.
Click to expand...

We get this type of request too. The problem is that this is not helping with a little research, it is effectively answering the question for the student. Plus to answer these questions would probably involve work for 3 or 4 people. Here is a better way of going about it:

1. The only question you should really be asking the zoo is can you have a copy of the diet sheet for sun bears. This is something they could supply with very little effort, and may be happy to do for you. If they don't search the internet and books for sun bear diets. There is sure to be a diet somewhere. You may need to go a serious library but that is what research is about.

2. Here is where you do some research yourself. Take the diet sheet to the market, pet shop, wherever, and price it all out yourself. Sure the zoo will be able to buy food at a cheaper price but you will get an approximation. But asking the zoo to do this is a good reason for turning you down. It would require somebody in the accounts department to go through and price it all out for you.

3. This is really a non-question. All animals in a zoo should be supplied with clean drinking water at all times.

4. Again an impossible to answer question. Are we talking about the bear which broke its leg last year, the bear having cubs this year, or the old bear on pain relief? And to get any sort of sensible answer would require coordination between the keepers, the veterinary department, the record keeper and the accounts department. But you may be able to get an approximation by asking your vet how much it might cost for veterinary care for a large dog for a year, the basic veterinary requirements would be similar.
 
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Zoofan15 said:
Welcome to ZooChat @MKO!

From my experience and from what others have said on ZooChat, Taronga Zoo are notoriously poor at answering questions. It irritates me when I ask a zoo a specific question and they say due to the volume of people asking that same question, they don't have time to reply. If that's the case, wouldn't it be an FAQ?

Did you email WildlifeHQ? Smaller zoos in my experience are better at replying to emails and are generally quite helpful. They curate a single sun bear so the costs you are enquiring about would be simpler to work out than if they had a bunch of them and had no idea who was drinking what. Also, their bear is relatively young so unlikely to have an age related conditions that would increase the cost of vet treatment beyond what could be considered the average.

You mention you've chosen the sun bear, do you have the option to change to a different animal? An elephant or a tiger that is more widespread in zoos would be far easier to research. You often see wildlife sanctuaries asking for donations saying it costs x amount to feed our tigers, elephants a day etc. and how they would appreicate donations to cover vet costs.

Here is some info on big cats in case you decide to switch:

Cost of Feeding the Cats?

And some additional info on the additives they put into the food for additional nutritional benefits, you could really go to town on all the vitamins/mineral etc:

Diet, Feeding And Nutritional Care Of Captive Tigers Lions And Leopards
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your reply. I fully understand why zoos can't answer every email, so I accept that. I think it would be really great if zoos were able to keep FAQ pages on the diet of their various animals.

Unfortunately I can't change my animal - we had a list of 8 animals to choose from and I chose Sun Bears and I am way too far into the assessment (actually - this is the last part) to change.

I have done loads of internet searches and can't find information on the amount of food they require daily. I have found a short documentary on Sun Bears at Taronga Zoo and in it I can see the keeper preparing some food. So I am going to estimate based on what I can see. I'm pretty sure my teacher will accept that I tried hard to get the answers and made an attempt to do the estimates.

I really appreciate all your help, and will keep looking at ZooChat just to keep up with what's going on here.

Thanks - MKO
 
MKO said:
Thank you so much for your reply. I fully understand why zoos can't answer every email, so I accept that. I think it would be really great if zoos were able to keep FAQ pages on the diet of their various animals.

Unfortunately I can't change my animal - we had a list of 8 animals to choose from and I chose Sun Bears and I am way too far into the assessment (actually - this is the last part) to change.

I have done loads of internet searches and can't find information on the amount of food they require daily. I have found a short documentary on Sun Bears at Taronga Zoo and in it I can see the keeper preparing some food. So I am going to estimate based on what I can see. I'm pretty sure my teacher will accept that I tried hard to get the answers and made an attempt to do the estimates.

I really appreciate all your help, and will keep looking at ZooChat just to keep up with what's going on here.

Thanks - MKO
Click to expand...

No problem, @MKO, and sorry I couldn't have been of more help. Your assignment sounds way more interesting than any of the assignments I did in High School Biology. I got to count some duck weed and write about pest control methods. Riveting stuff,,,

I found another article that said sun bears were fed 1kg of pellets along with some fruit each day. It didn't elaborate on how much fruit but it implied the 1kg of pellets made up the bulk of it's diet.

Glad to hear you'll be joining us all on ZooChat. It's always great to have new people, especially in the Australian forums which have been pretty quiet lately.
 
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