Highland Wildlife Park HWP news 2016

6 European wolves have been born, so far un-sexed.

The six adorable pups were born on 3 June to mother Ruby and father Jax. Now seven weeks old, the cubs are slowly starting to venture from their den and explore their 4,500 square metre enclosure. They can be seen playing and tumbling about, under the watchful eye of their mother. The keepers are yet to name the boisterous pups, but will do so once they have been sexed.

Douglas Richardson, Head of Living Collections at RZSS Highland Wildlife Park, said: “We are really pleased about the birth of the six wolf pups. The last pups to be born at the Park arrived in 2013 and Ruby, this year’s mum, was born in the Park in 2012. Her siblings went on to join other collections as part of a coordinated approach to European wolf management in the UK, whilst Ruby stayed behind to start her own pack.

“This is the first time Ruby has had pups and she is proving to be an excellent mother. The pups are doing very well and are slowly starting to wander from the den, although they are still quite shy and always remain close to their mother’s side.”
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Can?t see the wood for the wolves! | Highland Wildlife Park
 
Jackwow said:
No red deer to be seen anywhere in the park yesterday?!
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As Kiang says, at the start of August he, ThylacineAlive and myself saw a very large herd within the main reserve :)
 
A summary of the season's breeding results, lifted from the blog;

Because we specialise in just cold weather adapted species at the RZSS Highland Wildlife Park, our animals are all seasonal breeders and tend to produce young during late spring to mid-summer, when the climate is a bit easier on the growing offspring. By September, we usually have all the baby animals that are likely to be born during the year, and we currently have 54 youngsters running and flying around, from 15 of the species we keep.

Young birds are represented by 2 Temminck’s tragopan chicks, a highly colourful pheasant from China and northern India, and a snowy and two great grey owlets (baby owls).

We have had four baby snow monkeys born this year, which brings the group size up to 27; the only group of this most northerly primate in the UK. The lynx and the Scottish wildcats have once again produced kittens with three lynx and seven wildcat kittens now out and about with their parents. The wildcats are out of three different litters, which represents possibly our best year ever with this, Scotland’s most threatened mammal. Our current wolf pair bred for the first time and produced six pups, but possibly the most exciting carnivore birth this year was our wolverine twins, a Scottish first.

A large percentage of our animal collection are hoofed mammals and this group has as usual been quite prolific. We have two Przewalski’s (pronounced “shevalsky) horse foals and three European bison calves. These two species represent ongoing captive conservation success stories as both became extinct in the wild and were saved and later reintroduced back from zoo populations; one of our home-grown bison is currently living with a wild herd in Romania.

Although most of our caprids (hoofed animals related to sheep and goats) did not breed this year as they were either being rested, female getting old or new male is still too young, we have had four Himalayan tahr, a sort of mix between a sheep and a goat, reared.

We do very well with deer and have offspring from four of our five species. The red deer herd has 12 calves and our European elk, a former Scottish species, once again produced twins. The threatened white-lipped deer, from the Tibetan plateau, and Bukhara deer, a form of red deer from central Asia that has been recently discovered to be hanging on in Afghanistan, produced three and one calves, respectively. One of the white-lipped calves was born to a female who had trouble producing milk and so he was hand-reared. But rather than removing him from the herd, he was bottle-fed in-situ and now runs with the other two calves and is not habituated to humans, as many hand-reared animals can be. This latter husbandry success is a real testament to the skills and dedication of the keepers concerned.

The list above does not contain tigers or red pandas, but this is not due to a lack of success, in fact it is indicative of quite the opposite. Because of the tiger cubs and red panda kits we produced in recent years, the respective breeding programme coordinators asked us not to breed this year due to space reasons. There is not an unlimited amount of good enclosure space for these species and breeding needs to be limited to avoid having more animals than the programme can manage. This may seem rather contradictory for two such threatened species, but managing animal populations within the limitations of the available resources and still enhancing their genetic diversity calls for some complex juggling.

The one further 2016 birth that we are currently preparing for, and it is by no means a sure thing, is that of the polar bear. Like our other species, polar bears are also seasonal breeders but they do not give birth until the end of the year and the cubs do not come out of the den until late winter to early spring. Hopefully we will have a couple more babies to add to our annual tally.
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The Red Deer were definately there yesterday.

I paid my first (and due to the distance from my home, perhaps the only?) visit here yesterday. It certainly lived up to expectations and must surely represent one of the most scenic situations of any Park. We saw all the main exhibits bar the Snow Leopard area and adjacent exhibits (time being a bit limited).

Have not seen Polar bears in a 'zoo' for many a year. Despite the excellent spacious enclosures for them, I noticed the female was pacing in stereo-typed fashion, a legacy of her past Rostock enclosure no doubt.

One question- do they still have the 'local' Scottish species such as Pine Marten, Capercaillie etc or have those disappeared with the upgrading to a wider remit- or did I just miss the area where they were housed?


Four photos uploaded to Gallery- Wildcat, Bukhara and White-lipped Deer.
 
Pertinax said:
One question- do they still have the 'local' Scottish species such as Pine Marten, Capercaillie etc or have those disappeared with the upgrading to a wider remit- or did I just miss the area where they were housed?
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The species which left when HWP upgraded to a wider remit were taxa such as Red Fox and European Badger. The taxa which you enquire about disappeared rather more recently, within the last few years.

The Capercaille were located in the current Temminck's Tragopan exhibit, but I have a feeling they may still keep the species off-display for breeding purposes; the Pine Marten on the other hand were located within the area devoted to several Scottish Wildcat exhibits, along with European Eagle Owl, and have definitely left the collection - around 2013 or 2014 I think. When they left the collection, and the European Eagle Owl moved to the former Pallas Cat exhibit, their exhibits were repurposed for extra Scottish Wildcat enclosures.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The Capercaille were located in the current Temminck's Tragopan exhibit, but I have a feeling they may still keep the species off-display for breeding purposes; the Pine Marten on the other hand were located within the area devoted to several Scottish Wildcat exhibits, along with European Eagle Owl, and have definitely left the collection - around 2013 or 2014 I think.
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Thanks- pretty much what I thought had happened;) as I recognised the Tragopan aviaries from older photos when they contained the Capers etc. And I also guessed that the Wildcat exhibit area had been revamped just for the Wildcats, evidently at the expense of the Martens etc.

With the high profile the Wildcat is currently enjoying(if that's the right word) in Scotland, this is obviously an important exhibit for the Park and we could see it attracts a lot of interest.
 
There was latterly only a single Pine Marten, who moved to a collection down in England IIRC.

Pacing is an interesting one - there is research showing that in carnivores, it develops because the animal knows where the keeper feeds it, so waits there restlessly. This then develops into behaviour whenever the animal is hungry, then becomes stereotyped. Less to do with boredom and enclosure design and more to do with the fact the animal is fed at the same place every time.
 
Davef68 said:
Pacing is an interesting one - there is research showing that in carnivores, it develops because the animal knows where the keeper feeds it, so waits there restlessly. This then develops into behaviour whenever the animal is hungry, then becomes stereotyped. Less to do with boredom and enclosure design and more to do with the fact the animal is fed at the same place every time.
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This is an overly simplistic generalisation. Pacing certainly can be the result of regular feeding regimes, but it has also been linked to many other factors. Anyway, few would deny it's a behaviour pattern that should be eliminated if possible, and certainly can be indicative of poor welfare. In this case, however, I think Pertinax's suggestion sounds most plausible.
 
Davef68 said:
Less to do with boredom and enclosure design and more to do with the fact the animal is fed at the same place every time.
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She was pacing a section midway along the fence to the left of the viewing area, about halfway up the hill with trees behind the fence- not a place I would imagine she was fed from- that would be more likely from near the service/holding area up at the top?
 
A pretty vague article as doesn't give any idea of what actually might happen, also incorrect as lists Capercaillie as one of the native species on show.
 
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