Is this Animal a Hybrid?

Cole

Cole

Member
I have read that some deer has been crossbred with Elk, and I was wondering if this animal is one of those cases. This is a still frame from a recording at the Natural Bridge Zoo in Virginia. I will upload the full video to youtube once I am done editing.

BellowingAnimal.jpg


He was also making a really loud noise. I couldn't find anything like it on youtube. Could it be a grunt?

Bellowing Animal by Coleonyx on SoundCloud - Hear the world?s sounds
 
First off, Hi Cole Welcome to zoochat. Can you tell everyone a little bit about Natural Bridge Zoo? especially the collection they have. I'm from the Pittsburgh area and we have a Private zoo called Living Treasures. Supposedly we have one of your Giraffes but they always talked about Natural Bridge.
 
jusko88 said:
First off, Hi Cole Welcome to zoochat. Can you tell everyone a little bit about Natural Bridge Zoo? especially the collection they have. I'm from the Pittsburgh area and we have a Private zoo called Living Treasures. Supposedly we have one of your Giraffes but they always talked about Natural Bridge.
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Compared to other zoos, Natural Bridge is maybe small to medium size. Contrasting it with the North Carolina Zoo, the visitors get a much personal experience with the animals. At least, that's what feels like to me.

The giraffe exhibit is really interesting. They have them in this pen where they bend over their necks to get feed from visitors. I don't think it was on purpose, it is just that they have such long necks and the fence is not uniform around their enclosure. You have to sort of hold your bag up for them to reach it.

I have a video of it from my last visit, when I finish editing it, I will upload it so you can take a look.

I think Natural Bridge is mostly known for their Elephant ride. It lasts about 2 minutes but it's awesome, well worth the 5 bucks :)

They occasionally have baby tigers that you can pose with. The zoo gets really busy around that time.

For a full list of animals they have, here is their website:
Natural Bridge Zoo Virginia Zoo Animals
 
Another zoo im curious if you been to. The Mill Mountain zoo? No zoochatter has been there that i know of. There's no pics or any post info on that Aza accredited zoo in Roanoke.Maybe if a zoochat moderator can put this zoo up please. thanks, so if you can post pics that would be great.
 
Cole said:
He was also making a really loud noise. I couldn't find anything like it on youtube. Could it be a grunt?
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Its a European Fallow buck in full rut. The noise is the rutting call and the proper name for it is 'groaning' though it sounds more like a rapid belching. Your photo has caught him in 'mid-groan' with open mouth and Adam's Apple depressed as he makes the call.
 
jusko88 said:
Another zoo im curious if you been to. The Mill Mountain zoo? No zoochatter has been there that i know of. There's no pics or any post info on that Aza accredited zoo in Roanoke.Maybe if a zoochat moderator can put this zoo up please. thanks, so if you can post pics that would be great.
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I went to Mill Mountain first time last year. It was a really, really small zoo. You can see everything in it at around 30 to 45 minutes. I made a few videos of it with my cell phone. I uploaded them to Youtube on my channel.

A few experiences that I remember are the Praire Dogs that could almost be touched over the glass around their enclosure.

The red panda that was being fed, and the Patagonian Maras which I had never seen before.
Patagonian Mara at Mill Mountain Zoo
Masked Lapwing at Mill Mountain Zoo
Cattle Egret at Mill Mountain Zoo
Ducks at Mill Mountain Zoo
Scarlet Ibis at Mill Mountain Zoo
 
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Pertinax said:
Its a European Fallow buck in full rut. The noise is the rutting call and the proper name for it is 'groaning' though it sounds more like a rapid belching. Your photo has caught him in 'mid-groan' with open mouth and Adam's Apple depressed as he makes the call.
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Thanks, I started doing audio commentaries on the videos, but I decided to not say anything on that one, since his groan was so awesome. It was all anyone could hear around his enclosure.
 
Welcome Cole!!:D

Hopefully the Natural Bridge Zoo will have some Fallow Deer fawns in Spring! Can you tell us where you heard of these hybrid ElkXother deer (Elk are deer) hyrbids?

~Thylo:cool:
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Welcome Cole!!:D

Hopefully the Natural Bridge Zoo will have some Fallow Deer fawns in Spring! Can you tell us where you heard of these hybrid ElkXother deer (Elk are deer) hyrbids?

~Thylo:cool:
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Many farmed deer have a somewhat mixed parentage, with crosses to produce either more meat or larger antlers. I dont know if the problem exists in the USA, but here in the UK introduced Silka deer are hybridising with the native Red deer meaning that the Silka population is getting taller/larger in size and the Red deer are getting smaller. As offspring are fertile its creating a rather mongrelised(?) population on the areas of co-habitation. :)
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Welcome Cole!!:D

Hopefully the Natural Bridge Zoo will have some Fallow Deer fawns in Spring! Can you tell us where you heard of these hybrid ElkXother deer (Elk are deer) hyrbids?

~Thylo:cool:
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Ever since I read about the Domesticated silver fox, I have wondered which other species have been domesticated.

Whenever I am editing a video for a particular animal, I usually check if he's been domesticated, or at least kept in a farm. I was kinda happy, for example, when I learned the Patagonian Maras can be kept as pets. There are some videos on Youtube about them.

I searched about deer as well and I ran into this article.
Deer farming in New Zealand

"Reflecting the original imported wild population, the majority of New Zealand's deer herd (about 85 percent) is Red Deer (Cervus elaphus). The balance of the national herd is predominantly Elk (also known as Wapiti or Elk-Wapiti), which is descended from elk originally imported from Canada or red/elk hybrids..."

The antlers on the fallow deer looked really different from the red deer and I couldn't find a red deer making the same noise. So I started wondering if that was the hybrid talked about in that article.
 
Haven't heard anything about feral imported deer breeding. In Alabama though we have very strict laws to protect our Whitetail herd (not that I know of any other than Muleys that can hybridize with whitetail). You can't import anything in the family Cervidae into the state of Alabama at all (not even other whitetails).
 
Cole said:
Thanks, I started doing audio commentaries on the videos, but I decided to not say anything on that one, since his groan was so awesome. It was all anyone could hear around his enclosure.
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You should hear Fallow Deer when they rut in the New Forest here in the UK. The very old trees seem to amplify the sound making it louder/ resonate more than if you hear them in a more open setting like a Deer Park. It can be quite scary to the unfamiliar.

Fallow deer are a 'lek' species- several big bucks may share the same rutting area so you can get three or more all calling at once too.
 
Cole said:
The giraffe exhibit is really interesting. They have them in this pen where they bend over their necks to get feed from visitors. I don't think it was on purpose, it is just that they have such long necks and the fence is not uniform around their enclosure. You have to sort of hold your bag up for them to reach it.

I have a video of it from my last visit, when I finish editing it, I will upload it so you can take a look.
...
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Here is my giraffe video from the Natural Bridge Zoo.

 
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BeardsleyZooFan said:
Somewhat similar to the Naples Zoo's giraffe feeding. Although this will change when their new exhibit Kiwa Ranch opens.
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Cool, I thought this was somewhat unique to Natural Bridge. It didn't seem like they planned for that kind of feeding.

Interesting to know other places have it too.
 
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