Taronga Western Plains Zoo lion feedings being cut?

Do you really belive that??? Give me a break.

You don't reckon it just might be a bitter and twisted ex-employee strring up trouble? Do you really think that zoos are going to starve their animals so the public can feed them?
 
this is such a dumb thing to make-up. last time i was out at WPZ the zoo keeper i was talking to, who is very senior in the life sciences structure actually told me the lions were overweight, and were on a long-term reduction to try and get them to budge a few kilos. this hardly sounds like the ZPB of NSW is growing a pride of anorexic lions to me. if anything, managing any animals in zoos is more about avoiding overfeeding than worrying about underfeeding.
david hancocks is an expert, and his vision for zoos is amazing. but its also a perfect world scenario too.
 
I dont believe the article for a second ether. the staff at western plains would never allow anything that would detrimentally effect the health of their animals to occur. i think the article is horrible and a bunch of lies what i am woried about it the effect of all the bad press both zoos have recieved latly on the public opinion of the centers. Dubbo is already having problems with attendence numbers and articles like this cant help in any way
 
agrred. i dont know if the zoo would listen to an anonymous email but i emailed them today, regardless, telling them i think they need some sort of considered respons eon their website, which pre-empts any outcome sof the RSPCA inquiry. these outcomes will probably be in favour of the zoo, but just in case they arent the zoo needs to be seen as transparent and proactive in terms of addressing these concerns, not reactionary.
i do not believe the zoo has anything to hide at all and will continue to support its work. but not many people are as educated about zoos as our forum members and for any animal lover who hears of these allegations, the first place they'll probably check online is the zoos home page. failing to find anything on that about the zoos position on these allegations, they might then go on to the RSPCA or Greens website, or an nimal welfare agency,who, as we know are prone to making outrageous claims. however, it would be terrible if this was the lasting impression people had of taronga and the way it dealt with the 'murder of its elephant, rhino and orang, and starving of its big cats'.
 
saw on telly the other day that at melbourne the brown bears are being conditioned to retreive and place targets such as rubber tubing whilst on display as part of their enrichment/conditoning program. the orangs are doing health-check demos, and the seals are on show too. i thought the brown bear idea was marvellous, these guys are just to intelligent and the activity is simply an extension of behind-the-scenes husbandry. but i was wondering what you guys thought about it?
over the years many of my best zoo experiences have been a mix of the natural and unnatural. at melbourne the keepers threw a ball into the tiger exhibit with a rabbit attached, which made the tiger swim out and grab it. Mek Kepah being kept busy moving logs around her enclosure, as at Taronga with its new elephants. what sort of activities should zoos be showcasing?
 
Starving (?!) lions

I have read somewhere that one of the zoos in NZ ( I think it was Auckland )
has a fasting day for the lions once a week .
We are told that in the wild , lions do not always eat every day . They are not always successful in subduing prey . The zoo wants to try and recreate normal living conditions as much as possible .
Of course of if any lion in the zoo is not in optimum condition , the fasting rule doesnt apply .
If someone is getting upset over the lions "fasting" , what would they think of snakes being fed once every 20 days or so during Winter ?

I do agree though , that the zoo should be more proactive to educate visitors about such things so it doesnt become continuous cannon fodder for misinformed people who write to the media instead of the zoos concerned
 
fasting one or two days a week is very normal for carnivores in zoos - especially cats. in fact, you don't need to feed your pet cat every single day either...
 
if taronga's or wpz's big cats were starving they certainly wouldnt be looking like they do, or breeding either. i honestly do not believe for a second that the zoo would withold food from the animals; however, if instead of being fed at 9am the zoos lions arent fed until 1130 am when a tour comes around-what is the problem. the animals are still being fed-the keeper is still there-and i know that on the tour you dont get the opportunity to feed the animals their entire feed in one go.
additionally, like you said pat, and nigel,these animals dont eat every day anyway. in fact, in a guidebook ive got fromt the 1980s the zoo was already pointing out this fact, that once a week all big and small cats had a fast.
and recently, every time anything anti-zoo comes up-its david hancocks on the critical end. just google his name, some interesting things come up, (but no, hes not an artist based in manly)
 
If I understand it correct the article doesn`t state that the cats are starved but that they recieve meat not suitable for them instead of hole carasses because tourists pay for hand-feeding them. If this is correct, and I think this could very well be the case, the Zoo would place financial interests over the health of the animals.
 
Yassa said:
If I understand it correct the article doesn`t state that the cats are starved but that they recieve meat not suitable for them instead of hole carasses because tourists pay for hand-feeding them. If this is correct, and I think this could very well be the case, the Zoo would place financial interests over the health of the animals.
Click to expand...

Sorry to disappoint you Yassa, but my very reliable sources ;) say this is laughable. Of course carcases are not given to the public to feed out (I can imagine the scenario of a couple of five-year olds being given a horse's leg, complete with skin, hoof and bone!). The public feed nice clean pieces of meat. The keepers feed normal diet, including pieces of carcasses.

As an ex-keeper for many years, I can imagine the uproar from keepers if they were told not to feed lions, or any animal for the matter, a normal balanced diet. Do you really think that modern zoos are in the business of feeding grossly inadequate diets?
 
Well, this is not dissapointing but very good to hear. But unfortunately I know from a US zoo keeper that things like this (feeding ground meat or dry food to big cats - exclusively!) happen there, so the thought that it might happen in australian zoos too would not surprise me. And I know from german zoo keepers that in many zoos their word and opinion counts not much, and that in some zoos the reaction from the zoo management to a keeper uproar would be to displace the keeper to another department. This is extremely depressing but the management structures in some german zoos are awful. Good to hear that this is no problem in Australia.
 
Firstly, I'm only commenting on Australasian zoos. I'm sure there's all sorts of other practices in other regions. A number of US zoos feed monkey chow exclusively to some of their primates. These look like large chicken feed pellets, and supposedly contain a balanced diet. I don't think any of the major zoos in this region use these diets for primates.

Just a minor clarification - if a single keeper (and I think's that's what you are referring to), complained bitterly about a particular diet, then yes, I would agree, the general management response would be some sort of discussion and/or resolution. In most of the major zoos (I don't know about the smaller zoos though), animal diets are developed by the veterinarians, in conjunction with curatorial staff, and based on species requirements and available foodstuffs. Sometimes, complete substitutes for wild diets are made - echidnas are not fed 1,000s of termites every day, but rather a mix of meat, eggs, mealworms, and all sorts of other goodies that replicate the dietary needs of an animal.

Substitutes (calcium powder and vitamins) are often added to large cat diets on the days when meat is fed, but this still isn't a complete substitute for carcases.
 
as i was reading this post i thought of good ol' american "monkey chow", and how almost every zoo in the sates uses it either exclusively or as part of the animals diet.

funny that you mentioned it zoopro. i beleve its actually available in certain pet stores - since many an american tries their hand at raising an angry capuchin in the NYC apartments.

whilst never actually having seen the stuff (and zoos feed it to their gorillas and other apes too!) i couldn't think of a blander diet. i would much rather be an australian zoo monkey, and get a good deal of fresh fruit and foliage as well!!
 
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