Well About Rusty. I've spoken to a Section Manager at Blackpool Zoo and you'll be pleased to hear that he's doing really well in his new home
Longleat Safari & Adventure Park Longleat Safari Park News 2023
- Thread starter Kates89
- Start date
Who's JJ?
He's one of the European wolves
Given his reputation, no doubt he would’ve “popped up” with a lot of other things, given half the chance. The interviews were always fun, though I don’t envy those having to edit them!
Todays animal park was very interesting. They said they may well get another hippo or a group of hippo to join spot, so she isn’t alone. Wonder how realistic this is, given they haven’t a enclosure or get any veterinary treatment once they are in the lake?
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Do they not? I'm fairly sure they have a house somewhere in the hillside, conspicuously near to a local farm. But it's brilliant news they are openly discussing the idea, as we all said before it would be a real shame if they lost the hippos. The good thing about Longleat is *generally* when they set their heart on something, it happens. So long as that thing isn't bears.
The programme stated that there were originally 5 hippos. What was the history of the other 3? I’ve only ever known Spot and Sonya.
I questioned that too , as far as animal park is concerned they haven’t ever mentioned the other 3, only Spot Sonia
cerperal
Well-Known Member
I've never heard mention of there being more than 2, and my family's been visiting since the '70s and nobody recalls there ever being more than 2 hippos. I'm yet to watch the episode so that might explain it, maybe they meant 5 were captured originally?
Did they try to get bears?
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Couple of years ago (around 2014 maybe?) they had massive banners at the end of the drive through advertising they were to acquire a group of likely rescue bears.
There's an article from a little later in 2016 about it here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.da...rescued-Europe-Asia-time-50-year-history.html
Not entirely sure what happened to them, maybe other collections were better suited. But they got hyenas in the end, so I'd say that's alright.
As bears and wolves live perfectly happy at woeburn safari park sharing a enclosure. With the wolves having underground dens to escape too and the bears having more free space at ground level it works well!
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Yes, my local (while at uni) is Wild Place and the mixed enclosure is quite possibly the best one I've ever seen for any species. Maybe now the European wolves are settled Longleat will consider acquiring bears again
Personally(this is just my personal opinion) Longleat don't need to aquire bears(I doubt they'd even consider this now). Apart from WMSP(who have lions,tigers,cheetah,AfricanWild dogs & dhole) Longleat have the 2nd best carnivore section, imo, in the country
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Completely agree. However I'm not going to complain if they do get them! Longleat have consistently expanded their drive through for at least the past 15 years so it's definitely a potential option.
It does make me think of how well it's run. The zoological side hasn't been sidelined as the park added more of its "adventure" aspects
cerperal
Well-Known Member
Alright, I've done some (very much surface level) digging and I reckon I've found an answer to our hippo-based queries.
It would appear that in 1967, the year the boat first started running across the lake, the park acquired a group of 4 chimpanzees (assumedly to live on what would later be Nico's island), as well as 3 hippos. Having watched the episode and seen that there's footage of 3 of them in black-and-white, my conclusion is that 3 originally arrived in '67 followed by Spot and Sonia around a decade later. This lines up with the comment about the keepers being able to sit on the other hippos but not the recent two, which already suggested they were separate groups. So I'm guessing it's a mistake in the narration to say 5 arrived at once, and instead it was a maximum of 5 held in one go.
That's enough hippo research for one night
Edit: More excavation of old Zoochat threads has occurred and I've come across this video
from the year after the initial group arrived. Incredible and ever so slightly mental to watch
It would appear that in 1967, the year the boat first started running across the lake, the park acquired a group of 4 chimpanzees (assumedly to live on what would later be Nico's island), as well as 3 hippos. Having watched the episode and seen that there's footage of 3 of them in black-and-white, my conclusion is that 3 originally arrived in '67 followed by Spot and Sonia around a decade later. This lines up with the comment about the keepers being able to sit on the other hippos but not the recent two, which already suggested they were separate groups. So I'm guessing it's a mistake in the narration to say 5 arrived at once, and instead it was a maximum of 5 held in one go.
That's enough hippo research for one night
Edit: More excavation of old Zoochat threads has occurred and I've come across this video
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Regrettably I've never visited Longleat so I cannot answer from personal experience; I only know what I've read. However John Frost's book "A Survey of the Hippopotamus in Captivity in the British Isles" (1996) lists sixteen different hippos at Longleat. According to this book, the first eight hippos were:
- Manfred (born Frankfurt) arrived 1967
- Freda (born Frankfurt) arrived 1967
- Arnold (born Antwerp) arrived 1967
- Hector (born Chester) arrived 1975
- Jaspar (born Chester) arrived 1977
- Spot (wild born) arrived 1976
- Sonia* (wild born) arrived 1976
- Nigalo (wild born) arrived 1976
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cerperal
Well-Known Member
Well that throws a spanner in the works, how did they manage to hide 14 hippos from history?!
That makes more sense though - it corroborates my (genius) theory there was an original trio, and assuming a few died/moved between Spot and Sonia arriving that brings a total to 5 once they arrived. Assumedly that also dispels the story that Spot was meant to be a male for breeding given there were multiple other males at the park from time to time. Where the rest fit in I haven't the foggiest but it would make sense that stock was replaced until the hippo population, especially in Europe, started to decrease in the 80s-90s and the park elected to keep them as a pair.
Who'd have thought hippopotamus detective work would be so thrilling?