Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo Developments

yes glyn i totally agree.

i am actually very suprised that melbourne invested all this money in a marvellous pygmy hippo exhibit, with breeding facilties attached, only to never attempt to repeat past success' by breeding their hippo. instead, despite their being animals in the region unrelated to eachother, the population was allowed to age, by all zoos, and now its dubious it will be able to secure another generation of animals for display.

which is terribly sad. pygmy hippo are an excellent species, ideal for city zoos. they are charismatic, interesting and hugely popular when displayed in with underwater viewing (and yet strangely the only zoo that did this is now the only zoo without!!).

and as you say glyn, its a pretty big blow losing yet another african rainforest species that isnt a primate! our future exhbits of this nature are looking increasingly boring!!!

eventually, i am confident that australiasian zoos will have new import standards passed for artiodactyls. i only hope when that does happen, that this time not only do zoos work closer together in prioritising and establishing a common collection, but also take a little more responsibility for themselves and stop importing pairs and trios of animals. its this "import the bare minimum" and rely on our counterparts attitude that has the zoos in such a dilemma.
 
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I'm pretty sure that Melbourne's pygmy hippo went to Tarongo because they have a breeding facility and Melbourne didn't. Otherwise they would have left him where he was and brought in the female from Adelaide.

I've been in the off limits pygmy hippo enclosure and all they have are night dens (one for each animal/enclosure.

The other hippo enclosure (that's been empty since the female died) has been filled with water. The water has carp in it. Sounds boring but they look pretty good.
 
i was also of the opinion that MZ has superior breeding facilities too.
i still reckon the p. hippo program could have been, should have been, based out of MZ, rather than TZ, but at the end of the day, and for whatever reason, if this transfer results in just one, two or even three baby hippos, then id be over the moon. pairing with the Mareeba animal's offspring may just be enough to see this species through the next couple of decades in Australian zoos.
realistically the zoos in this country will only ever hold small numbers of this species but if Taronga Zoo, Adelaide, Melbourne and Mareeba collectively hold up to 12-15 things could be OK.
The Pygmy Hippo is one of sveral exotic species that, for whatever reason, seemed to fall through the cracks in the ARAZPA floor during the 1990s.
Had this program been initiated in the early 90 to mid 90s the future of this species may have been more secure. the death of Taronga's male imported from Honolulu Zoo and Merlbourne's female tipped the species perilously close to regional collapse. and when Taronga's female eventually dies another bloodline will become regionally extinct. BTW, does anyone know where the Mareeba animals were sourced from, and where, for that matter, did the Pearl Coast Zoo source its animals from?
the P Hippo situation mirrors that of several other species which, with better, more aggressive management, could have been sustained. even African Lions were, up until recently, in bad straights in Australian Zoo circles, although its obviously easier to boost the population of an 'easy to import animal kept in numerous institutions than it is to rapidly increase the populations of an already not so common animal with longer generation times.
Brazillian Tapir, Maned Wolf, River Hippo, Collared Peccary....the outcomes for these species are all different but they share some things in common. Lack of regional cooperation, unfortunate deaths, the fact that they did exist in Australian zoos and the fact that they now have a very small gene base upon which to recover populations from. this is particularly true for the tapir and wolf, which are now the subject of renewed regional priority (wolf-Wellington Zoo, Tapir, to replace Malayan). However, zoos really did put all their eggs in one basket when they opted to ditch our only exotic pig species for Babirusa. this decision was made way before at least 2001-6 years ago Im sure the Peccary population could have been rebuilt. now, were watching it vanish rapidly. TZ no longer has this species on display???? its only a matter of time before it vanished completely. alas
im sure ARAZPA policy has gotten better, and Govt funding has caught up in the nick of time to give all our major zoos the sorts of facilities theyll need to build up more sustainable populations long term.
 
Patrick,

There are two areas with off limits yards and pools but I don't recall that many dens (or the the hay storage area.)

As far i know MZ pygmy went to TZ because they had a breeding facility and MZ didn't....otherwise why would they go to the trouble of moving our pygmy hippo?

Look, I'm not part of the decision making process so I really don't how they come up with these decisions.

Glyn, I think we'll be seeing less and less variety of species in Australia and the region in general. A lot of the animals at MZ won't be replaced when they go (ie. jaguars, syrian bears, puma....ocelot has already gone).
 
taronga has nothing

there is 2 exhibits that were originally for pygmy hippos, neither with off exhibit holding

currently the small one (whixh i would dare say not meet any min standards) has tarongas hippo in it, the other larger one with deeper pool directly across path has adelaide tapir, and the new hippo is up were the peccaries were on my last visit, so that means were have the pecaries gone

and in saying this, whilst taronga now has 2 hippos, and yes the new could very well still be in quarrintine, they are more than 200 meters down hill from each other, so i ahve no idea wether they plan to mobve the tapir out to get them close, or what. to me it's quite confusing

i am at taronga next week, as well as sww and the s aquarium, so i will ask about hippos!
 
the last remaining ARZPA "pair" of pygmy hippos (thats the adelaide female and melbourne male now at taronga) are both quite old. if the ages quoted on the pygmy hippo thread are correct they are both actually passed, or very close to being pass, what are considered by to be breeding ages. my assumption is then that its a long shot theat they will even produce one calf let alone multiples!

so essentially the hope is that they will produce a calf and that that calf will be eventually paired with a calf of the opposite sex produced by the mareeba pair. so again we may be relying on another "if", and thats that we can produce to calves of teh opposite sex.

hopefully then that will give the zoos and unrealted young pair that if produce 3 or 4 offspring, will be able to give us enough animals for display!!!

by then i wouldn't be supprised if there is some relaxing of the importation laws.

zookiah63, yeah, we are all well aware of the number of species that will be phased out and most of us totally agree with the situation bar a couple of switches here and there. i for one think its rediculous to phase out persian leopards, clouded leopards and jaguar for african leopards...something that has certainly been canvassed but may no longer be the consensus decision. as is probably obvious to you, i think we should mainatain jaguars and "ditch" the rest.

as glyn said the flipping from brazilian to malayan and now back to brazilian hasn't helped either species in the region, but that was due to an unforeseen event - the malayans have health problems in this country that seem impossible to address.

its always been my belief that if the main zoo boards had focused a little more on cheaply developing their holding capacity at their open range zoos, the situation wouldn't have been so bad.

back to melbourne zoo developments however, zookiah63, (thats such a bad cyber-name ;)), got anything more for us? we love nothing more than to gossip over the slightest unsubstantiated rumour here.......:)
 
sorry about the cybername - it was actually one that E-Bay coughed up for me. kiah is the name of one of my cats (again, I didn't give her that name....her previous owner did). I could change it - any suggestions?

Well, i'm at a loss to work out the reasoning behind the transfer of the pygmy hippos as it seems obvious that Melbourne has sufficient space. The exhibit that housed the female (who died a few years ago) has been unutilised since her passing so there's room to put another animal in there along with the off limits pools and den. And Zoo Boy has said that Taronga doesn't have the facility!

As far as the 'unsubstantiated rumours' go.....this comes from the keepers and zoo sources. However, as I've found in the years.....people change their minds, management changes hands and decisions are over ruled or reversed. It's tough keeping up with it.

I try to verify any "rumours".....for example, someone told me four weeks ago that one of our elephants is definitely pregnant.....as this didn't come from an official source, I ignored it which is just as well as this wasn't true.....but it would have been fun to read the reactions of people on this forum!

However, as soon as I hear anything 'official' I'll let you know. Otherwise we'll have to keep reading the Herald Sun for updates......
 
awwwwwww..... okay thanks.

tell us about the new seal pools? comeon pleeease. penguins, pelicans, seals... fish? will it have fish?
 
The cormorants will be moved there along with the gannet.....there are definitely no whales or dolphins planned....sorry.

I'm attending an update in a couple of weeks which is about 'Stories of the Sea' (Patrick, get used to the name) and I'll take lots of notes.
 
sorry, just to get in my head, i was viewing isis,

adelaide 1 female
melb 1 male
taronga 1 female

so taronga got melbournes male, so now both hippo pools are empty?
 
Taronga also got Adelaide female. It seems all the pygmy hippos are in Sydney.

Both hippo pools are empty of hippos only. One has Asian small clawed otter and the other one (which has been empty for years) has carp and Egyptian goose. The carp display quite well actually.
 
wow taronga has em all

were are they all! well tahts good to hear, wen i was there, jst 1 hippo lying in mud, and the otehr a very dirty galls front with no water

so are the exhibits otter proof, and can u explain any more about the otters moving there! i always find it interesting wen animals move exhibits not designed for them !
 
they used to have carp in there when both hippo were alive. you'd have thought they would have picked something slightly less disgusting. they should try and import some brazilian tapir for the exhibits, short term. id'e say put the malayan in there but with all her eye problems its probably best they keep her inside during the day.
 
zoo boy, the one hippo lying in the mud was Timothy who is now at Taronga.

..the otters have moved to old pygmy hippo exhibit to replace the hippo (otherwise there would two empty enclosures).

The otter exhibit is being modified to house the binturong.

The binturong are being replaced by geriatric (but still lovely) clouded leopard.

The clouded leopard is leaving the big cats are (where she doesn't belong) and they will be reshuffled to accommodate a new male snow leopard for the young female bringing the total to four snow leopards.

..do you spell like a diskslexik on puspose?
 
could the lion tailed macaques be put in this exhibit, as it was originally designed for mandrill?
 
no i dont, and its a on going joke here, i am always rushed, and jst get everything down as fast as possible, jst ask pat, hes on the frontline of the 'bag zooboy's posts' brigade ;)
 
i let the typo's slide these days (partly because i have been getting consitently sloppier myself), what i do pay you out about is that you frequently ask the same questions over and over when the answers are two posts prior!!! ;)

kiang - not sure what you are talking about there. whilst the mandrill and pygmy hippo exhibit was essentially designed and landscaped as one, they are essentially three seperate enclosures (two for hippos one for mandrills) and the animals do not mix. the pygmy hippos might have all gone these days but the madrills are still living next door in their enclosure and breeding well. so their is no need to fill their exhibit.
 
Haven't seen that mandrill exhibit for about 5 years now, but I thought it was just brilliant, and should be how all monkeys are displayed.

Are the hamadryas baboons still housed in that cage at the nth-east corner of the zoo?
Ancient exhibit, but they seemed happy enough.
 
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