A third healthy Asian Elephant calf has been born to female Num-Oi. A social media post has confirmed it’s female! This gives Melbourne 1.2 calves born across the past couple of months.
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Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo News 2023
- Thread starter WhistlingKite24
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How wonderful! The calf looks healthy and active which is really good news considering Num-Oi's last calf, Willow's health issues and unfortunate demise not long after her birth. Hopefully, we've got ourselves a little female calf to help Num-Oi build her matriline 
Fantastic news and another female.
This is exciting for the future having 3 young calfs with 2 of them females. This should set the herd up well for the future breeding of the herd.
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Wonderful news!
Great to finally see a healthy calf from Num Oi; especially a female which would greatly contribute to her lineage in the future.
Num Oi was due on New Years so it seems she gave birth pretty much right on target! Quite different to Mali who ended up giving birth a whole month earlier than she was scheduled.
Melbourne Zoo couldn’t ask for more. Three healthy calves and like @Zorro has said, the perfect foundation for the breeding herd ahead of their transfer to Werribee. What a perfect end to close on a century of keeping elephants.
Just thinking forwards to the next possible round of breeding the 3 cows, Since the herd will have been moved to Werribee the next time the cows are due to breed I would of thought perhaps using the Perth bull over the cows considering how under represented he is in the regions population and considering he is wild caught, any thoughts?.
A male White-cheeked Gibbon arrived from Perth Zoo to be paired with female Li-Lian and a male Eastern Black-and-white Colobus has arrived from the Adelaide Zoo to be paired with their female Kipenzi. So glad they aren't phasing out the colobus: 登录 Facebook | Facebook
That’s great news. Kipenzi turns 11 this year, so although past her reproductive prime, is still young enough to reproduce and will hopefully have a succession of infants to build up the troop. The birth interval of this species is around 20 months, so they could potentially achieve four infants over the next five years.
Absolutely amazing news to see Melbourne aren’t phasing out the Colobus!!!
After all the phase outs Melbourne have undertaken in the last decade or so (especially in the primate sector), this is very very welcoming news.Fingers crossed Kipenzi can successfully conceive asap. She herself was Melbourne’s last successful Colobus birth a decade ago!
Also great news regarding Cahn’s arrival. Hopefully this time around the pairing will be successful. The extension of the Gibbon exhibit should give Li Lian the space she needs to breed.
austrlain zoo gower
Well-Known Member
Im am so surprised Melbourne are not phasing out colobus monkey. This is great for the species as a whole. Hopefully we will see a baby down the track
Great to see Melbourne trying again with the white cheek gibbon. What happened with the previous male
Its great to see Melbourne extending the gibbon exhibit as it kinda need it.
This is great news
Great to see Melbourne trying again with the white cheek gibbon. What happened with the previous male
Its great to see Melbourne extending the gibbon exhibit as it kinda need it.
This is great news
Its taken a very long time for anything to happen with Melbournes Colobus monkeys they appear to have let things slide until the 11th hour and the same thing appears to be happening at the National zoo, their group appears to be stagnant and quite a while since they had a birth. This group could slide into the zoos history books if they let it happen.
Absolutely amazing news to see Melbourne aren’t phasing out the Colobus!!!
I heard about this yesterday when I was at WORZ, and I'm absolutely thrilled to hear that the colobus are here to stay!!!
I'm not bothered about the phaseouts of 75,000 boring species at MZ, as long as they keep the important ones (ie the interesting / high profile / showy / flashy / beautiful / spectacular ones) - which for the most part they have done. The only ones I miss are the Mandrill and Fennec Fox - but I must admit, I was worried that the colobus were on that list too... But I've been happy and buzzing for the past day knowing that they are staying!!! As long as they keep the colobus, squirrel monkeys and tamarins then I'm happy when it comes to primates.
Now for the serious stuff though: Since they are keeping them, they seriously need a better enclosure! I recently said in the MZ Speculation thread that they should consider building a moated enclosure between the zebras and baboons for the colobus (or make one out of the tapir enclosure when the tapir is phased out). Now I'm wondering if they have already thought of this option.
I was seriously surprised (and disappointed) when they gave the ruffed lemurs the large former gorilla enclosure and left the colobus where they were. It could've been perfect for the colobus, and as the larger, more intelligent and more human-like species I would've thought they would've got priority over the ruffed lemurs.... I guess I assumed that meant they weren't part of the long-term plan. But, they are still here and now we all get to start speculating about where they are going to be within the zoo!
On a side note, I was also happy to hear about the new gibbon matchup, but not as happy as I was about the colobus
Voting Open on Elephant Calf Name
From socials:
It's time to name Num Oi's female calf and we need your help!
Have your say and vote for a name that suits this little cutie.
The choices are between Chaiyo, Mai Pai and Kati... which one do you think suits her best? Vote here: https://bit.ly/3QetIQG
We would like to thank the Royal Thai Embassy, Canberra for providing a selection of names.
From socials:
It's time to name Num Oi's female calf and we need your help!
Have your say and vote for a name that suits this little cutie.
The choices are between Chaiyo, Mai Pai and Kati... which one do you think suits her best? Vote here: https://bit.ly/3QetIQG
We would like to thank the Royal Thai Embassy, Canberra for providing a selection of names.
austrlain zoo gower
Well-Known Member
Hopefully visiting the zoo in the next 2 weeks
I will give some updates
Hopefully they might import some if the species I suggested in the masterplan in the future of Melbourne zoo thread
I will give some updates
Hopefully they might import some if the species I suggested in the masterplan in the future of Melbourne zoo thread
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Just a polite reminder you can edit existing posts for up to an hour instead of posting multiple times within that timeframe. It prevents clogging up the news thread with multiple posts.
I visited the zoo yesterday, and according to this sign at the zoo entrance, the Kangaroos exhibit at Melbourne Zoo is apparently undergoing major renovations. Fingers crossed that this means that this area is finally getting upgraded after remaining stagnant in developments for quite a long time now.
In other news, the Asian elephant herd was doing well with the calves and females in one area together, whilst the male bulls Luk Chai and Man Jai were in another area, playing with each other in the water for about half an hour which was quite a rare sight. At the tree-tops area, the new gibbons and colobus pairs were bonding well. Also, it was nice to see that the aldabara giant tortoise exhibit next to the reptile house has been greatly expanded, although I wonder if that space could possibly have been able to be utilised for another species.
In other news, the Asian elephant herd was doing well with the calves and females in one area together, whilst the male bulls Luk Chai and Man Jai were in another area, playing with each other in the water for about half an hour which was quite a rare sight. At the tree-tops area, the new gibbons and colobus pairs were bonding well. Also, it was nice to see that the aldabara giant tortoise exhibit next to the reptile house has been greatly expanded, although I wonder if that space could possibly have been able to be utilised for another species.
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It's been under renovation for two months now. It's just a whole overhaul; which will hopefully provide new grass pastures for the kangaroos and feature a walkthrough!
Wonderful news to see both pairs introduced so quick and seemingly doing well together. What was happening with the area behind the gibbon enclosure?
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