Melbourne Zoo's diminishing collection

Yoshistar888 said:
Not including off displays, unsures and question marks the total stands at just 2 new aquisitions with a whopping 44 phase outs. If you include question marks, unsures and permanent off displays the total stands at 4 acquisitions and 52 phaseouts.
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A few notes:

If by your rationale "Permanent off display animals, might as well be species lost", then its only fair to remove both loris species from your list. Since neither where ever on display.

Also you need to add hybrid giraffe as a "gain" since you mark pure Rothschild's as a "loss"

You also forgot Fiordland crested penguins as a gain.

Melbourne has held Ring-tailed lemur continuously for as a long as I can remember. Long before 2010.

There are a few species you list as a loss that I suspect (you'll need to check) arrived after 2010. So is it fair to mark them as a loss? Or a gain and a loss, thus cancelling themselves out? They would be species such as Brazilian tapir (original Brazilians had left prior to 2010), curassow (came from Adelaide) and the black-capped capuchins.
 
toothlessjaws said:
A few notes:

If by your rationale "Permanent off display animals, might as well be species lost", then its only fair to remove both loris species from your list. Since neither where ever on display.

Also you need to add hybrid giraffe as a "gain" since you mark pure Rothschild's as a "loss"

You also forgot Fiordland crested penguins as a gain.

Melbourne has held Ring-tailed lemur continuously for as a long as I can remember. Long before 2010.

There are a few species you list as a loss that I suspect (you'll need to check) arrived after 2010. So is it fair to mark them as a loss? Or a gain and a loss, thus cancelling themselves out? They would be species such as Brazilian tapir (original Brazilians had left prior to 2010), curassow (came from Adelaide) and the black-capped capuchins.
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It only counts if it was gained and retained.

Flloriland penguins definitely don’t count they were vagrant rescue animals and don’t fall into the same caliber as other exotics

I didn’t know both Loris species were never on display.

It is likely that the zoo will lose their single female rainbow boa.
 
toothlessjaws said:
Melbourne has held Ring-tailed lemur continuously for as a long as I can remember. Long before 2010.
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MZ has a bachelor group. Before they were moved to their current exhibit (next to the gorillas), they lived on an island next to the old Big Cat cages.
 
Yoshistar888 said:
It only counts if it was gained and retained
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Then you are skewing your tally in favour of losses. For any new species that have come and gone in the last 10 years you count the departure of the animal but are ignoring the arrival.

It paints an illusionary snapshot of a collection that never quite existed.
 
toothlessjaws said:
Then you are skewing your tally in favour of losses. For any new species that have come and gone in the last 10 years you count the departure of the animal but are ignoring the arrival.

It paints an illusionary snapshot of a collection that never quite existed.
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even if you look at the most optimistic approach it’s still over 30 losses in a decade.

Counting arrival and losses doesn't accurately show the Impact on the zoo, Mara were there for only a couple years (I never saw them), a lot of these animals were phased out in the early years, and the new arrivals that were phased out didn’t stay for long, there’s only a few cases of this anyway.
 
I have to agree with toothlessjaws in this one, Fiordland crested penguins should be counted as a new species, yes they were rescues but the zoo could have quite easily sent them to Taronga to join their group there but made the decision to display them at Melbourne and adding another species.

I think it’s unfair to count the loss of Rothschild giraffe, all the giraffe in Australasia are managed as one population as non-subspecific hybrids. If I remember correctly the Rothschilds that were kept may not have even been purebred themselves. It not a conscious to get rid of Rothschild(hybrid) giraffe, they can’t import any more and the only animals available are the hybrids kept everywhere else.

In the interest of fairness species added and lost for the collection since 2010 should be on both list, it unfair to say they’ve added nothing to the zoo in the last 10 years if they have added new species, even if they were short lived.
 
toothlessjaws said:
Fingers crossed, although that enclosure you speak of is rather small for porcupines IMO. Melbourne held a pair of the Indian species for many years. I particularly enjoyed them when they shared exhibit space with the red pandas.
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I never got to properly see Melbourne in its prime or even during the decline (I was still young) so it pains me every time I found out they had another species.
 
Yoshistar888 said:
I never got to properly see Melbourne in its prime or even during the decline (I was still young) so it pains me every time I found out they had another species.
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I reckon the main exotic mammal species I can recall at the zoo is the following. Most (but not all)of these would have been at the zoo around the same time in the late 90's early 2000's plus much (but not all) of the existing collection:

chimpanzee
mandrill
de brazza's guenon
lion-tailed macaque
golden lion tamarin
black & white ruffed lemur

blackbuck
congo buffalo
bongo
american bison
chital deer
brazilian tapir

eurasian badger
jaguar
leopard
cheetah
clouded leopard
puma
maned wolf
brown bear
white-nosed coati

ocelot
caracal
leopard cat
bobcat
fishing cat
serval
binturong

brazilian agouti
patagonian mara
indian crested porcupine
fennec fox
 
toothlessjaws said:
I reckon the main exotic mammal species I can recall at the zoo is the following. Most (but not all)of these would have been at the zoo around the same time in the late 90's early 2000's plus much (but not all) of the existing collection:

chimpanzee
mandrill
de brazza's guenon
lion-tailed macaque
golden lion tamarin
black & white ruffed lemur

blackbuck
congo buffalo
bongo
american bison
chital deer
brazilian tapir

eurasian badger
jaguar
leopard
cheetah
clouded leopard
puma
maned wolf
brown bear
white-nosed coati

ocelot
caracal
leopard cat
bobcat
fishing cat
serval
binturong

brazilian agouti
patagonian mara
indian crested porcupine
fennec fox
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Of the list the only ones I ever got to see were the White Nosed Coatis, Honey the Syrian brown bear, I’ve seen Gansga and Aaruto before as well as the bongos and mandrills.
 
toothlessjaws said:
I reckon the main exotic mammal species I can recall at the zoo is the following. Most (but not all)of these would have been at the zoo around the same time in the late 90's early 2000's plus much (but not all) of the existing collection:

chimpanzee
mandrill
de brazza's guenon
lion-tailed macaque
golden lion tamarin
black & white ruffed lemur

blackbuck
congo buffalo
bongo
american bison
chital deer
brazilian tapir

eurasian badger
jaguar
leopard
cheetah
clouded leopard
puma
maned wolf
brown bear
white-nosed coati

ocelot
caracal
leopard cat
bobcat
fishing cat
serval
binturong

brazilian agouti
patagonian mara
indian crested porcupine
fennec fox
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Don't forget Temminck's golden cat. Melbourne Zoo's last Temminck's golden cat (Cim) was born at Melbourne Zoo in 1991 and died there in 2009. She was also the last of her species in Australia - after 1.2 golden cats were sent to New Zealand by the Adelaide and Taronga Zoos in 2008.
 
What was the story in regards to the Congo Buffalo I thought three had been imported but were there more and did they breed?
 
Zorro said:
From what I can remember Melbourne gave up the the Bongos pretty quickly
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I had my 10th birthday party at the Zoo. I saw them that day. I was lucky all right. It was the same day my dads esky got attacked by viscous ring tailed lemurs and it was the first time my peers saw mandrills violet rear ends.
 
Zorro said:
What was the story in regards to the Congo Buffalo I thought three had been imported but were there more and did they breed?
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I'm not sure on the exact details but this is what I found out when I emailed Zoos Victoria last year [from the exotic mammals thread]:

Werribee’s last buffalo died in 2018. She was 21 years old and was euthanized due to age-related issues. They also told me that they first received the species in 2005 (two individuals came from Melbourne Zoo to Werribee Open Range Zoo).
 
WhistlingKite24 said:
I'm not sure on the exact details but this is what I found out when I emailed Zoos Victoria last year [from the exotic mammals thread]:

Werribee’s last buffalo died in 2018. She was 21 years old and was euthanized due to age-related issues. They also told me that they first received the species in 2005 (two individuals came from Melbourne Zoo to Werribee Open Range Zoo).
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I thought they had a trio at Western plains zoo also?
 
Zoofan15 said:
Don't forget Temminck's golden cat. Melbourne Zoo's last Temminck's golden cat (Cim) was born at Melbourne Zoo in 1991 and died there in 2009. She was also the last of her species in Australia - after 1.2 golden cats were sent to New Zealand by the Adelaide and Taronga Zoos in 2008.
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I knew I'd forgotten one of the cats. The golden cat was my favourite too. Does anyone recall how many cages was in small cat row? I'm not sure all where there at once, I reckon the serval/caracal might have been in the same exhibit at different times. Binturong may have been filled an empty enclosure also at some stage....
 
toothlessjaws said:
I knew I'd forgotten one of the cats. The golden cat was my favourite too. Does anyone recall how many cages was in small cat row? I'm not sure all where there at once, I reckon the serval/caracal might have been in the same exhibit at different times. Binturong may have been filled an empty enclosure also at some stage....
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Although this doesn’t answer your question re. number of cages; a point of interest re. the Temminck’s golden cat - in 1992 they had six adults, which all required seperate housing. In addition to the on display exhibit, they also had several off display exhibits which were primarily used to house the breeding pair. Research suggests this was crucial to their success in breeding these cats - 24 litters were born between 1972 and 1998.

It’s inspiring Melbourne Zoo was once willing to dedicate so much resources to a species that was seldom seen by the public, in order to successfully breed them. How things have changed!
 
Zoofan15 said:
Although this doesn’t answer your question re. number of cages; a point of interest re. the Temminck’s golden cat - in 1992 they had six adults, which all required seperate housing. In addition to the on display exhibit, they also had several off display exhibits which were primarily used to house the breeding pair. Research suggests this was crucial to their success in breeding these cats - 24 litters were born between 1972 and 1998.

It’s inspiring Melbourne Zoo was once willing to dedicate so much resources to a species that was seldom seen by the public, in order to successfully breed them. How things have changed!
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This is the 64 million dollar question What has changed? why keep trimming down to the bone, how far do they trim before the public lose interest?
 
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