Melbourne Zoo Melbournes New Elephants.....

I have seen that herd of African elephants at Howletts a number of times with the bull being in with the rest of the herd every time I was there, they well may isolate him at times, I think they have about 13 animals in that herd now.
 
Writhed Hornbill is right there. Also, according to one of the keepers Upali is allowed out in the main paddock before the zoo opens (8AM - 10AM) then for a while after the zoo closes.
 
The girls, and maybe in time, any subsequen calves, will see him everyday, in line with the DEW report the zoo produced - avaliable online at zoo.nsw.gov.au, it ststaes when the new facility i built, gung must have access to the girls for an extended period of the day.

Okay- that's good- no complaints there :)
 
Writhed Hornbill is right there. Also, according to one of the keepers Upali is allowed out in the main paddock before the zoo opens (8AM - 10AM) then for a while after the zoo closes.

Yes, I agree Chester's management is good, and that Upali does have tactile contact with the rest of the group whenever he is in the outdoor pen. I presume he has to be kept seperate so he that he won't mate 'Sundara' at too early an age- otherwise I can't see why he's not mixed in with the group on a more regular basis.

Regarding the calves squeezing through the bars into his enclosure- I can foresee the day when one gets stuck doing this!
 
I assume the Chester elephant keepers take regular blood or urine samples of the females to find out who`s getting in heat and when? Then keeping Upali seperated from the female on a permanent basis herd shouldn`t be necessary, keeping him alobe for a week or so in 3 to 4 months would be sufficent. I hope one of our members from Chester can ask the keepers at their next visit to find out the real reason why Upali is kept alone!
 
i'm not actually sure but heard rumours he has.

he is certainly fertile and from what i could tell he is certainly very interested in the female dokkoon. hearing of a pregnacy would not be a supprise to me.

unfortunately the same cannot be said for perth. they have just one fertile elephant pair yet the female is not falling pregnant. the situation is getting desperate as she is getting older and we all know what happens to young elephant cows who don't breed....
 
he is certainly fertile

Not quite sure what you mean by 'fertile' as he hasn't got any calves, so have they tested his semen and found it to be of good quality? I'm pretty hopeful there will be matings here in due course...

Re Perth's pair- a problem situation- as there currently isn't a 'proven' bull in your region I don't know what I would suggest. :(
 
great gallery with the article too. especially like the maned wolf and tortoise pics.

i have chatted on numerous occasions with that the elephant keeper mentioned in the article. he's a nice guy.
 
I'm pretty sure it was Adrian Howard (with the maned wolf) that I spoke to last time I was at Melbourne zoo about the big cats section of the park. He was very keen on the zoo keeping jaguars.
I shall be visiting Mel again this week.
 
for a number of reasons. low number of potential founders, a strong north american breeding program already exists, projected low levels of regional participation and the over riding focus on Asian wildlife, which of course has two critically endangered big cat species demanding zoo attention-sumatran tiger and snow leopard. sustaining viable populations of 5 big cat species/sub species is just not possible in the region-sorry jaguars
 
In my reasoning, for example with taronga, it has already allocated spaces for tiger, and lion, along regional guidelines, and with little chance of any leopard sepcies entering taronga, why can we not have jaguars form the aza program, that are not required for there program. (provided there are actually surplus- hypothetical)

jaguars would make for excellent addition to any SA collection, as they represent the top predadator in SA. Africa- lions, Asia tigers, and with both these represented in the zoos collection, why not SA's large and ONLY large carnivore that is well known (other than puma, which is classed as a small cat). It has good educational value as the amazon is a highly endagered ecosystem, and with a good collection of tapir, and future regional imports and prgrams like G anteater, and capybara, it would make for an excellent display. Historically all australian city zoos have housed jaguar successfully, and the public (and pat) seem to really bond to any spotted cat.

We do not really need to manage this species (ok i know we do in a sense but anyway) Since we will be hosuing surplus, and not breeding with these animals, they would simply be education and display animals. Really with taraonga (for example) expertise in large cat management, how hard would it be to house 2 more cats- that would not breed, and simply be display.
 
glyn; you mention the "over riding focus on Asian wildlife." Any idea why this is?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not challenging it, or saying it shouldn't be. I genuinely want to know why Australasia should specialise in Asian species.
 
The reason why we are fcusing on SEA, is due to our close proximity to this region. If we can concentrate on this region in all of our conservation projects, far more would be done efficently rather than 10 grand here and 10 grand there. 100 000 will do a lot more to one project that a little to many.

Also for education purposes, this rampid extinction and endgaered species in SEA is occuring on OUR doorstep quite literally, so the public may jump up and go wow!. Also we can only handle a small collection of managed species in our region, so with close ties in SEA we are going to be alot more effective in breeding and colaborating with closer zoos.

EEP and AZA can concentrate on other animals for other regions, such as africa and south america in which they respectively are closer to.
 
see zooboy, whilst i agree that a lack of jaguars in future australian zoos would be a crying shame (for all the above stated reasons), i don't want to see any imported unless a proper regional breeding program is developed for the species. otherwise we are simply repeating more of the same old, same old again.

i understand WHY jags are not being imported.

i just wish planners liked them as much as i do!!
 
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