Taronga Zoo New Guinea Singing Dog

S

sebbe67

Well-Known Member
Aim interested in knowing a few things about the pair of New Guinea Singing dogs that were captured in the Lavanni Valley (Southern Highland Province) in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s and brought to Taronga Zoo by a Mr. Troughton in 1957.


Most (if not all) of the NGS Dogs outside New Guinea origin from five caught in West Papua and sent to Germany in the 1970s to my knowledge.

I wonder if this species ever reproduced in Taronga? and for how long it was being kept there?

Thanks,
 
Sebbe;
New Guinea Singing Dogs were "discovered" in 1957 by Ellis Troughton, a mammalogist with the Australian Museum (he was author of a ground-breaking book in 1946 titled "Furred Mammals of Australia") and brought to Taronga Zoo.

They were the pride and joy of the zoo's Director at that time, Sir Edward Hallstrom (and why not; they were named after him; Canis hallstromi. ) Later when it became rather obvious that they were a race of the domestic dog they became Canis lupus hallstromi.

They did reproduce for a few generations, and were, not surprisingly, housed in runs near the dingoes; but after Hallstrom's era as Director finished the zoo seemed to lose interest in them. No new blood was obtained and so they gradually died out.....
 
That's great to hear!
They must be close to the most "natural" dog in the world.

Are they placid, making good pets, or do they have a wild, untrustworthy streak, as some dingoes apparently do?
 
Hi Ara,
We've conserved Singers for 20 plus years and have seen all kinds of personalities, but generally speaking, No.1 A human has to be smarter than the Singer(s) they want to keep and that is oftimes a problem and No.2 They are a wild dog and as such have a very strong prey drive. For example, generally speaking they'll attack most any small animal or bird unless they're raised with them, then that's different excluding the time the females come into heat then that's yet another matter.
However, for all their faults, there are some of us here who care for them a great deal. We have owned up to 22 at one time. We now have 14 as my wife and I are getting older and we're trying to cut back on our work.The largest recorded collection in the US was in the state of Michigan. Those idiots had 38 and actually exercised the entire 38 at the same time in a large open area. Totally unbelievable as Singers are not pack animals. Most Singer enthusiasts have one or two. We estimate a captive world population at two hundred. No one knows how many or how few are in the wild. The wild population has been pushed away over the years by humans and so now Singers exist only in the remote highlands of New Guinea. They are extremely hard to access and study so as a consequence, no studies exist. They may very well go extinct without man having ever studied them at all.
We hope to have a litter of pups either this Fall yet or next fall as we have 3 people who want pups and I would like to have two or three pups to train for "drop lead" hunting.
Hope this is helpful,
Kindest regards,
oldsingerman20
 
Thanks for that, oldsingerman20.
There is a lot of new information (to me, anyway) in your post and it's good to know that some people are interested in the N.G Singing Dog's future.
 
Ngsd

Ara,
You're quite welcome.
NGSD are our passion.
We also have a conservation group, one of two.
If you go to Google and type in NGSDI, and then click on New Guinea Singing Dog International-History, you'll pull up our best page, purple background.
There is a lot of info there.
I've recently written up 23 pages of text on Singers and hope to incorporate it into one of the webpages at some point in time.
Afraid I'm boring you.
osm20
 
Jambo said:
Wow that's incredibly surprising. That essentially means they bred them well over the decades prior to the 90's - the population, as you say, would have been extremely inbred as a result as I believe they were only descended from a single trio? It would be nice to know what happened to the last individuals - we know the USA received some, so perhaps it was these last ones.
Click to expand...

Yeah actually I think you're right (1.2 trio from Papua New Guinea in 1957, if not then a pair, yikes for their descendants), so the living descendants in America etc today, their pedigree would be as inbred/bottleneck as say the last tahrs and peccaries our region. Imagine some of them may have been outcrossed with some (domestic) dogs breeds at times maybe, but sure most of them might still be completely descended from that trio (would of wanted to arrange an import from of unrelated individuals from Papua New Guinea 25-40 years ago if was a financially stable holder zoo in America by now, unless an import ban from there is in place).
 
Last edited:
Jambo said:
Wow that's incredibly surprising. That essentially means they bred them well over the decades prior to the 90's - the population, as you say, would have been extremely inbred as a result as I believe they were only descended from a single trio? It would be nice to know what happened to the last individuals - we know the USA received some, so perhaps it was these last ones.
Click to expand...

Oh 5 founders is good to hear in contrast to 3 (know only marginally but just that tiny more founder genes passed on).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top