Wellington Zoo new species (Nyala)

  • Thread starter Thread starter jay
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Wellington Zoo new species (Nyala)

Hi there
The information I have is that this was a test importation, to make sure that the Import Health Standard worked. There are plans being put into place for a considerably larger import for in a year to 2 years time. This way they can get a large founder base for the new regional herd. But it will take time to get the right animals bred in South Africa which is why it may be that far away.
One of the reasons Nyala were imported was that they are already on the Australian Eligable for Import list, so when there is an IRA it should be simpler to import them into Australia.
I hope this clears up some of the questions
 
NZ zoos can import birds (adult and eggs) but they don't seem to be willing to go through the hassle (red tape and all) unless its some spectacular common species like flamingoes.

NZ can import hooved stock (well, obviously it can!) and at least formerly there was no problem exporting to Australia. Orana Park was going to be the middleman as it were for the big privately-owned place in Queensland (can't remember the name; was owned by some millionaire) and I believe did actually bring in some species. They may have not sent any on in the end though. This was some years back. The tahr and (formerly?) chamois in Australia all came from NZ too.

Fairly recently new biosecurity laws were drawn up for NZ meaning that anything not already in NZ has to go through all sorts of review processes before its allowed to be imported, and that's very expensive and time-consuming. That isn't any reason for them not to be importing new stock for that we already have though!

I'm very excited about nyala, as they are amongst my favourite antelope.
 
Hi Chlidonias
At the moment, to my knowledge, the only birds NZ Zoos can import are Flamingos as there are no other Import Health Standards. However there are draft Risk Analysis for Parrot eggs and Passerine eggs. So maybe it will be possible one day.
As for the HSNO Act legislation Wellington Zoo has had a great number of species approved by ERMA for themselves and other zoos. I don't think all the species approved are currently planned for import, but it gives some interesting options for NZ zoos in the future. They include all antelope, all Canis species, many primates, monotremes, marsupials and carnivores. Here is a link to those Wellington has had approved
Search « ERMA New Zealand
But even with these in place Import Health Standards are required, although they are in place or on MAFBNZ work plan for many of those species with approvals.
So it isn't quite as bleak as it may seem, certainly not in NZ. But sourcing suitable animals isn't as easy as it should be
 
I do occasional work with MaF Biosecurity, and I specifically asked about bird importation and zoos, and I was told that there's no problem with zoos importing birds so long as the biosecurity reviews etc are dealt with. Of course that doesn't mean its actually true....
:)
 
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