Perth Zoo Perth Zoo News 2013

zooboy28

zooboy28

Well-Known Member
New year, new thread.

First news is the birth of two Cassowary chicks on New Years Eve, the first at the zoo since 1954!

Cute photos accompany story here: Raising cassowary – it’s men’s work | Perth Zoo

18 January 2013

Avoiding their father’s giant feet has been the biggest challenge for two precious cassowary chicks – the first born at Perth Zoo in almost 60 years.

Perth Zoo Curator of Operations John Lemon said the chicks hatched on New Year’s Eve and within hours were on their clawed feet following their father around and learning to forage for food.

“The breeding success with this threatened species is a major achievement and I’m pleased to report that the chicks are doing very well. They are now on display with their father who is their full-time carer – as is the way in the world of cassowaries,” Mr Lemon said.

“Females depart once they lay the eggs leaving the male to care for the eggs and then raise the chicks until they are independent at about two years of age.

“The adult male cassowary arrived in Perth from Rockhampton Zoo in Queensland in 2010 to help start a new breeding program for this vulnerable species. He joined Perth Zoo’s two female cassowaries in the hope that one of the females would find him attractive enough to want to breed. Luckily, one of them did.”

“The magnificent Southern Cassowary has been badly affected by habitat destruction and cyclones with estimates that as few as 2500 mature cassowaries are left in the wild in their natural rainforest habitat in northern Queensland.

“The breeding success here at Perth Zoo provides valuable additions to the regional breeding program which helps raise awareness of the plight of these wonderful birds in the wild.

“Humans need cassowaries because without them the health of rainforests is in jeopardy. They eat over 150 types of fruit, plants and seeds which they pass and leave around the forest to germinate.”

In cassowary courtship, it is the female who decides who she’ll mate with and she is never shy in showing her displeasure. Male cassowaries ‘dance’ around a female in a circle, trembling and swelling their throat, emitting a series of low ‘boos’.

Over the next two to four years, the chicks will lose their light grey down feathers to reveal sleek, black adult feathers and the brilliant blue cassowary neck and head colouring.

Fact File
■The wedge-shaped casque on their head protects cassowaries from low branches and vines when moving through the forest.
■An adult can weigh up to 75kg, grow up to 2m tall and run up to 50kph.
■At least 18% of the adult and juvenile cassowaries in the Mission Beach area died in the 12 months after Cyclone Larry in 2006. All chicks disappeared, presumed killed in the cyclone.
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I had no idea the species was this endangered, although it appears to occur in greater numbers in New Guinea. Wish we had some in NZ.
 
I think I also remember reading that two juvenile American Alligators have gone on display in the new entrance area, I believe from either Australia Zoo or Australian Reptile Park.
 
Does anyone know how the Western swamp turtle breeding programm is doing and is Perth Zoo still the only zoo with this species ?
I somewhere also that there is a species of Blue-tongued skink living only in the neighbourhood of Perth and was only re-discovered for some years. Does anyone know more about this species and is it also kept at Perth Zoo ?
 
There's also a western swamp turtle in SA. I can't remember now whether it was at Adelaide Zoo or Cleland WP. I think the zoo. It could have died, I guess, but I definitely saw one on my July 2011 trip there.

The blue tongue species you're thinking of is probably the Pygmy blue-tongue which lives in a small area outside Adelaide, not Perth. The Adelaide Zoo also had someof these when I was there but I wasn't fortunate enough to spot them.
 
Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian
22 Feb 2013

THEY are barely a few centimetres tall but they are already showing signs of being feisty little monkeys.

Three cotton-top tamarins were recently born at Perth Zoo - one in December and two in January - bringing the zoo's total population to 23.

Zoo keeper Katie Saunders said while the Colombian animals did not have names yet, they were already making an impact on the primate enclosure.

Ms Saunders said the youngsters were quite confident and at the age of two months would start to climb off the adults' backs and try to steal food that others had collected.

"They are feisty when they are young," she said.

Cotton-top tamarins are critically endangered due to habitat destruction and the illegal pet trade.

More than 5000 of the 6000 primates left in the world were in captivity, Ms Saunders said.

The animals, known for their distinctive white mane that tapers to a mohawk, are omnivores and eat insects, fruit, spiders, sap, leaves, nectar, birds' eggs, lizards and small tree frogs.

To stay safe in the wild, cotton-top tamarins form large groups and at Perth Zoo the biggest group has eight members, Ms Saunders said.

The animals are hunted by small native cats, birds of prey and large snakes.

"The key to their survival is banding together in the wild," Ms Saunders said.

"They alert each other by chatting."

Ms Saunders said that survival instinct still existed in the enclosure so visitors to the zoo could hear the primates communicating with each other.
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that again, we were talking about the possibility of an open range maybe 8 years ago.
 
On Zooborns Perth Zoo provides some information and some nice pictures of a Pygmy Rock Wallabie or ´Nabarlek´. It was found in the pouch of a road-kill several months ago and it seems to be the only Pygmy Rock Wallabie in captivity worldwide !
 
vogelcommando said:
On Zooborns Perth Zoo provides some information and some nice pictures of a Pygmy Rock Wallabie or ´Nabarlek´. It was found in the pouch of a road-kill several months ago and it seems to be the only Pygmy Rock Wallabie in captivity worldwide !
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Brilliant! A good reason to return to Perth. He is already on show in the nocturnal house.
Norbert the Nabarlek: Pint-sized Ambassador | Perth Zoo
A rarely-seen young Nabarlek or pygmy rock wallaby rescued by a Broome wildlife carer has taken up residence at Perth Zoo.

“Norbert” is the only Nabarlek in a zoo anywhere and is set to become a pint-sized ambassador for his species.

The little orphan came to the Zoo from the Kimberley. He was found curled up inside his mother’s pouch in August last year after she was hit by a car and killed near Mount Hart. He weighed just 186 grams.

Thankfully, he was taken to a wildlife carer in Broome who did a wonderful job hand-rearing him. But unfortunately he can’t be returned to the wild as he would be unlikely to survive.

Perth Zoo Director of Animal Health and Research, Dr Peter Mawson, said Nabarleks grow to barely 30 centimetres and are rarely seen by the public because of the remote habitat they occupy in the King Leopold Range and the Mitchell Plateau.

“They are predominantly nocturnal animals that live in rocky outcrops in the Kimberley and the Top End, emerging from their hiding places to eat ferns and reeds,” Dr Mawson said.

“An interesting feature is that because of the tough nature of the plants included in their diet, the four or five molar teeth in each section of the jaw progressively move forward during the Narbalek’s life, ensuring that it is never without the teeth it needs to chew its tough food. Narbaleks are the only macropod that do this.

“Having this youngster at Perth Zoo is a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about this species and for the public to get to know another native Australian animal.

“He can’t be released into the wild because he simply would not have the skills needed to survive the predators that target these little macropods, so we will give him a good home at the Zoo.

“Norbert – who now weighs a healthy 1.4kg – was hand-reared alongside a companion agile wallaby in Broome so we will be placing him with a companion quokka in the Nocturnal House so that he has company.”

The youngster will start his ambassadorial duties in the Nocturnal House on 1 March.
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This Banded Knob-tailed Gecko hatched off-display on 4 March at Perth Zoo. Found in the Pilbara region of West Australia, this is the fifth Gecko of its kind to hatch at Perth Zoo since 2010. The Gecko weighed 2.18g when it hatched. The youngster’s older siblings can be seen in the zoo's Nocturnal House.

epickoala123
 
epickoala123 said:
This Banded Knob-tailed Gecko hatched off-display on 4 March at Perth Zoo. Found in the Pilbara region of West Australia, this is the fifth Gecko of its kind to hatch at Perth Zoo since 2010. The Gecko weighed 2.18g when it hatched. The youngster’s older siblings can be seen in the zoo's Nocturnal House.
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can you please start adding links when putting news on threads, instead of just copying an isolated fragment of the article.
 
Nice to hear that orangutans from zoos are released into the wild but I guess the few spots were this would be possible, would be used better for the countless orphans in the rehab-centres on Sumatra and the same is true for Borneo ofcourse ! The zoo-animals should be used - at least in mine opinion - for zoo-breeding programms and education of the fate of this marvelous species !
 
vogelcommando said:
Nice to hear that orangutans from zoos are released into the wild but I guess the few spots were this would be possible, would be used better for the countless orphans in the rehab-centres on Sumatra and the same is true for Borneo ofcourse ! The zoo-animals should be used - at least in mine opinion - for zoo-breeding programms and education of the fate of this marvelous species !
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that is true to a large extent. Releasing one or two zoo orangutans (or gibbons, or whatever) to the wild may seem inconsequential, especially when there are large numbers in the rehab centres there: however it can be introducing new genes to that local population, and also it does play an important role in experimentation. Zoos crow all the time about how they are conserving species and how those species will eventually be reintroduced to the wild. Actually doing so with animals not needed for the overall zoo populations helps show what does and doesn't work.
 
I agree; scarily, the day might come when conservationists need to fall back on whatever knowledge is gained through this program as they restore or start new wild populations.
For rehab animals that cannot be released, it would be good to see their genes brought into the global ex-situ program.
 
vogelcommando said:
The zoo-animals should be used - at least in mine opinion - for zoo-breeding programms and education of the fate of this marvelous species !
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Perth is a bit of a special case as they have bred a large number of Orangutans over the years and are in a position where they have surplus animals for such a reintroduction scheme. I think within Australia both Adelaide and Melbourne have sufficient animals of their own anyway(Adelaide have had Perth-born animals in the past) so it may not be that easy distributing more offspring from Perth in zoos further afield anyway. Their genes are already in Europe through the male Puluh(born at Perth) breeding at Chester and his eldest son and daughter who are now breeding in European Zoos too.

So I think Perth represents a situation where such a reintroduction scheme is a very logical and worthwhile outcome, and as others have pointed out, much valuable experience can be gained from this.
 
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