Tasmania Zoo siamang at Tasmania Zoo

Chlidonias

Chlidonias

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Rare apes settle into new home* | The Examiner
16 May 2013

Two rare apes arrived on Tasmanian soil yesterday morning, and looked to the sky for the first time.

The male siamangs, native to Malaysia and Sumatra in Indonesia, are Tasmania's first apes and the newest arrivals at Riverside's Tasmania Zoo.

Zoo owner Dick Warren said the apes - six-year-old Beau and eight-year-old Ollie - would be part of a breeding program.

''In the next 18 months, we will have to probably send one away and bring a female in, and it will be critical for them to breed,'' Mr Warren said.

''They're very rare, there's not many in Australia, and there's very little left in the wild.''

He said the apes were yesterday overwhelmed, after travelling from their former North Queensland home.

''Where they've been housed for the last few years is in a very small shed, they couldn't see the sky, had never seen dirt, and had just never seen the open,'' Mr Warren said.

''They're going to be here at least two days before they settle in, and realise what dirt is . . . so they're completely lost at the moment.

''This is a very new environment to them, and the size of the enclosure means they're in heaven now.''
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Background to the import on this thread: http://www.zoochat.com/24/cheetahs-siamang-tasmania-309838/
 
The article doesn't say where the siamangs came from. Someone on the other thread said "Cairns" but was it really Cairns? Were kept as part of a private collection or at a zoo? Seems a bit strange to say that they never saw the sky before.
 
nanoboy said:
The article doesn't say where the siamangs came from. Someone on the other thread said "Cairns" but was it really Cairns? Were kept as part of a private collection or at a zoo? Seems a bit strange to say that they never saw the sky before.
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It is quite inaccurate to say that they were kept in a shed and had never seen the sky.

They came from Shambala, formerly Cairns Wildlife Safari Reserve. They originally had the run of what was going to be the Orangutan Island in David Gill's day. Because the island floods in the wet season Siamang picked up bacteria from the silt. Thus, for their welfare, they were confined to the Orangutan nighthouse. Panels were taken off the roof and replaced with mesh to allow them plenty of access to the sun and also to permit a through flow of fresh air in hot weather. The building that they were in was huge and high.
 
Steve Robinson said:
It is quite inaccurate to say that they were kept in a shed and had never seen the sky.

They came from Shambala, formerly Cairns Wildlife Safari Reserve. They originally had the run of what was going to be the Orangutan Island in David Gill's day. Because the island floods in the wet season Siamang picked up bacteria from the silt. Thus, for their welfare, they were confined to the Orangutan nighthouse. Panels were taken off the roof and replaced with mesh to allow them plenty of access to the sun and also to permit a through flow of fresh air in hot weather. The building that they were in was huge and high.
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Well that's a relief to hear.

Why on earth would the Tasmanian zoo (or the article/reporter) say they never saw the sun and dirt in the last few years? It sound mighty unprofessional on someone's part to be publishing inaccurate information.
 
It would have been the reporter most likely. They have a way of misunderstanding or only half-hearing what is being said.

Or misquoting you entirely.

:p

Hix
 
nanoboy said:
Why on earth would the Tasmanian zoo (or the article/reporter) say they never saw the sun and dirt in the last few years? It sound mighty unprofessional on someone's part to be publishing inaccurate information.
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Chinese whispers- or because it makes out they are in a better place than they were previously?

Some years ago London Zoo put out ( in their own press statement via a vet) during the opening of the then new Gorilla Kingdom, that their male Gorilla 'Bongo' 'had never seen the sky before'- just rubbish as although he had lived most of his life in a regulation-style cage at Rome Zoo, he had also spent two years before going to London on Bristol Zoo's open-air island, before transferring back to a cage enclosure at London. Somehow they 'forgot' that bit...;)
 
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