Was going to put this in the dreamworld thread but it's closed... There was a pretty interesting documentary on today about thee import of Sumatran Tigers to Dreamworld and all that Jazz. Was pretty interesting if ya into this kind of thing might be worth getting your hands on it was a Totally Australia Doco called Tiger Tiger. Showed some parts of Dreamworld that I didn't know about. Like a huge fenced area outside of the Tiger Island area (the commentator made it sound like it was on a different property - the Dreamworld Farm) Just a huge area where the Bengals, and I'm guessing now the Sumatran Cubs, get to run around with all kinds of area to explore. This is a bonus of hand rearing that no other zoo can do. The area seemed huge. Anyway Totally Australia - Tiger Tiger. Was on ten.
Dreamworld Sumatran Tigers/Dreamworld
- Thread starter Jarkari
- Start date
The animals in the doco were transported to another property were allowed to walk around freely in a huge area. This would not necessarily be impossible but incredibly hard, to do for animals that are not hand raised. Once the cats are out in the open, how do you convince them into the van again to take tthem home. Also it would require alot more construction at any other location as facilites would have to be built to catch, release and load the cats without human contact. The benefits of Dreamworld hand raising their tigers mean they are able to walk them around areas like this and can change the "enrichment" walks whenever they like, they are not committed to a set pattern, which makes it more enriching for the tigers.
I dare say that hand-raised cats that are used to being walked would also be far more ready to explore and utilise a new large area than ones that are normally kept in typical zoo cages. They probably wouldn't know what they were supposed to be doing with all that space.
There are approximately 27 tigers between Dreamworld and Australia Zoo? Holy smokes!
It is not so much the numbers you have under management, it is their relevance to the conservation breeding programme or their use in sound educational programmes advocating ex situ and in situ conservation action.
Here is an illustrative example from India: I know quite a few Indian zoos with a similar, if not higher, number of Bengal tigers than both institutions that have been mentioned here. These tigers are only occassionally bred nowadays and contain founding individuals whose genetic contribution will be totally lost on the captive population. This being due to the fact that erstwhile excessive breeding has led to over-population within those institutions. The underlying reality however has been that no effective cooperative conservation breeding programme existed which in turn led to zoos breeding indiscriminately. Unfortunately, whereas the stop breeding decision may combat the overpopulation of Bengal tigers within those institutions, the conditions or management of carnivore spaces and housing is not being properly addressed. More ambituously, it has never been contemplated to use some of the captive-bred Bengal tigers for a re-introduction effort under scientific management (you may know that quite a few Indian National Parks have lost their tigers to poaching and now constitute vacant habitat).
Back on topic: Can you explain what the contribution is of both parks within the ARAZPA cooperative captive-breeding programme and elaborate what activities both institutions employ for in situ conservation?
JonnyS18
Well-Known Member
Two points:-
1. "Reintroduction", which is spoken about so glibly, is not easy. Has reintroduction of zoo-bred tigers occurred successfully anywhere?
2. If Panna National Park has lost all of its tigers, has the cause of those losses been identified and, more importantly, rectified? No point trying reintroduction until it has.
1. "Reintroduction", which is spoken about so glibly, is not easy. Has reintroduction of zoo-bred tigers occurred successfully anywhere?
2. If Panna National Park has lost all of its tigers, has the cause of those losses been identified and, more importantly, rectified? No point trying reintroduction until it has.
1. Captive tigers not to my knowledge. Semi-wild and captive reared tigers yes. Does the name Arjan Singh ring a bell (Dudhwa NP).
2. My remarks have been general with regard to Bengal tigers, and not targetted at any particular current tiger reserve. Panna NP, MP has been mismanaged and despite field reports for several years vis a vis poaching nothing was done. The poaching ring around Panna NP must first be broken before any tigers can be relocated there, wild or captive. Alas the relocation programme has already started ... I have serious reservations there.