Taronga Zoo Taronga Zoo 2014

Pertinax said:
Would it not be simpler to just have the breeding group at Dubbo and the non-breeders take their place in Taronga Park? The proposed arrangement could be storing up future problems as it prevents more breeding at Taronga unless the females are sent to Dubbo for mating etc and what happens to the calf in the interim?
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1. I would say that Burma and Gigi (non-breeding females at Dubbo) are too old to be transported to Taronga now (in fact, Burma came from Taronga to make way for the Thai elephants)
2. More people would visit babies at Taronga compared to driving all the way out to Dubbo (by keeping some breeding females at Taronga there is a likelihood of babies)

If it were up to me, all of the 'city elephants' (Melbourne and Taronga) would move to their open-range equivalents, but the issue would then be that would people travel such long distances from the major cities just to see baby elephants (i'm assuming that is what the zoos are thinking).
 
I would not mind an extra draw-card to visit the outback / open range zoos for both the Victoria and Sydney Zoo Boards.

As for Taronga: are the African elephants still there (given the issues with herpes transmission elephant health dangers)?
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
As for Taronga: are the African elephants still there (given the issues with herpes transmission elephant health dangers)?
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there's just the one African elephant and she is at Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo (not at the Taronga Zoo in the city)
 
Jabiru96 said:
If it were up to me, all of the 'city elephants' (Melbourne and Taronga) would move to their open-range equivalents, but the issue would then be that would people travel such long distances from the major cities just to see baby elephants (i'm assuming that is what the zoos are thinking).
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While Dubbo and Sydney are a long distance apart, Werribee is not that far from Melbourne. The equivalent of Wollongong or Gosford. I guess the expense of building an elephant facility at Werribee is the constraining factor that keeps the elephants in Melbourne at this point.

:p

Hix
 
Jabiru96 said:
The animals going to Dubbo will be Gung, Thong Dee, Porntip, Luk Chai (Gung x Thong Dee) and Pathi Harn (Bong Su [Melbourne] x Porntip).

Staying at Taronga will be Pak Boon, Tang Mo and Tukta (Gung x Pak Boon).

So it appears that yes, they will be splitting the elephants along matriarchal lines. I do not now, however, if they will integrate the two females from Taronga with the two existing females at Dubbo to re-form a 'herd' (breeding and non-breeding females for companionship) at Dubbo rather than just a breeding pair.
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I thought gung was staying at Taronga. At least it says that according to this article. I think what austalia needs is to move all of the breeding groups to weribee and twpz. Then the city zoos can hold the captive bred males when they reach an old enough age to seperated. Also i think that another facility must get involved in the program. A new import of (1,4) or (2,3) would be great. Even importing a single bull would be great as there are currently only 2.

Mammoth move for four elephants from Taronga Zoo to Western Plains Zoo | Mail Online
 
uszoo said:
I thought gung was staying at Taronga. At least it says that according to this article. I think what austalia needs is to move all of the breeding groups to weribee and twpz. Then the city zoos can hold the captive bred males when they reach an old enough age to seperated. Also i think that another facility must get involved in the program. A new import of (1,4) or (2,3) would be great. Even importing a single bull would be great as there are currently only 2.

Mammoth move for four elephants from Taronga Zoo to Western Plains Zoo | Mail Online
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Oh yes, sorry, forgot that Gung was staying! Hopefully when Perth builds their open-range zoo, they can also become involved in the program, or even some New Zealand zoos eventually such as Auckland (when their Burma dies), Orana, etc.
 
Hix said:
While Dubbo and Sydney are a long distance apart, Werribee is not that far from Melbourne. The equivalent of Wollongong or Gosford. I guess the expense of building an elephant facility at Werribee is the constraining factor that keeps the elephants in Melbourne at this point.

:p

Hix
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Yes but many more people are likely to want to see babies at Melbourne (in the city) rather than drive out to Werribee (especially if you live on the Eastern side of Melbourne). Similar sort of thought to why they built a huge exhibit (biggest in the Southern Hemisphere) for just 3 male gorillas at Werribee but kept the breeding group in Melbourne.
 
Jabiru96 said:
Yes but many more people are likely to want to see babies at Melbourne (in the city) rather than drive out to Werribee (especially if you live on the Eastern side of Melbourne). Similar sort of thought to why they built a huge exhibit (biggest in the Southern Hemisphere) for just 3 male gorillas at Werribee but kept the breeding group in Melbourne.
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I know what the public wants but look what happened in Belgium. The antwerp zoo had higher attendance than its open range zoo planckendael. The zoo made the welfare decision that the needs of a breeding elephant and giraffe herd could not be met in a city zoo. They were both sent to the open range zoo, for multi acre exhibits. The zoo now keeps 2 young elephant bulls, and a non-breeding giraffe herd. The public over time has decided to travel to planckendael, and now they have higher attendance. This should be the case at least in Melbourne. The Melbourne Zoo can hold 2 or 3 bulls, but the breeding herd should be at Werribee with a huge exhibit. The issue would be that over time, the main zoo will become the secondary zoo. But this is the cost that must be incurred if the welfare of the animals is truly important.
 
uszoo said:
I know what the public wants but look what happened in Belgium. The antwerp zoo had higher attendance than its open range zoo planckendael. The zoo made the welfare decision that the needs of a breeding elephant and giraffe herd could not be met in a city zoo. They were both sent to the open range zoo, for multi acre exhibits. The zoo now keeps 2 young elephant bulls, and a non-breeding giraffe herd. The public over time has decided to travel to planckendael, and now they have higher attendance. This should be the case at least in Melbourne. The Melbourne Zoo can hold 2 or 3 bulls, but the breeding herd should be at Werribee with a huge exhibit. The issue would be that over time, the main zoo will become the secondary zoo. But this is the cost that must be incurred if the welfare of the animals is truly important.
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That is similar to what Adelaide Zoo is doing (sending giraffes, lions, etc out to their sister zoo Monarto), however, that is just my personal opinion on the reasoning behind their decisions. To me, it is more ethical to send the elephants out to Werribee but I would say that cost and visitor attendance is the main reason that they are reluctant to do so.
 
So would the intention be in the future to transport the females that go to Dubbo, back to Taronga for re-mating at some stage? Or won't they bother with any more breeding from these ones?
 
Pertinax said:
So would the intention be in the future to transport the females that go to Dubbo, back to Taronga for re-mating at some stage? Or won't they bother with any more breeding from these ones?
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I am sure that they will breed from these females (considering that they are rather genetically valuable in the captive population), however, they will probably end up using AI from either Gung (Taronga), Bong Su (Melbourne) or even maybe Putra Mas (Perth). Going by historical records, this means that probably all of their calves will be male.
 
3.0 gorillas born at Taronga (Fuzu and Fataki [off-display] and Mahale [Mogo]) will be moving to Orana next year:
Three new gorillas for Orana Park | Stuff.co.nz

Interestingly, 'orangutans from the same zoo would join them about a year later', meaning that the hybrid orangs Jantan and Willow will be moving to Orana in 2016, probably freeing up space for pure Sumatrans.
 
Jabiru96 said:
Interestingly, 'orangutans from the same zoo would join them about a year later', meaning that the hybrid orangs Jantan and Willow will be moving to Orana in 2016, probably freeing up space for pure Sumatrans.
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This bears out what I guessed about this situation ( see my Gorilla troop post).:)
 
Yeah Taronga seems to be heading in the wrong direction to me while Melbourne is improving a lot more, especially when you compare the theming of the precincts (Melbourne is a whole lot better in the theming of Gorilla Trail/Trail of the Elephants/Lemur Island compared to Taronga with Rainforest Trail/Lemur Forest Adventure). It feels like Melbourne is starting to become a complete zoo while Taronga is still stuck with patches of good and not so good (not necessarily bad either).

The lemurs could have stayed next to the gorillas (which was a better looking exhibit anyway) and that money could have been spent towards re-designing 'African Waterhole' (maybe actually filling it with African species!) or possibly upgrading the gorilla exhibit more than they did (you can't even tell now that they re-turfed the exhibit or added new climbing structures).
 
does anyone definitely know what this "zoo in France" is? Wellington's press releases when they imported theirs also simply said "a zoo in France", yet their quarterly reports said they came from the Zoo Park Metelen in Germany (but that zoo, as far as I can tell, closed down in October 2011 while the squirrel monkeys were imported to NZ in 2012).
 
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