In order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Taronga Zoo (at the current Mosman site), this year there will be a special $1 entry for visitors on their birthdays: Taronga Zoo celebrates its 100th anniversary with $1 birthday entry offer - 9news.com.au
Taronga Zoo Taronga Zoo news 2016
- Thread starter Jabiru96
- Start date
Possibly. But journos often screw things up, too. It could be a misquote. She may have said "there's over 4000 animals here at the zoo", and the journo changed it.
Hix
The zoo's website has been renovated to include a special section specifically for the 100 year anniversary: https://taronga.org.au/100-years
Perhaps the zoo's website could be renovated to include a special section on their new chimpanzee. Givskud Zoo's Facebook page advised they arrived at Taronga Zoo in November 2015, and following a one month quarantine, should be on display. Looking at Taronga's website, you wouldn't even know they'd arrived. And then there's the rumours of additional chimpanzee?
Where are they coming from? Are these pure West Africans or generic?
Bib Fortuna
Well-Known Member
Will be there, hopefully, an Anniversary book and or a new Guidebook to Tarongas Birthday?
Two came from Givskud Zoo (Denmark), while I have been told that another came from "Sweden" (in regards to the remaining two, I have no clue). I believe none of them are pure sub-specific chimps (although I could be wrong).
Considering how marketing focussed the zoo is nowadays I would be very greatly surprised if they didn't. They might even do two or three.
Hix
There would be no point in bringing in pure subspecies, as all the males in Australia are cocktails.
Hix
That'll make for a big troop. Any news on if any are leaving?
I think the region have concluded that a chimp is a chimp and that is enough (in the same way the giraffe in our region are all generic hybrids with a few inbred exceptions). This is not a criticism of Taronga or the studbook coordinator, rather a statement of how the region choose to curate their chimpanzee.
In addition, their is a group of 20+ chimpanzee in the current troop, imagine the logistics of starting over with purebreds. Could have been feasible at Monarto if they had started their group with purebreds.
As for where they will originate from, short answer no. Taronga Zoo are being typically cloak and dagger about the whole affair. As mentioned in the post, the only two confirmed at Ceres (1990) and Naomi (2001) from Givskud Zoo, and a rumour of another chimpanzee from Sweden. No news on the other two.
Hearing Zoofan15, I would say all chimps will come from European stocks of hybrid chimpanzees.
The USA is also a possibility but I'd say Europe is a more likely source for the other two.
A thread on orang-utans in the New Zealand forums recently discussed how Auckland Zoo was sent Bornean Orangutan from European Zoos looking to move into purebred Sumatran Orangutan breeding programmes. History is now repeating itself with Auckland sending it's Borneans to another region (USA).
It's interesting to see a similar pattern with the chimpanzee. Europe are sending us their hybrids to focus on their purebred sub species. Will we follow suit in the next couple of decades? Probably not anytime soon.
It'd be interesting to know the genetic makeup of Taronga's troop. Some females are quite large (Shiba and Kuma) and probably have more genes from the Central Chimpanzee subspecies than smaller females (Sacha).