Taronga Zoo Taronga's Elephants and other news!!!

Danale

Well-Known Member
Was there yesterday... All 5 of the elphants were there, all together. The keepers were in there interacting with all of them; riding them, playing with them, making them 'work' and enrichment feeding them. Twas nice to see.

the baby bituorong is great! growing well and seemed to be very healthy, happy and inquisitive and active. (Whilst mum and dad slept)

* No Rhinos on display..???
* Seemed to be only 1 bongo on display???
* Mitchells Water monitors off display ??
* Snow lepard cubs off display?
* 2 baby barbary sheep!
* Electric Yellow chiclids in with the fijiuan banded iguana
* Brazillian taipar in one of the pygmy hippo exhibits???? why????
* Green peafowl GONE? replaced by blue peafowl in asian walk through aviary
*The baby condor ( leslie) is no longer part of the bird show department... she is back in with her parents????
* bird show - a little run down, no new birds, no new acts, morning show identical as afternoon.??? boring
*Camel??? dunno were he is?
* palm squirels breeding like rabbits... hehe
* wollemi exhibit needs a VAMP... needs new plantations.... species management needs to be assesed... lack of finches/ softbills. Scaley brested lorrikeets breeding like rabbits.... possibly too many....????
*Only saw 2 of the 3 fiordland penguins???




THE WATER THAT FLOWS THROUGH THE ASIAN RAINFOREST WASNT WORKING...... THE TAIPARS WERE OFF DISPLAY, THEIR WATER WAS FILTHY DISGUSTING!!! Langurs not happy....

Taronga is looking for keepers for the new Great Southern Oceans Precinct.

Any other news????


Ciao all
 
gday, how are you and welcome tell us about your self

also on your post;

i dont know how you havnt heard, but Kua the rhino on display sadely passed away 3 weeks ago, due to gasto intestinal blockage, made controversial headlines for weeks.

and it's sad to ehar about the tapirs, they just added lots of mesh on the exhibits (cargo netting) and made a nice addition due to the uv light problems causeing eye problems in tapir. i was there a few months back, both tapirs looked good, and water fresh.

welcome again, and have fun!
 
Hi,
the camel is out at dubbo, he went there and taronga got three (?) ostriches in return.

and one of the snow lepard cubs is having minor knee troubles and that might have been why they were off dysplay.

hope that helps
:)
 
The storms have played havoc with the water and filled all the moats up with mud and crap. The elephant enclosure was completely trashed in the gales a few weeks ago and it's still all looking a bit muddy and yukky here and there unfortunately.

There are two bongo - a father and son that like some aggro with each other, so they keep them separate - i.e. you'll only see one at a time on exhibit.
 
and on the brazilian tapir - pygmy hippo (like all cloven hoofed mammals) are under severe import restrictions. as a result the autralian zoo population is growing very old and dying off. taronga have just one hippo left and thus are displaying a tapir in the exhibit to fill up the space. soon melbournes male hippo is moving to taronga to be joined by another, younger, female from adelaide. hopefully, despite the fact neither of these animals are that young either, they will breed....

malayan tapirs hav severe eye problems in australian zoos and all animals at taronga melboirne and adelaide are virtually blind as a result. zoos stopped breeding tehm for this reason and brazilian tapirs are soon going to become a bigger priority. but firstly we desperately need some new blood imported so their will be no more breeding until that happens.
 
did the brazilian tapir come from dubbo? what happened to the rest of the taronga bongo?
 
the rest of the bongo are breeding out at dubbo and a dubbo/taronga descended pair are at adelaide. the two males at taronga are both well represented genetically (which isn't hard when the whole population is descended from just three animals!!!)

my guess is that the tapir did indeed come from dubbo. they have just bred another calf not that long ago, so probably could afford to send one to taronga.
 
hay guys

i beleive our tapir came from adelaide, and i dont know why we even received b. tapir. it wasnt a surplus from dubbo or anything, i will go check my old zoo nooz mag, and return to you all!
 
Hi There,

Was the Fishing Cat on display?

Went there about a year ago only wanting to see this animal and it was off display!

Am planning on going there on Monday.

Thanks,
Rayles
 
OK .....

Im Daniel..... i know alot i like to think about aus zoos, hehehe

um.... yer there were 4 fishing cats on display....... two in old exhibit and two in new asian rainforest exhibit..... i know tz has a breeding pair (female orignal from taronga and father was brought up from melbourne) and they had two offspring a few years ago (bout 2 years ago)... however i dnt know which ones were which on display, i know the mother of the cubs has half a leg amputated... that is all.... but all 4 on display (there new exhibit is great by the way)

tz had 2 pygmy hippos in feb.....???? now only 1 /.???? and taipar has replaced 1??? help///

Thanks for the info bout the water in asian rainforest.... i can understand the weather was attroshus ( dont know how to spell it, sorry)

thats all.....

ciao
 
Last time i was at TZ, they had a black rhino on display not a greater one horned???? was kua shipped back to tz..... then died??? my understanding was that she was at dubbo and TZ keepers went there to help her???

please correct me of wrong soz?

c ya
 
Last time i was at TZ, they had a black rhino on display not a greater one horned???? was kua shipped back to tz..... then died??? my understanding was that she was at dubbo and TZ keepers went there to help her???

please correct me of wrong soz?

c ya
If you saw a black rhino at Taronga, then I'm afraid you haven't been there for quite a long time.

Kua never went to Western Plains - she never left Taronga. The male is out at Western Plains.
 
danale - the black rhino was "on holiday" from dubbo, where he filled the exhibit that is used there to quarrantine recently imported rhino (am i right is assuming dubbo do not have quarrantine approved facilities from rhinoceros?). dora, a male indian rhino was at taronga for some time before that, whilst dubbo built a new exhibit for this species. eventually they sourced a female indian rhino, not an easy achievement, but whilst at taronga awaiting transfer to WPZ she died.

make sense?
 
western plains zoo did undergo an aqis inspection in 2006of its new quarantine centre. subject to approval from that dept the zoo was moving to become an international import/quarantine centre. the building has the capacity to house rhino, but up until now no 'bulk' imports of rhino have entered the country. one rhino imported to NSW at a time, such as an indian rhino are better off quarantined at Taronga, forgoeing the expense and stress of transport from Mascot to Dubbo, and at the same time, allowing Sydney siders the chance to see the new animal. if it doesnt die, that is :(
 
hay gllyn, when i was on work experience, i was able to see the outside of the Q centre, whilst on the South American round, the keeper i was with went up to the vet block, and on way back, we stopped and met amira (i think) the hand raised rhino. the facility to me couldnt hold a fully grown rhino in this Q centre, as it's to small, though i believe that the whole zoo is an Aquis declared area, so therefore, able to Quarrintine animals of that size in other areas of the zoo.
 
seeming thats the case maybe future rhino imports could go straight to the rhino complex??? having seen this superb facility close up though it might just be able to hold something big. down one side is the ungulate holding, which i thought might be ok for a rhino or two, and down the other side extensive holding bays for carnivore and primates, or smaller taxa, including birds.
when i visited only diamond firetails and a siamang en-route to new zealand were inside. sadly no elephants, or okapi, or blue whales ;)
 
Taronga has released a 12 month report about the welfare of the elephantsits long but interesting. one part i puuled out was the answer to the long running question of when gung will move out. it would appear that a dead line has been set for the end of net year.... they better get a move on because they havnt even really started yet!

also intersting is a condition that says if any of the animals space requirements cant be meet, particually gungs, then they are required to move the animal to dubbo untill it is fixed.


"Condition 20. The old elephant enclosure at Taronga Zoo, to be used to house Gung, the male
elephant, must, by 31 December 2008, be refurbished to a standard that is at least
consistent with the Concept Plan annexed to the affidavit of Guy Cooper sworn 14
December 2005 in the AAT proceedings N2005/916"
 
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