Belfast Zoo Tigers

A 19 year old male sumatran tiger? How is he going to tribute to the breeding program exactly? Are they really going to try and breed him?

It is my favorite subspecies of tiger though, so good on Belfast :)
 
jwer said:
I like the german expression "Wer lesen kann, ist ganz im vorteil"

or "He who can read, has an advantage" :(
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I do like that saying ;)

I don't think many of use will be surprised on the Sub-species Belfast have gone for, give it 10 years and every zoo will be going back into breeding Amur Tigers.
 
I thought this was going to be about Belfast's exciting new mystery animal, the only ones outside SE Asia. I don't suppose there's any news on that is there? I'm visiting soon so I hope there is...
 
Why will everyone being going back to Amur tigers in 10 years? I would envisage a pure bengal EEP by that stage....
 
johnstoni said:
Why will everyone being going back to Amur tigers in 10 years? I would envisage a pure bengal EEP by that stage....
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Trends Johnstoni, Amur tigers are regarded as being common in zoos nowadays with many switching to Sumatran. Therefore I envisage that in 10 years down the line we could end up with a situation where Sumatran tigers are common and zoo's switching back to keep Amur (my time frame's may be a little unrealistic but it happens).

Also do you know something about pure Bengal tigers being exported from Indian zoos?
 
I know nothing about any putative imports but I'd love to see a pure Bengal EEP.
 
Nothing imminent re Bengal tigers.

I can't think of a single UK collection which has gone out of Amur tigers recently in favour of sumatrans, other than Edinburgh, but that was due to the HWP collection plan determining that Amur tigers should be kept there. Longleat recently joined the Amur tiger EEP. Maybe it is different in Europe. To my knowledge, both the Amur and Sumatran tiger EEPs have been able to increase as zoos replace their ageing, non-breeding 'Bengals' with a pure subspecies.
 
johnstoni said:
Nothing imminent re Bengal tigers.

I can't think of a single UK collection which has gone out of Amur tigers recently in favour of sumatrans, other than Edinburgh, but that was due to the HWP collection plan determining that Amur tigers should be kept there. Longleat recently joined the Amur tiger EEP. Maybe it is different in Europe. To my knowledge, both the Amur and Sumatran tiger EEPs have been able to increase as zoos replace their ageing, non-breeding 'Bengals' with a pure subspecies.
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Chester was a relatively recent Amur-Sumatran switch.
 
Cat-Man said:
because there last amur died, and AFAIK was either non replaceble or zoo manugment decided the enclosure was to small to sustain breeding amurs
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There are plenty of Amurs in Europe - they could have got them if they'd wanted, so I'm sure it was a deliberate decision. They also brought in the 'Bengals' from West Mids to placehold while they waited for Sumatrans. Maybe the size of the exhibit was a factor but there isn't that much difference in size between the subspecies. I suspect fashion played its part. Not necessarily a bad thing - if it's the 'fashionable' subspecies there'll probably be more young potential breeding animals around.
 
Im glad Belfast got Sumatrans, they were talking about getting more white tigers which Ialthough I am not anti white tiger, I think Sumatrans suite the collection much better. Amurs might have looked better in that enclosure though, I think they have more of a presence due to their size.
 
Cat-Man said:
because there last amur died, and AFAIK was either non replaceble or zoo manugment decided the enclosure was to small to sustain breeding amurs
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The only thing you got right was the fact that the last Amur died,it was Chesters plan to bring in Sumatrans again after the last Amur had died,the Hybrid Bengals was suppose to be a short term stop gap(But they end up staying alot longer than they should because West Mids didn`t have room to take them back),because the Amur died about a month before Easter and they didn`t want an Empty Tiger enclosure.As for the enclosure been to small to breed Amurs rubbish the animal that died was a Chester born animal,in fact was even born in that very enclosure.
 
I didn't know that they'd bred Amur Tigers at Chester was the one that passed away the last one to be born at Chester?
 
RTB1987 said:
I didn't know that they'd bred Amur Tigers at Chester was the one that passed away the last one to be born at Chester?
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I believe he was but my history of the tigers is sketchy, I believe he used to share his enclosure with a female (which may have been his sister).
 
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