Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo Births, Deaths and Transfers 2021
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That is fantastic news! I was wondering when they would get around to announcing it. They had announced in a Facebook live about the breeding in November and a lack of interest on Kiko's part in continuing to breed. In another live they said they heavily suspected pregnancy. Waiting for a Mother's Day announcement seems fitting. The window for delivery is Feb-May 2022 and that will be great timing. Baby will be tiny and at peak cuteness for summer and they need the 2022 summer to be huge if they are to get back on track. A giraffe calf will make a strong contribution to a good summer.
Next pregnancy I would love to hear them confirm is another white rhino calf from Zohari which should be due a little earlier than Mstari's calf if she is indeed pregnant as suspected in the fall. I just wish it was Sabi I had heard might be pregnant so we can stop worrying about her never breeding. But I will take a rhino calf if I can get it. I wouldnt be sad if Indian rhino Asha had a calf too.
And as disappointing as it was to hear Sumatran orang, Sekali is not pregnant after their first breeding attempt its not a bad thing. Few people will come to see the newborn in November 2021... its November. They will loose some of that initial interest. If its born around March break or later in the spring thats probably idea. We probably want it born on the earlier side so the zoo is more comfortable putting baby on display outside in the new orang exhibit. They do tend to be pretty cautious with newborns, understandably. And my guess is once they confirm pregnancy in Sekali they will do intros with Ramai, Jingga and Budi so Ramai can be bred too. A second orang infant would be incredible.
What a year 2022 could be if we just consider those three massive babies.
Next pregnancy I would love to hear them confirm is another white rhino calf from Zohari which should be due a little earlier than Mstari's calf if she is indeed pregnant as suspected in the fall. I just wish it was Sabi I had heard might be pregnant so we can stop worrying about her never breeding. But I will take a rhino calf if I can get it. I wouldnt be sad if Indian rhino Asha had a calf too.
And as disappointing as it was to hear Sumatran orang, Sekali is not pregnant after their first breeding attempt its not a bad thing. Few people will come to see the newborn in November 2021... its November. They will loose some of that initial interest. If its born around March break or later in the spring thats probably idea. We probably want it born on the earlier side so the zoo is more comfortable putting baby on display outside in the new orang exhibit. They do tend to be pretty cautious with newborns, understandably. And my guess is once they confirm pregnancy in Sekali they will do intros with Ramai, Jingga and Budi so Ramai can be bred too. A second orang infant would be incredible.
What a year 2022 could be if we just consider those three massive babies.
Transfer do exist in a covid world! I mean I do know the zoo has shipped amphibians to Europe but I haven't heard of any birds or mammals until now. Snow leopards Kita and Mylo are moving on. Kita will be leaving for Assiniboine Park and Zoo in a few days. She will be breeding. The zoo will be featuring her move in a video for us. Even more impressively Mylo is headed south to John Ball Zoo in the next few weeks! They haven't announced that Pemba is arriving from Calgary so it sounds like the travel arrangements are in the works but nothing finalized. My guess is there will be a push on for him to arrive in early fall in time to finish quarantine for prime breeding season in late fall or early winter.
I don't know what happens at Trt Zoo, often from high of the newborns to low of sad loss within just a few days. Is it something like a....curse?
Hardy. When you work with a MASSIVE collection of animals, many of which are geriatric, losses are bound to happen. Same goes for breeding. Not every single offspring grows perfectly without a hitch. It's all just part of life.
When you read the zoos Facebook post about the tiger cub's passing you can clearly see they put all they had into saving him. The cards were stacked against this cub probably before Mazy even knew something wasn't right. The zoo fought so hard for the cub and he fought like a champ as well, he was just too far gone. They did the only kind thing they could do.
As hard as it is to hear about newborn losses at the zoo, particularly over the last year, we need to remember that the zoo has been far more open with us about newborns as well. They have been announcing births super early on, as well as pregnancies. In the past they would have hidden the pregnancy and the birth for as long as possible so they could hide unfortunate outcomes. The zoo is closed right now. They could have had the tiger cubs, lost the whole litter and we would be none the wiser. This level of honesty and openness is refreshing. The same rate of deaths has happened in the past, we just never knew about it. With life comes death and for some those the start and end of life are just far closer to each other than we would like. We just need to hope they don't catch a lot of backlash for his unfortunate passing so they will continue to feel like being transparent is a good move and we will get to share more in the development of the remaining cubs.
As hard as it is to hear about newborn losses at the zoo, particularly over the last year, we need to remember that the zoo has been far more open with us about newborns as well. They have been announcing births super early on, as well as pregnancies. In the past they would have hidden the pregnancy and the birth for as long as possible so they could hide unfortunate outcomes. The zoo is closed right now. They could have had the tiger cubs, lost the whole litter and we would be none the wiser. This level of honesty and openness is refreshing. The same rate of deaths has happened in the past, we just never knew about it. With life comes death and for some those the start and end of life are just far closer to each other than we would like. We just need to hope they don't catch a lot of backlash for his unfortunate passing so they will continue to feel like being transparent is a good move and we will get to share more in the development of the remaining cubs.
Let's replace yesterday's bad news with some good news out of the Americas pavilion. We FINALLY have a scarlet ibis chick! While we will never get to enjoy him or her as a chick, its already a few weeks old and is nearly grown but grey, but their parents are extremely valuable. This chick will be a wonderful addition to the population and the zoo has gone so long without a chick its an achievement (though to be fair its largely because we kept failing to receive expected males).
Here is a really nice article about the events leading up to the Amur tiger cubs birth and the keepers reaction to the one cubs sad passing. It's nice to see that even after a loss the media is supporting the zoo by letting them show how much love and effort went into that tiny life. It wasn't all that long ago nothing the zoo did or said was portrayed as anything but negative in the media. Nice to see the work the PR team has been putting into building relationships is paying off.
‘There were tears’: Death of newborn tiger cub a painful loss for Toronto Zoo staff
‘There were tears’: Death of newborn tiger cub a painful loss for Toronto Zoo staff
The two female generic tigers, Squinty and Tilty, that the zoo was trying to place after the closure of St Eduardo Zoo, were supposed to have been shipped out to their new home in November 2020. I'm not sure if that's happened given the pandemic and all but if it hasn't still good to know they have a place for them once they can be shipped. They are 4 year old tigers so if the zoo had difficulty getting them a new home they could be saddled with two non breeding tigers taking up space that could be used for other species for who knows how long. I'm glad the zoo could step up and help but it would have been a pity if that impeded conservation programs. There isn't a lot of spare space at the zoo for big cats.
The Amur tiger cubs have been confirmed as female and temporarily dubbed Big and Small as one is significantly undersized. The small cub is struggling. She is not putting on weight at anywhere near the weight of her sister. Her temperature had dropped, her glucose levels dropped, and her white blood cell count was up forcing the staff to consider pulling her. They left her with mom overnight after a round of antibiotics. She survived the night and seemed better. Further testing as shown an enlarged heart, her lungs are not clear, and a lesion on her liver. They believe she may have a congenital heart defect. She is responding to antibiotics, is warm, feeding and active but she isn't really growing. The zoo has called in a Veterinary Cardiologist to take a look at her in the coming days to get a better idea of what her future holds and how best to assist her. Mazy is still doing a fantastic job with both cubs. Really have to wonder if this could have played a factor in her brother's death. Also might be why they are catching her issues so early on. They know what they should be looking for. Hope both girls make it. The tiger keepers and vet staff have had enough sorrow losing one cub they fought hard for, they deserve a victory here.
I had a bad feeling this was coming when the zoo wasn't releasing more updates on the cub. When red panda, Adira, was touch and go they give lots of little updates. This was a long gap between news. Felt like they were trying to make a difficult decision on her.
How devastating for staff to loose a second cub after such valiant efforts were made to save her and her brother. My heart really goes out to them. One loss is heartbreaking. Two losses after doing all you can do is just crushing. This is a terrible outcome after they all had such shocking hope and joy when Mazy even got pregnant at her advanced age, much less gave birth to triplets. All of their hope is now invested in one small cub. She has a lot of people rooting for her.
If there is an upside to this for us to look at its that her heart defect wasn't repairable as hard as that is to say. Surviving with a congenital heart defect, even repaired means the zoo would likely have been saddled with her for life and she wouldn't have been a breeding candidate ever. At least this way there is hope that the zoo can get a younger female or even keep her sister and send Vasili off so we could breed again in the more immediate future. Had she lived we would have had Mazy who will be too old to breed again by the time the mature (heck she just squeaked them in by months before the official cut off for breeding a female), Vasili who isn't that important to breed and is middle aged, and a young tiger we couldnt place. It likely would have meant 10-15 years before we could see another litter. That would be disappointing given how well the zoo has done in the past with Amurs.
How devastating for staff to loose a second cub after such valiant efforts were made to save her and her brother. My heart really goes out to them. One loss is heartbreaking. Two losses after doing all you can do is just crushing. This is a terrible outcome after they all had such shocking hope and joy when Mazy even got pregnant at her advanced age, much less gave birth to triplets. All of their hope is now invested in one small cub. She has a lot of people rooting for her.
If there is an upside to this for us to look at its that her heart defect wasn't repairable as hard as that is to say. Surviving with a congenital heart defect, even repaired means the zoo would likely have been saddled with her for life and she wouldn't have been a breeding candidate ever. At least this way there is hope that the zoo can get a younger female or even keep her sister and send Vasili off so we could breed again in the more immediate future. Had she lived we would have had Mazy who will be too old to breed again by the time the mature (heck she just squeaked them in by months before the official cut off for breeding a female), Vasili who isn't that important to breed and is middle aged, and a young tiger we couldnt place. It likely would have meant 10-15 years before we could see another litter. That would be disappointing given how well the zoo has done in the past with Amurs.
Amur tiger cub "Big" continue to thrive thankfully.
Remaining Toronto Zoo tiger cub continuing to 'grow and thrive'
Remaining Toronto Zoo tiger cub continuing to 'grow and thrive'
Red tailed green ratsnakes Helga and Cissy have had two clutches. The first clutch this year hatched Apr 12 and 13 and consisted of 2 successful babies. May 26th a second clutch of 3 eggs was laid so there could be more in 65-70 days. The species has been moved from the Malayan Woods to Australasia for those on the look out for them when the zoo reopens.
How many Snow Geese do we have?
@kingofreaks that is an excellent question. Last summer they said they had 3 and then we know two were born so theoretically 5. But some could have left or died. And while they said 3 during a Facebook live that could have just meant what they have in Tundra Trek. The zoo used to keep a portion of their flock in the domain. I never head down there so I can't confirm if they still have some down there. So in answer to the question all I can say for certain is at least 3 (mom, dad and gosling). It would be cool if they did another Facebook live with the gosling while its still pretty young. We missed out on last years goslings due to the pandemic. And if people can get back in 2 weeks it will be so much larger since they grow so quickly. It would be nice to see a little more him or her as a little ball of fluff.
4 tur kids have been born. The two males were born in mid may and the two females were born Jun 7th. In a cool turn of events when the females were born it was within a few hours of each others. Mom Atana was attentive to her baby but Tori was not. Atana took over mom duty and is raising both her daughter and adopted daughter quite happily. Turquoise is the mother of one of the boys. No clue who the mother of the second male is.