Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo- Births, Deaths, Arrivals and Departures 2014

TZFan said:
Onyx (F), Elio (M) and Jamoccha (F) are in the health center recieving end of life care. Onyx was born Jun 19 2001 at ALS and arrived here in 2010. Being nearly 13 she is extremely old for a cheetah so her problems are likely age related. Most cheetahs max out between 10 -14 years. She's never bred.

Elio was born Nov 4 2006 at the zoo to mom Mya and father Luke (who has since passed). He was in a litter of 4 with brothers Jose and Chico and sister Emma and all 4 were transferred to ALS in 2007. At 8 middle aged Elio may have been back sooner than the others currently arriving from ALS. Im not sure his reason for being on end of life care. He has never bred.

Pinky (F), Zoey (F) and Shamwari (F) are all being transferred to a zoo somewhere in Nova Scotia. They are full sisters born in think in South Africa. Pinky and Shamware are litter mates born Nov 19, 2004. Zoey arrived Nov 21, 2005. They moved to Toronto in 2006. None of the girls ever had cubs which is a shame because they were so genetically vaulable. I think someone said they are currently the grouping on exhibit.

In the exhibit holding is Rafiki (M) and Akeelah (F) fresh in from ALS.
Rafiki was born Nov 19 2004 in South Africa and is the litter mate of Pinky and Shamwari and brother of Zoey. He arrived here in 2006 with his sisters. In 2010 he went to ALS. While here in Toronto he sired a 2009 litter with Mya consisting of females Miti, Wangari and Asanti. Those cubs have moved on. He has sired one possibly two litters. The only definite litter was with Emma consisting of 4 cubs. Im not sure of the details.
Akeelah is a bit of a mystery. Based on rumors she is most likely one of Rafiki and Emma's cubs but she could just as easily be an unrelated female which would be great.

In the off exhibit holding is Mya (F), Zeke (M), Bomani (M) and Mahala (F).
Mya was born April 10, 2003 at the Cheetah Breeding Center. She arrived in 2004 with half sister Jamoccha, as well as Zeke and his brother Zack (now deceased). Mya is the most prolifc breeding female the zoo has ever had. She's had 3 litters. In 2006 she and Luke had boys Elio, Chico and Jose and female Emma. In 2008 she and Luke had male Bomani and female Mahala. And in 2009 she and Rafiki had females Asanti, Miti and Wangari. At 11 shes now too old to breed again and is considered elderly.

In the health center's quarantine are females Tika and Cleo. They arrived last month and will be out of quarantine sometime this week and off to the exhibit. Tika may be another one of Rafiki and Emma's cubs but Im not sure. Cleo may also be one of Rafiki and Emmas cubs since 4 were supposed to come.

Now one question is Emma. I have heard she arrived. But when she arrived or where she might be is up for debate. She may be here. She may not. She hasnt been properly accounted for yet.
Emma, if she arrived, was born Nov 3 2006 at the zoo to Mya and Luke and has brothers Elio, Jose and Chico. She moved with her brothers in 2007 to ALS. There she had at least one litter of 4 cubs in 2012. Its possible she may have had an earlier litter with Rafiki but I'm not certain. If she hasn't moved yet she could be one of the two due in.
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Onyx is a male.

I heard that Elio passed away recently, as have both Chico and Jose. This means that 3 of the 4 cheetahs from Mya's first litter are deceased, with only Emma still alive.

From what I know, the Zoo tried to breed all of their female cheetahs (Mya, Pinky, Shamwari, Zoey, and Mahala) over the years and with only Mya having cubs.

From the publicly available cheetah studbook online, Rafiki has sired at least 5 litters and is the father of both Tika and Cleo. Emma has had 2 litters, with Tika coming from her first.

Akeelah is not listed in the studbook by name, but there are 2 unnamed cheetahs from litters born at African Lion Safari in 2010 and 2012.
 
I had thought Onyx was a male and then the studbook I looked at said female. I deferred to the studbook. It easily could have been a misprint though.

Thanks for the info on Elio, Chico and Jose. It is interesting that the first litter is down to just Emma when they are arent really that old. Middle aged sure but not elderly yet.

I should have probably said that the females never produced cubs or bred successfully not just never bred. Im sure all of the zoos cheetahs, male and female were given an opportunity to reproduce.

There's a publically available studbook... excellent. I will look that up. I might be able to sort out the cubs since I have grown farmilar with the workings of the books.

I apperciate the help Adams7. Always good to have you around to give that extra bit of info.

Just checked the studbook. Excellent its 2012. I was working off a patchwork of a 2007 book and the most recent SSP.
 
Akeelah must be the 2012 cub because the 2010 cub is a male. Emma is her mother in that case and would make the most sense because we have all agreed there were 4 cubs born to Emma but were wrong about it being one 2012 litter. It was 2011 and 2012 litters.

If the incoming 2 cheetahs are to round out Emma and Rafiki's cubs that would mean Pico (F) and Azu (M) are the new arrivals. However if we are looking for just Rafiki's offspring like Cleo then males Patagonia, an unnamed male and Sabu become candidates.
 
Wow, this is incredible. I don't think Game of Thrones has this many characters. I really do appreciate the effort and time that you guys put into finding out this information. Now I need to create a family tree type document to visually see how this all works. Great job.
 
No need I can send you a list of either all we currently have or all we have ever had. Just pick and I will PM you the cheetah list of your choice.
 
Today:

Butterflies - coming soon (gallery)

Jaguars - the male has preferred to stay indoors lately so for now they have a choice.

Clouded Leopards - the female Red Panda is still in the exhibit.

Zoomobile - for the first time since it started running again last year I heard a narrator pronounce Przewalski correctly (not per-ze-walski but je - valski or je - walski) and she did not make any stupid jokes or talk about Bacterian Camels.

Fox - saw a wild fox in Eurasia, near the Przewalski paddocks.

Cheetahs - gave TZFan more info to work on, but will say that I learned Parc Safari in Quebec has imported cheetahs that they want to trade with Toronto for breeding purposes and Toronto wants to do that but it will not be done this year. Also learned that the off-exhibit area in the valley has two paddocks larger than the exhibit paddock and lots of holding space, which I had been wondering about.
 
Funny that you went to the zoo today Mr Wrinkly, as I too went to the zoo. We coincidentally happen to go on the same day.

You pretty much nailed everything I saw, although I missed the wild fox in Eurasia. Wish I saw that. Also, there are apparently multiple ways in pronouncing Przewalski, most of the time they get pretty close to right. I don't remember any stupid jokes. What have you heard? Lastly, when I was on the Zoomobile there were no Mouflon on exhibit.
 
The man was Polish and spent much of his career in Russia, discovering the horse named after him and other species.
According to a Polish-born friend and a Russian student who stayed with me it is never per-ze-wal-ski but that is what the narrators most often say.
The jokes - really dumb puns, flirting with the driver, silly jokes, singsong narratives - it's often embarassing.
 
Yeah, I've been told it's pronounced shuh-VAL-skee. You don't pronounce it the way it's spelt. Most narrators on the zoomobile don't get it right, but they do pronounce it better than most people.

I've never heard those kinda of jokes before. Well, maybe the bad puns, but I find the jokes are usually for the children. Never really heard flirting or songs. But today the narrator seemed all business, giving straight facts, almost as if she was really of the sheet.
 
I was at the zoo last weekend and took some notes when I went to the cheetah keeper talk.
As of last weekend, we had 16 cheetahs at the zoo. Pretty much the highest amount we've had at once. In the next few months the keeper said we'd be down to about 10 cheetahs.

The 3 girls that were on exhibit were the 3 sisters Zoey, Pinky and Shamari and were going to a zoo in Halifax to retire since they were past the age where they'd want them to breed (they are about 10-12 years old). They are from Africa originally and they spent most of their life at the Toronto Zoo.

Of the 16 Cheetahs, we have 6 males right now (so 10 females, 7 after the 3 sisters go to Halifax).

Some of the other interesting things I learnt is:
- that they're trying some new AI reproductive trials in June.
- if the trials don't go well, they'll try normal reproduction at some point in the future
- there's not that much AI experience with Cheetahs
- having some males near the females was causing some of the females to go into heat earlier then they wanted/planned so they're keeping reproductive males and females very very separated

- the two new baby/young zebras (Luke and Leia) keep the cheetahs very interested from their exhibit across the pathway... so much so that they're often not really paying attention to the food being tossed their way with it bouncing off of them...
-they're also very interested in all the Canadian geese
-Shamari especially likes hunting the Geese, has caught at least one this year (really impressive to see them run after them!)
- the keepers do have that mechanical lure thing in a box on site and are going to be getting it all setup in the not too distant future


One of the main reasons why we have/had so many Cheetahs at once is because we have a few still in quarantine. We have the 3 that are on exhibit but going to Halifax at the end of the month/June 1st. but also because it sounds like there's an agreement with ALS (African Lion Safari) that's reaching an end. I suspect that we were loaning some out or had some of theirs on loan for breeding or just to take care of while they had other Cheetahs at ALS). I'm not sure if we got a whole lot of our Cheetahs back from them or they are getting a bunch of the Cheetahs we have at TZ back. I didn't feel like asking even more questions and trying to get more details about this.

Personally, I remember that they often only had one Cheetah on exhibit or visible on exhibit a lot of the times when I went to the zoo in off seasons. It's nice to have 3 Cheetahs on exhibit at a time and they have a couple different groups of 3 that they're going to be rotating on exhibit. It sounds like one grouping is going to be 3 males and one is going to be 3 females. (all non breeders) and that they're keeping all the breeding Cheetahs off exhibit and separated.
 
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Cheetahs -

The sisters, who are 9 and 10 years old later this year, are going to Oakland Farm Zoo, Aylesford, N.S., not Halifax, and it is still scheduled for June 1st. Oakland has other big cats and have prepared a new home for the sisters' retirement.

TZ is planning to breed their cheetahs and will be doing exchanges with Parc Safari for that purpose; breeding is possible this year but unlikely, because there is a lot of evaluation, planning, and agreement to be done, not to mention paperwork. Attempting Artificial Insemination is one of the possibilities being discusssed.

The lure has been tested off-exhibit and is going well and may be out sooner than we heard before, which was late summer.

There are definitely 16 cheetahs on site, 11 in the holdings and 5 in the Health Centre (2 in quarantine and 3 for health reasons). TZFan has all that pretty well figured out although we were thrown last week when the keeper chat reported 13, which seemed impossible to both of us.

The first day the zebra foals were out, the cheetahs were very conscious of them, but not since. Zoey was stalking a goose yesterday but spotted the keeper and abandoned that. The meat that bounces off them is hard to find because they have a poor sense of smell, nothing to do with the zebras.

The male newly arrived from African Lion Safari, Rafiki, was on exhibit Tuesday and Thursday this week. He is large - about 56K - and quite tame.

All of TZ cheetahs have now returned from ALS except for two that were given to them. The cheetah relationship with them is ending for now.

All of this information was learned and most of it reported over the last month, except AI had not been mentioned in my hearing, and I learned the destination Oakland Farm privately so did not mention it.

Yesterday one of the two main keepers was out for the chat; afterwards I had an additional chat with her and confirmed everything above. The keeper I spoke with last Friday was filling in and misspoke on the number of cheetahs, and possibly the one bluebadger2010 heard last weekend misspoke on some things also.

That's it - I am sick of cheetah talks after 6 or 7 in the last two months and will not be going to them again for a while . . . probably.
 
Oaklawn Farm Zoo looks like a decent enough place. They have good sized pens if you use google to look it up. It isnt going to be Toronto good but a nice retirement home. They should be content there. It certainly looks like their animals are well loved.

I would guess you are sick of cheetah talks after 6 or 7 of them. Just so many interesting things have gone on with them. Until that long list of stuff is done with them and more transfers start happening there really isn't much more to learn. Though with regards to the two cheetahs left at ALS that would be Emma and Rafiki's cubs Sabu (M) and Pico (F). And at Parc Safari their stock of cheetahs imported from Africa and therefore extremely vaulable, is 8. Their females are Malkia, Laini and Nati all of whom would be good candidates for Toronto males Bomani, Azu and Patonga. Their males are Pendo, Haraka, Jua, Nyota and Kilio. All 5 males are great candidates to come here and breed with Emma, Mahala, Cleo, Akeelah and Tika. Anyone who wants their individual info can PM me.
 
Went to the zoo today. Noticed a couple things here and there.

The construction on Er Shun’s outdoor exhibit is that they are removing some of the fencing to place a window in between the fencing for better visibility. Not sure why they didn’t do this to begin with. Fencing is a pain for photography. The glass is better, but I worry about glare, which can be just a big of a pain. Either way, the glass is ultimately better to actually see Er Shun.

The Wallaby’s were outdoors being chased around by one of the Wombats, for a bit. The Wombat looks like it was playing, while the Wallaby’s looked truly scared. No update on the Tree Kangaroos breeding.

Fish are clearly visible in the water at the bridge leading to the Americas Wetlands. They swarm around when people gather to look at them. They’ve clearly learned that people equals possible food being thrown down to them, which I’ve seen before.

Humphrey spent most of his time chasing any bird that landed in his exhibit. He didn’t catch any, but he did get close a couple times.

All 3 Arctic Foxes were on exhibit with each other. Cody and the two girls. The girls looked completely terrified of him, as they huddled in a corner of the exhibit. Cody was active walking all around the exhibit. Whenever he did approach the girls, one would run away, while the other stood her ground a barked at him until he left. When he left, the one that ran away would run back to her spot and huddle beside the girl that stood her ground. Cody and one of the girl’s fur is starting to really change from white to dark grey. The girl that ran away to avoid Cody is still completely white.

The construction is the Americas Pavilion is done, so the Otters are back swimming outside. The ground is completely patched up. If you never knew of the construction, you wouldn’t know it happened. The Beavers pool is back to normal in terms of water clarity, but there’s a buildup of green algae on the inside window of the pool that needs to be cleaned. They’ve put up a sign to explain the situation, which confirms that there was a problem with the filtering system.

The Macaws are finally back on exhibit at the Mayan Temple Ruins. 3 blue and yellow Macaws and 1 scarlet Macaw.

Managed to see some wild frogs in the Pond down in the Canadian Domain. Although I only managed to get photos of one.

For the Hippos, the male, Samson I believe, was out eating some hay. I noticed that his left hind ankle was greatly swollen. He couldn’t put much weight on it and subtly limped around. I looks like the keepers may have started some kind of treatment on it already.

The Lemur babies, have grown quite considerably, no longer staying with mom. They looked very independent, as the family gathered around fresh fruit put out for them. They each had no problems straying away from the group or each other. They are still clearly smaller than the rest of the Lemurs.

Gorillas are finally outside now. They seemed to enjoy being there, while I hated the fencing. They need to change that asap. Fencing is such a pain, hence the change on Er Shun’s exhibit.

On the Zoomobile the announcer said they are hoping to have Eurasia opened by the end of summer, although I’m not sure how accurate that is. Also, no Mouflon or Camels on exhibit. Camels may have been out at the camel ride.
 
Well Im glad you had a nice day Cypher.

Perhaps the fencing verse glass decision was made last year based on a time concern. Maybe it was easier to just throw up the fencing in a rush to get the exhibit ready for the pandas arrival. Now that they are here and settled and the zoo decided to do what they originally wanted to do. It makes sense that slapping up fencing could have been done in a pinch and now that they have the time they can afford to do it right. That or people have complained about the crummy fencing enough and they realize they better correct it before a cub arrives and people pitch a real tantrum about not being able to see it as well or take good photos of it.

It's great to hear the foxes are all together. It will make a more interesting exhibit with 3 of them. The girls names are Venus and Jupiter.

Im glad the otters are back outside. They can have more fun.

Correct me if Im wrong but hasnt Samson had this sort of problem before? I think I remember reading on here at some point that he had a swollen lump on his leg. I dont remember limping being mentioned. And I cant remember where exactly I read it... something makes me think it was a really old post.

The gorillas probably had to wait until ideal weather because of Nneka or possibly she needed some shots to protect her before going out. I remember reading something in all of the plans I have dug up over the winter that the gorillas might be getting a new outdoor exhibit at some point with viewing via glass and over a moat. It would be the final fix the pavilion needs... well I would change the burrows and otter exhibit but thats another issue. I will take the gorillas outdoor becoming more natural and bigger with better viewing.

I have been told the the camels used for the rides are different then the ones on exhibit. Who knows you could have probably taken a ride earlier or later in the day and the mouflon would have been out. I know last year when I was on it I missed seeing the yak calf by a circuit. The guide said they were taking her off on the last trip round. Thats part of the fun of the zoomobile. Same corny script but you never know what you will see.
 
It's quite possible that the fence was put up in a hurry. It's also possible that they decided to change it due to poor reviews. Either way, I hope it's better.

Now it's a matter of finding out which one is Venus and which is Jupiter.

It could be an old injury on Samson. It's the first time I've seen him out of the water since last fall. Only ever seen the girls out of the water. His leg could be an old injury. However, he did have a subtle limp in his step.

I remember reading about the Gorilla exhibit. If I remember correctly, it was an either/or situation. Either a moat or glass.
 
Also, a couple other tidbits I remember, the steps at the lion exhibit are still removed and dug up. The penguin area is under maintenance. Looks like maintenance on the glass around the topside of the pool. Also the Olive Baboons are off exhibit for maintenance, which is mentioned on the website, Animals off Display.
 
You could be right about the gorillas. I cant remember exactly what was said. At the time I remember focusing harder on the giraffes and new hoofstock stuff.

Better to get all this maintance done down before schools let out.
 
So I got a email from the Zoo promoting the opening of Splash Island this weekend. It also mentions that the Lemur twins now have names. Born to mother Lucy, the male is named Jack and the female is named Willow.
 
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