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

After reading through the collections magazine again, I can confirm that the feathertail gliders will be living in the sugar glider exhibit. Also the 2 new white blotched stingrays are female, and there are plans to acquire males to start a breeding program.
 
Maybe the chinchilas are part of the outreach program? They are friendly and safe animals so its a possiblity.

Im glad baby gorilla is a girl. Its great given Charles age. She could be a future breeder for us. A male would have had to go eventually, whether with his brothers or later on. Now the question is what will they name her? Will it be another contest? Or will keepers choose N names and let Charles pick again?
 
Oh Louie the lemur who was kept off exhibit died. Not sure when but awhile ago.
 
Wombats - new F 2 yr old is somewhat larger than the M 3 yr old, not usual; she's just a big girl. She has some scratches across her back from him (gallery). Hamlet seems rejuvenated by the prescence of a F - I have noticed a spring in his step lately.

Bettongs - the new M is still in the Health Centre recovering from scratches and fur loss caused by the F. Now the F is also there with a broken tail, unknown cause, but possibly because Harrington doesn't like another species in his home.

Tree Kangaroos - pouch check yesterday - no joey yet.

Komodos - not expected to breed soon.
 
I was just dying to hear your weekend zoo report. And you didnt disappoint. All great info.

The female must be the Broofield joey. Good thing shes bigger than Arthur. If he gets to handsy she can kick his butt. Shes possibly bigger because shes captive born and had all of the advantages that brings. Poor Arthur had a rough start, is an orphan and lacked all of those advantages. It is great to hear that her presence has given Hamlet a second wind. He has been such a good boy for the zoo he deserves to enjoy a more active life... not that the zoo doesnt do a fantastic job but the just arent a girl to impress.

Poor female Bettong. A broken tail must hurt. Harrington needs to suck it up and be nice. But maybe the female bettong will learn that being mean doesnt pay and the male will get kinder treatment when he returns. The fact hes still in the health unit must mean she did more of a number on him then the keepers would have us believe. That or the fur she pulled out makes him look far worse than he is and they would rather keep him off exhibit just to avoid all the questions.

They must have had good reason to do a pouch check so thats promising.

I wonder when they will try to breed the Komodos. Kiki has been here awhile and she and Kilat arent too young anymore. Considering all the babies the pavilion could have in the next year why not add dragons but maybe with Loka still there the zoo just doesnt have space if they were to have to hold the babies for any significant length of time.
 
So much anthropomorphism in that post TZFAN- I don't think the bettong is learning to do unto others . . .

Maybe Harrington is stressed with the young female nearby.

If Harrington caused the damage to the bettong and they can't go back there, I don't think there is room for them elsewhere.

There was some talk about tests on female Komodos at the keeper talk but I wasn't over there, just registered that they are not trying to breed them right now. Space may also be a problem there too.
 
I noticed that too... Oh well.

You dont think bettongs will learn to do unto others? I dont think your giving them enough credit. Clearly shes been thinking about her actions and behaviour towards her blind date and she must realized that she could be nicer to the poor guy. It wasnt his choice to pack up all this little Bettong things and travel from sunny California to freezing Ontario... Its no ones first choice... Now that shes been hurt by someoen else rejecting her presense shes had time to think it all over and Im sure she will be nicer. LOL. Did I anthropomosphize enough for you? Im sure she doesnt give too hoots about him... or even her tail (unless it hurts).

I would agree with you about Harrington. He's probably less himself with a young female in and out of heat around him. Hes got a mate right now and he might precieve any other creature as a threat to his ablity to mate. That or suddenly sharing his exhibit with not only a mate but a new species has upset him.

Why couldnt the bettongs not just go back to their old exhibit. Sure Matilba is there now but they got along just find when Millie and Arthur shared with them. And if not they could rotate the wombats on exhibit and have the bettongs in with Annie. I dont think they will give up on the species given that they just got the male. Summer will free up some space when everyone can go outside and perhaps things will change come fall, especially if Nokopo is raising a joey and Harrington has no access to a female.
 
Sorry. This is one of the things I don't like about the TZ forum and now I've done it myself. He is the male Tree Kangaroo and he is close to the age limit for them in captivity, according to the Senior Keeper in Australasia. They have been trying to get him to breed with their female.
 
I just got my issue of collections from the zoo and as I was browsing through it I noticed that they mention white lions, Fintan breeding with Makali in September. I thought they were still too young, but hey, maybe there's a chance for white lion cubs sooner than everyone expected.
 
Mr. Wrinkly and Zooboy28, I will try to put down the species with the name of the individual animal in the future to help with this problem. I guess several of us are just so used to their names that we dont think about others when posting. I apologize and since you have pointed out the problem will try to correct that about my posts. I wouldnt want someone being confused or made to feel left out because they dont know something.

Im excited to hear about the white lions breeding. I too thought they were a little young. I know at nearly 3 the girls arent but I wasnt as sure about Fintan. Usually a male doesnt take over a pride and get to breed until hes about 5 but I guess they could breed younger. Time will tell ultimately. If they bred in September and lions have a 3 month pregnancy then we could already have cubs. They would have been born in Decemeber or January depending when exactly they bred. Nothing has been mentioned so I would guess attempt one was a failure beceause why wouldnt the zoo issue a press release on the first litter of full white lion cubs in Canada? So either it didnt result in pregnancy or the litter died and the zoo will never make mention of it. But its a good sign. If Fintan is interested and Makali and Lemon are allowed to go into heat cubs could be on the way any time. They would have had opportunities to breed for roughly 6 months and either female could be prengnant if Fintan is mature enough. Sounds like on someones next trip they will have to attend a keeper talk to find out more about this exciting development. Its been 14 years since we had cubs to enjoy... Im ready for more!

I swear this summer could be so much better than the summer of cute... Just look at what we have, Mstari (giraffe), the polar bear cub (to be named soon), the gorilla, 2 zebra foals, the 2 bison that were expected earlier. Thats great itself. But then theres now a possiblity of lions, maybe tigers if Kemala would take to Hari. I've heard about breeding attempts with the babirusa and African otters. And we all know they will try their hardest to get a panda cub (though we likely wont see him or her or them until 2015 or pretty close too it).
 
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UHHHH... that's beyond disappointing. What a terrible choice! That was the name I hated most out of a list I found incredibly disappointing to begin with. With any luck his future home will just change the name to something befitting an adult male polar bear.
 
Yeah, I'm not found of the name either. Sounds better for a old grizzly in my mind.
 
Theres a reason people dont use it for their kids anymore... its terrible. I could list dozens of names that would be way better before even going to try and find appropriate inuit names. This is why they should have let us make suggestions again. I bet no one would have suggested Humphrey in the first place. And if one wanted another H name to pair with Hudson then why Humphrey over Henry (the explored Henry Hudson whom after the bay is named). Like I said though there is hope for him. A future zoo can always change it. And if the zoo is lucky and has cubs again this year Humphrey will be at a new home by early 2015.
 
Well sometimes, its really up to the zoo. They might not like an old name, it might not fit with a naming theme they have going on, they might want the community to get to name the new animal, they might sell the naming opportunity to a donor. Lots of things could make them change it.

Considering Journey to Churchill is a brand new exhibit at Assiniboine and Hudson was their first polar bear in a long time Im a little surprised they didnt rename him. When he first moved I really thought they would. Let the community get invested in him by naming him. Guess they just really liked the name.

When it comes to tracking the animals they dont really care about the names. All of the animals are kept track of based on their studbook number rather than name because there could be 10 different gorialls named Johari (sadly I dont think Im far off on that random guess). For the books that keep the names recorded I have seen up to 3 possible named for a single animal.
 
TZFan said:
Nothing has been mentioned so I would guess attempt one was a failure beceause why wouldnt the zoo issue a press release on the first litter of full white lion cubs in Canada? So either it didnt result in pregnancy or the litter died and the zoo will never make mention of it. But its a good sign. If Fintan is interested and Makali and Lemon are allowed to go into heat cubs could be on the way any time.
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There hasn't been a litter of cubs yet.
Lemon has been spayed because she has congenital defects, a big danger in white lions. When TZ got them I heard the AZA does not recommend breeding them for that reason.
 
Oh I didnt know Lemon was spayed. Learn something new every day. At least this way Fintan will never have to be alone while cubs are due and very little.

The AZA doesnt want them for a variety of reasons but the central reason is that the gene pool is so small that they are all essentailly some degree of inbred. They will eventually be the problem white tigers where. I was surprised when the zoo got them in the first place. There wont be a lot of options for the cubs. Sure some of the smaller Canadian zoos will want them but who will they breed with... each other. I guess the zoo could make money selling them to zoos overseas. It probably would have been wiser to import new genetically valuable regular lions that could breed and contribute.
 
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