Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo - Canada's Largest Zoo

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"Exotic" is certainly location-dependent ... I laughed so hard when I saw a Canada Goose exhibit in the Paris Menagerie (Jardin des Plantes) that I had to take a picture of the sign to prove it to everyone back home!

Re. Tasmanian devils:
Yes, the last Toronto devil died in 2001, and the Fort Wayne devil (born in Cincinnati to Toronto-born parents) passed away in May 2004. They are prone to a number of problems with age, including an invasive cancer - there are researchers in Australia trying to figure out how to prevent/cure it, since it is affecting wild populations as well.

See the last article on this page: ARDMOREITE.COM

It is not a lack of demand for Tasmanian devils that accounts for their absence in North American collections ... the Australian government has put severe restrictions on exporting native wildlife. I believe that there has to be a prolific, successful captive breeding program in Australian zoos before exports are considered, and then only offspring are allowed to "leave". This is one of the reasons why there are so few common wombats outside of Australia - they are frequent rehab animals, so zoos always have a steady supply coming in for rescue and have no need or space to breed them.

Great Barrier Reef:
Current fish count in the big tank: 80, with more being added daily.
 
Very interesting. Thanks for the head's up!

I'm really looking forward to the new Great Barrier Reef (as well as the rest of the reopening of the pavillion). I thought the old one was impressive, this one sounds incredible!
 
Wow :( RIP little guys. I understand there are tough decisions which have to be made in zoos but my heart goes out to the keepers and the animals themselves. I hope an alternative can be made.

Toronto Zoo brass say ... Rudolph must die!

A reindeer is seen resting in a field with its fawn at the Toronto Zoo. For the first time in the zoo's history, newborn calves were "euthanized due to being male" for herd management reasons, officials said. (Michael Peake, Sun Media)

Dear Santa: I hope you are sitting down.

The Toronto Zoo is killing baby boy reindeer.

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer...

The first was dispatched shortly after his birth April 8.

His mom, Hayzel, bellowed mournfully for two days. You could hear her from Meadowvale Rd.

The second met the same fate at the point of a hypodermic on April 22.

His mom, CUPE, is named for the zoo staff's union.

Both little gaffers were chocolate brown and gangly cute. They had barely begun to nurse.

Both were perfectly healthy.

"Euthanized due to being male," says the keepers' report, terse and angry.

The keepers were so upset they left as the vets moved into the reindeer enclosure and refused to take part.

"This is wrong," the keepers told the vets, who were none too happy either.

Three female babies have been spared.

TINSEL AND RHONDA

Tinsel and Rhonda delivered theirs the same day as CUPE.

Lucky for them, they had girls, now prancing about the paddock in the full flush of spring.

Girl European reindeer are less hassle. Easier to sell or trade to other zoos. I'm told they're even better at hauling a sleigh.

Two years ago, zoo execs gave approval in principle to the euthanizing of male reindeer.

This spring is the first time it's been executed, so to speak.

Remarkable, eh? I wonder if anyone considered how this looks.

Call it herd management, or whatever.

They're snuffing Rudolph.

They never let poor Rudolph

join in any reindeer games

Never before has the zoo imposed a euthanasia order on a breed of large animal.

The only precedent I can find, about five years back, is the mara, a sort of jumping guinea pig from South America.

The zoo euthanized male maras to cap the population. Later, it sold off the whole lot.

Many staff wonder: Why kill the boy reindeer? Why not just neuter them?

True, this can cause atrophied antlers. Big deal. The kiddies who visit will still ooh and ahhh and hum Jingle Bells.

Or, staff wonder, if you're going to exterminate every male, why breed the eight females in the first place?

Seems rather cruel. Reindeer roulette. Female, you live. Male, you die.

Says one staffer: "This bothers me more than anything I've ever experienced here.

"Many of us feel these are not our animals and not management's animals, but belong to the city, to the people of Toronto.

"And they should know what's happening."

Says another: "I'm sick to my stomach. This is the beginning of a road we don't want to go down."

Funny, I thought zoos love baby animals.

There's always a fuss when a cute little snow leopard or polar bear comes into the world, out in the wilds of northeast Scarborough.

Two days before Hayzel's son was put to death with sodium pentobarbital, a press release announced the arrival of a baby gaur.

Congratulations to Flower and Hercules. Gaurs are huge, wild Asian cattle.

The baby? A bouncing boy. Doing fine.

Need I add, a week from now is Mother's Day at the zoo. Given what's transpired, I hope they have the sense not to showcase the reindeer moms. Two of them aren't celebrating.

Maria Franke, curator of mammals, tells me the decision to euthanize male reindeer calves was made by something called the Animal Care, Research and Acquisition Committee.

"It was a gruelling process," she assures me. "We do not take this lightly. There is science behind it."

It's especially hard to sell reindeer because of disease fears. There's no room.

Too expensive to release in the wild. If they keep the males they'll be lonely. They yearn for their own harem. We can't even sell the two bucks we have now. No one likes this. It's a necessary evil. Blah, blah, blah.

YOU'RE KILLING BABY REINDEER.

So why breed the herd, knowing half the babies are doomed?

"If we did not, we would end up with no reindeer," says Franke.

"We aren't just an entertainment facility. We're a conservation facility and our goal is to manage genetically viable populations of animals.

"I know some keepers are upset. I know it's a sensitive subject."

No kidding. Just wait'll word gets back to the North Pole.

And it's not over.

One more calf is due any day now.

We're all hoping for a girl.
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Source

Article about the sting rays:

The Toronto Zoo will be stinging its way to the top of the list of things to do this summer with its new Stingray Bay exhibit.

"People who take interest in aquatic life can come out and see an amazing exhibit," the zoo's Katie Gray said yesterday.

The show starring 30 stingrays will run from May 16 to October.

The rays will be kept in a 60-cm-deep pool filled with more than 60,000 litres of water.

Visitors will be allowed to touch the animals but not feed them since they're on a restricted diet.

SAFETY MEASURES

"Getting the opportunity to get so close establishes a root for respecting animals," said Gray, who added that the facility will be used to teach visitors how marine life functions and how to protect it.

Safety measures have been put in place to make sure the rays don't harm visitors, said Natalie Sacks, assistant supervisor for the exhibit. Precautions include removing the rays' barbs to training them so they are touchable.

"I go into the pool every day to clean it," Sacks said. "They are very social animals."

The stingray exhibit did not come cheap. It cost just under $1 million. The zoo plans to offset that cost by adding $3 to the general admissions of visitors who want to see the rays.
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TorontoSun.com - Toronto And GTA- New zoo exhibit sharp
 
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An extra $3 to see 30 stingrays is a complete rip-off. At the excellent Monterey Bay Aquarium visitors can touch as many bat rays as they like for free, and at San Diego's Seaworld there are literally hundreds of bat rays that can also be touched for free.
 
snowleopard said:
An extra $3 to see 30 stingrays is a complete rip-off. At the excellent Monterey Bay Aquarium visitors can touch as many bat rays as they like for free, and at San Diego's Seaworld there are literally hundreds of bat rays that can also be touched for free.
Click to expand...

Although. $3 is a lot cheaper than a trip to California from Toronto.
 
Yeah, but these stingrays are probably throught a private vendor. Jacksonville, Chaffee (Fresno, CA), and John Ball (Grand Rapids, MI) Zoos and others use these vendors to set up the exhibits for the summer. Obviously like any fundraiser, so want to make a good profit, $3 sounds pretty reasonable. I know of many musuems that charge seperately for special, temporary exhibits (especially if the museums spend a good dollar to bring the exhibition there).
 
I would like to see the Indian rhino exhibit doubled in size at Toronto, the Winter house is quite good but I feel the outside yard could be bigger and they do have the room to do that
 
That would be nice. Maybe a larger yard for the Malaysian Tapir too. I have always really liked this section of the zoo (and the Eurasian) because it's generally not crowded and you can stay for a long time at each exhibit.
 
i can't believe the zoo actually did that to some of its animals.At least this calf is going to have a life
 
In regards to the reindeer issue, the National Post printed the following article a few days after the Toronto Sun, with the zoo's official response as well as the opinions of some other parties:
Toronto Zoo calls emergency meeting over cull policies - Posted Toronto

I found the following article/blog entry very interesting (and refreshingly balanced), from an independent source: theMediaman.com » Priorities In Protest

Does anyone from Europe have any comments on euthanasia as a management practice?

I also find it interesting that the Bowmanville Zoo now comes across as a hero, although they showed no interest until there was press involvement.
 
@ungulate: I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the matter, since you are a keeper at the Toronto Zoo. Whenever a major zoological park resorts to killing its own animals then naturally there is an outcry, but what do the keepers think? I'm assuming that it might be a 50-50 split, as to some the death of the reindeer might be seen as a necessary part of the zoo cycle while others would be aghast.
 
hi ungalate, i was just wondering how the seals are doing?I heard there going to be phasing them out?
 
I've been trying not to weigh in with my personal opinion, for political reasons. In defense of the zoo, the decision to cull was proactive, not reactive, and was agreed to be the most effective management tool BEFORE any offspring were born. Far better that the babies be euthanized before anyone (reindeer or people) got attached, than to be used for publicity ("look at the babies") and dispatched in the fall, or after a few years when the males are mature, don't have a home, and end up living together and fighting, or all being separated on their own.

Re: Fur seals
We have two South African fur seals remaining at the zoo, a 16 year old castrated male "Timo" who came from Antwerp and a 22 year old female "Rosi" who was born in Toronto. The seals have been designated as a "phase out" species for almost ten years now due to the extreme difficulties in maintaining a population with no one else to exchange with in North America (they are the only ones of their kind in the western hemisphere, I believe) and frequent eye problems (at the Toronto Zoo and most other institutions that keep them). Although they are getting old (life expectancy is around 20 years, although Rosi's mom lived into her 33rd year), they are still quite healthy and doing well (or usually are - we're just entering the moult right now, and Rosi's been feeling low). They will live out the rest of their lives at the zoo, but will not be replaced once they die.
 
what happened to Winnie,please tell me she did'nt pass
 
Winnie was euthanized at the beginning of February. She had a large tumour along her vertebrae which ended up invading the spinal cord and wreaking havoc on her motor control. She would have turned 20 this coming Thursday.

She is greatly missed by everyone.
 
omg, im so sorry, iknow u work with the seals.All my condolences go out to the keepers who were close to her. She was my favourite of the fur seal trio next to one of the former seals Nelson, oyu'd probably remember him,he was always at the glass
 
i also remember a Tapir named Sherman, i think he might haved passe dby now because i remember a tapir named Tanuck last time.could you maybe fill me in on tapirs?
 
sorry if i am a little pushy with questions, i jsut really like finding out about past animals and stuff?
 
Thanks, Zoogoer2000. Nelson was Rosi's full brother, and Winnie's half-brother (same father, different mothers). FYI, Winnie and Nelson were born a few days apart, and were named after the Mandelas.

Sherman passed away two or three years ago now, and Tanuck is still at the zoo (presently our only tapir). We are awaiting the arrival of a girlfriend for him from the Bronx Zoo at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future.
 
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