Taronga Western Plains Zoo TWPZ Updates

The zoo today Announced the birth of a very beautiful przewalski's horse foal. a major boost for the program.
 
It was on both prime and win local news lastnight, only a few weeks old, male I believe. There is also another 8 month old foal also.
 
fingers crossed mark.

indian rhino are relatively uncommon in zoos. not the easiest species to acquire. WPZ pretty much have to breed this pair a few times and start the trade game in order to build up our numbers.

oh, how i do love indian rhino!

and gibbons....

and tree kangaroos.....
 
phoenix said:
fingers crossed mark.

indian rhino are relatively uncommon in zoos. not the easiest species to acquire. WPZ pretty much have to breed this pair a few times and start the trade game in order to build up our numbers.

oh, how i do love indian rhino!

and gibbons....

and tree kangaroos.....
Click to expand...

Quite true Phoenix, Indian rhinos appear to be breeding well in zoos these days, even the UK now has 3 zoos holding them now with Whipsnade holding a good number of them. I am sure we could obtain a few more now if we wanted Europe has a few of the Basel bloodline that they could do without and would suit the lines we now have. Mr Jelle would know which lines are in excess there.

What we need in Australia is another zoo to hold them as well, maybe Werribee or Monarto??, It appears Aust zoo wants them long term but at the pace which things appear to to moving there I am not going to hold my beath on that one. "To me" the birth of Australia's FIRST Indian Rhino will be for me as important as Australia's first elephant birth :cool:.

And as for Tree roo's and Gibbons all I can say is YES YES & YES :D
 
well the good news is that since i believe in inevitable that asian elephants will end up at werribee, i also see it as very likely they build an asian themed zone to showcase them.

since werribee is an open range zoo - if they build an asian themed zone the temptation is going to be very much to house the asian rhino species.

by the time they get around to this - in the next 5 - 10 years, WPZ will hopefully have a couple of young animals bred from their pair that need rehoming. hopefully we'll get one, and import a mate.
 
phoenix said:
well the good news is that since i believe in inevitable that asian elephants will end up at werribee, i also see it as very likely they build an asian themed zone to showcase them.

since werribee is an open range zoo - if they build an asian themed zone the temptation is going to be very much to house the asian rhino species.

by the time they get around to this - in the next 5 - 10 years, WPZ will hopefully have a couple of young animals bred from their pair that need rehoming. hopefully we'll get one, and import a mate.
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I hope you are correct and if they do go that way maybe they should start putting their feelers out now for Indian Rhinos ;)
 
phoenix said:
well the good news is that since i believe in inevitable that asian elephants will end up at werribee, i also see it as very likely they build an asian themed zone to showcase them.

since werribee is an open range zoo - if they build an asian themed zone the temptation is going to be very much to house the asian rhino species.

by the time they get around to this - in the next 5 - 10 years, WPZ will hopefully have a couple of young animals bred from their pair that need rehoming. hopefully we'll get one, and import a mate.
Click to expand...

And there should be no reason why the open rages zoos couldn't have several animals, not just the one pair as seems to be common place
 
phoenix said:
actually jay, there's a very good reason...

its called "lack of space"...... :rolleyes:
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Phoenix Whipsnade have a good sized herd in a smaller open range zoo than we have so I would be surprised if size was an issue? ;)
 
It's not "lack of space" so much as the lack of will to do what's needed.
(Hey I'm in good form tonight. It's a pity Australian television doesn't have its own version of "Grumpy Old Men." I'd ace the audition!)
 
Ara said:
It's not "lack of space" so much as the lack of will to do what's needed.
(Hey I'm in good form tonight. It's a pity Australian television doesn't have its own version of "Grumpy Old Men." I'd ace the audition!)
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Ara maybe you are just speaking your mind ;)
 
phoenix said:
fingers crossed mark.

indian rhino are relatively uncommon in zoos. not the easiest species to acquire. WPZ pretty much have to breed this pair a few times and start the trade game in order to build up our numbers.

oh, how i do love indian rhino!

and gibbons....

and tree kangaroos.....
Click to expand...

I believe the plan for TWPZ is to obtain another pair of Indian Rhino. The zoo is more than capable of maintaining a decent breeding group of Indian Rhino. but who knows what other zoos have expressed interest in housing them. this may impact on TWPZ future plans and numbers.

For anyone Interested I believe TWPZ is home to 20% of the World's captive black rhino population. . . There are something like 22 - 24 Rhino of three species in total at the zoo. will double check those numbers later.
 
According to ISIS they have 11 Black Rhinos, and 201 held in ISIS reporting zoos. That's closer to 5% than 20%.

:p

Hix
 
Hix said:
According to ISIS they have 11 Black Rhinos, and 201 held in ISIS reporting zoos. That's closer to 5% than 20%.

:p

Hix
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Jarkari probably meant - yet omitted to mention - D.b.minor, for which that assertion is probably correct.
 
Re Indian rhino:
Australia is part of the SSP region - which for once in your lifetimes' I applaud -. Whether or not TWPZ or other Australian zoos would acquire any more is up to their Species Coordinator.

Given the current flow and clime I would not discount another Indian rhino entering Australian soil. Whether that be just at TWPZ - which has had a declared interest in maintaining 2 separate breeding pairs of Indian rhinos - or at another remains open to question (none more so given the fickle nature of species management plans in Australia).

The current pair will not breed for another year or so. But if one zoo is apt to do so it is TWPZ. :D

If another Aussie zoo declare its interest, it will only get a male first ...
 
the thing is - the major zoos are opportunistic and rarely stick to any long term collection plans. currently few other zoos have flagged an interest interested in indian rhino (australia zoo is the exception but they also flagged an interest in sumatran rhino and should probably worry about keeping their alive and getting them on display first) - but you watch that change when WPZ breeds them. suddenly a few hands will shoot up.
 
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