Yorkshire Wildlife Park Update August

OrangePerson

OrangePerson

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Not much news.

Visitor numbers continue to be really good.

Another (second) lechwe has been born and they think there are more to come.

Some guanaco are moving on including a young male which will allow one of the older females to rejoin the rest - she keeps jumping over the fence to get away from him.

The new guanaco enclosure is still not finished so the addax are still in with the African Plains animals. They are possibly getting some sort of Asian antelope along with a new male camel.

Four ringtail lemurs are moving on because of fighting between them and the other 3 adults. They are currently alternating out in the walk-through. The two lemur babies (ringtail & B&W ruffed) are doing well and the black and white ruffed is getting as naughty as his parents.

There are 9 meerkats, the 4 youngest are quite well grown!

I'm a bit worried that we only saw one raccoon dog.

One of the squirrels died and the other one has either gone or is off show with the aviary birds (memory failure here). There were guinea fowl in there temporarily.

The lions are no longer in quarantine so they can go into the enclosures to do stuff & the waterfall is working. Two of the groups have swapped enclosures and all the lions are going out regularly now.
 
Assuming it's not a new area, the obvious place would be in with the camels. Most of the 'available' Asian antelopes can be mixed with camels; certainly Blackbuck (surely the most likely candidate?), Nilgai and Persian Gazelles all can.
 
i've looked on ISIS and wmsp seems to have a huge herd of Blackbuck now (59). It says Knowsley only have 8 atm which is a change form a few months ago. Can wmsp cope with so many blackbuck?
 
lechweoryx said:
i've looked on ISIS and wmsp seems to have a huge herd of Blackbuck now (59). It says Knowsley only have 8 atm which is a change form a few months ago. Can wmsp cope with so many blackbuck?
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I'd say its a good thing at least one Park has a large and flourishing herd. It acts as a reservoir for other zoos/parks to receive animals from. All too often a small group stops breeding or the occassional young die and the group dies out- example; Whipsnade.
 
Yes - rather a good one too.


(needs a map though!)
 
Pertinax said:
I'd say its a good thing at least one Park has a large and flourishing herd. It acts as a reservoir for other zoos/parks to receive animals from. All too often a small group stops breeding or the occassional young die and the group dies out- example; Whipsnade.
Click to expand...

Chester's herd is gradually decreasing. Down to 1.9 now.
 
lechweoryx said:
Chester's herd is gradually decreasing. Down to 1.9 now.
Click to expand...

This can often be down to inbreeding. A zoo herd remains 'closed' without new unrelated animals being brought in. The mortality rate of the young increases so they don't replace those dying of old age. Result; decreasing herd size until they die off completely.

Its surprising how rarely zoos bother to deliberately add unrelated animals to existing herds of deer and antelope. Some of these (e.g. ZSL/Whipsnade) ungulate herds are extremely inbred.
 
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