West Midland Safari and Leisure Park West midland safari park

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I knew Paradise wildlife park had a pair, but the female was put down due to a spinal injury. When did they get new lionesses then?

It doesn't surprise me that they have attempted to breed their lions, hardly the best known of zoo's is it.
 
Just found something regarding the original 4 white lions at WMSP...

"Britain's first pride of white lions went on display in 2007 at the "Kingdom of the White Lions" exhibit at West Midlands Safari Park in Worcestershire. The 4 lions were obtained from Kruger National Park, in South Africa and are 16-month-old male Mubuto, his sister Natasha, their 15 month old half-sister Johanne and an unrelated 19 month old female, Maryn. Two of the white lions are directly descended from Tombi. Two new white lion cubs were born at the west Midland Safari Park in England in 2007."

Just shows the conservation value going on here.... breeding brothers and sisters.....
 
If it's possible to obtain pure-bred WHITE lions from African parks, why don't zoos do this with normal-coloured animals? Are whipsnade's pure or just african hybrids?
 
johnstoni said:
If it's possible to obtain pure-bred WHITE lions from African parks, why don't zoos do this with normal-coloured animals? Are whipsnade's pure or just african hybrids?
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I believe Whipsnade's lions came from West Midlands - so far from pure.
 
Cape Buffalo photos

Finally got round to uploading a couple of my Cape Buffalo photos from the day they were right up against the road side of the enclosure. They are in the WMSP gallery. Hope you like them.:)
 
Paulkarli08 said:
Just found something regarding the original 4 white lions at WMSP...

"Britain's first pride of white lions went on display in 2007 at the "Kingdom of the White Lions" exhibit at West Midlands Safari Park in Worcestershire. The 4 lions were obtained from Kruger National Park, in South Africa and are 16-month-old male Mubuto, his sister Natasha, their 15 month old half-sister Johanne and an unrelated 19 month old female, Maryn. Two of the white lions are directly descended from Tombi. Two new white lion cubs were born at the west Midland Safari Park in England in 2007."

Just shows the conservation value going on here.... breeding brothers and sisters.....
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Even if all of the white lions in captivity were founder animals, this does not mean that it would be a good 'pure' group to breed with. All of the white lions are descended from an inbred population in South Africa that throws out white individuals on a regular basis. White animals could be legitimatly utilized in a general captive southern African (ie krugeri) breeding program, but not all from one small area. The only reason that zoos continue to breed and display white lions is, purely and simply, because they are white.

Meanwhile I thought conservationally-minded UK zoos were generally concentrating on Asians. Surely there isn't enough holding spaces for krugeri as well (not to mention the Barbary experiment).
 
I agree. My point was that, if zoos like Whipsnade were going to go back into exhibiting African lions, as Marwell plan to, why would they just hold hybrids when they could potentially acquire a pure subspecies, as in...if WMSP can get some just to have some white lions, why wouldn't a more 'serious' collection do the same?

I guess the answer is that captive ex-situ breeding of large cats holds very little (if any) reintroduction potential....so whipsnade can use hybrids as an equally effective tool for african lion conservation as they would obtaining pure animals.
 
johnstoni said:
I guess the answer is that captive ex-situ breeding of large cats holds very little (if any) reintroduction potential....so whipsnade can use hybrids as an equally effective tool for african lion conservation as they would obtaining pure animals.
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That said, I think it is still more beneficial to propagate pure sub-species in zoos. It's hard to say why- because as you say there's little chance of reintroduction- it just seems a waste of resources to go on breeding generic hybrids.

I guess your point is not that it isn't worth breeding pure ssp., it's that it's not worth going to extreme lengths (i.e. importing from Africa) just to be able to.
 
It was indeed, but then it would seem that the most successful release of large cats occurred here in the UK at the arrival of the DWA act....so it's obviously possible. Mabye our pumas and leopards will one day become a model for how to do it successfully in range countries!
 
johnstoni said:
I agree. My point was that, if zoos like Whipsnade were going to go back into exhibiting African lions, as Marwell plan to, why would they just hold hybrids when they could potentially acquire a pure subspecies, as in...if WMSP can get some just to have some white lions, why wouldn't a more 'serious' collection do the same?

I guess the answer is that captive ex-situ breeding of large cats holds very little (if any) reintroduction potential....so whipsnade can use hybrids as an equally effective tool for african lion conservation as they would obtaining pure animals.
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One probably needs to ask the question - why is Whipsnade/Marwell housing generic African lions rather than the selected subspecies persica? [Actually I thought Whipsnade were going in for 'Barbary' lions. Am I wrong?]

If you were to ask the public then I would imagine the response would be that an Asian lion doesn't look significantly different to an 'African' lion. The only reason to maintain the pure Asian lion in preference would be to manage a back-up captive population to those in the Gir forest. The generic Africans should be only managed as a display species, and to be phased out if enough Asians can be bred/imported. That is the theory.

Keeping the white lions just makes a mockery of captive management unless they are purely kept for educational purposes (ie. as an example of recessive genetics - which they aren't), and thus they are in the same vein as the generics as purely display. I therefore don't see anymore value in keep pure, but inbred, white krugeri versus keeping generic Africans. The latter obviously look more like a 'true' lion. I do see the value of managing the Asians, only because the UK's holding capacity for a breeding population of lions should be restricted to one subspecies. The same argument could apply to managing generic common chimps for display as well as a breeding program of bonobos. i have heard of the same discussion applied to Rothschild's giraffe, Sumatran tigers and Chapman's zebra versus the mixed bags that many zoos maintain.

It is only when some zoos decide that white freaks are the way to go, that it causes the problems - they may be from a purebred subspecies, but they have limited genetic value in a captive breeding program.
 
I wasn't saying that Whipsnade should have acquired white lions, only that, if it is that easy for a UK collection to import a pure african subspecies (ie WMSP), I don't see the barrier to a more serious collection like whipsnade doing the same, albeit with 'normal'-coloured, genetically-healthy animals, especially given the conservation message of their African lion exhibit. (although, I did ask originally whether the white animals could contribute to a Krugeri breeding programme, but if they are that inbred of course it would be pointless) But I agree that, if the purpose of the exhibit is simply to raise awareness about in situ projects, then any old hybrid will essentially do, as far as the majority of the public are concerned.

....which goes back to the debate of whether limited zoo space should be used more effectively, avoiding generic or common animals whenever alternatives exist, versus the arguably pointless process of propagating populations of animals for which reintroduction from an ex situ collection will be nigh on impossible.

Interstingly, I think the main issue now for the Asian lion EEP is a slowing down of breeding and the need for new bloodlines from India.

What did you mean about Chapman's zebra? That they are maintained by zoos that could be housing grevy's or mountain zebras, or that there are pure animals being mixed with generic individuals?
 
johnstoni said:
What did you mean about Chapman's zebra? That they are maintained by zoos that could be housing grevy's or mountain zebras, or that there are pure animals being mixed with generic individuals?
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I'm guessing that Tetrapod meant the latter, though Zebras confuse me a little. As I understand it, (correct me cos i'm probably wrong) Chapman's are a subspecies of Burchell's (which seem to be called Common Zebra these days). I'm sure there are some zoos breeding pure Chapman's with generic Burchell's.

Johnstoni, (or anyone) are there any subspecies of African Lion, that are in real need of any sort of conservation effort? (Other than fake barbary.Barbaries are the one example here where I think my views are different. Whilst, usually I'd say try and keep the subspecies separate and pure where possible, I don't think the case for barbaries is a very strong one at the minute. It doesn't seem as though they are real barbaries, so trying to keep them pure seems like a recipe for in-breeding. I think Longleat have used a 'barbary' male to breed within an already generic African Lion group- which is fine by me.)
 
Certainly the populations of Masai, West African, Angolan, and the Transvaal subspecies are considered under threat.

With the Barbary lion myth, there is a defininite trend towards much larger animals, often this is made as a comment on their distinct phenotype in relation to all other African lions in captivity, so if Port Lympne and the other collections globally maintaining these individuals were to come out with a plan to 'recreate' a barbary animal, should the range countries show an interest in establishing a population (which I doubt), I would have a great deal more respect for those institutions continuing to breed them.
 
johnstoni said:
Certainly the populations of Masai, West African, Angolan, and the Transvaal subspecies are considered under threat.

With the Barbary lion myth, there is a defininite trend towards much larger animals, often this is made as a comment on their distinct phenotype in relation to all other African lions in captivity, so if Port Lympne and the other collections globally maintaining these individuals were to come out with a plan to 'recreate' a barbary animal, should the range countries show an interest in establishing a population (which I doubt), I would have a great deal more respect for those institutions continuing to breed them.
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Like they did/are doing with Tarpan and stuff, you mean?

After I posted on here I went and had a look at lions on ISIS. There seem to be a fairly good captive population of pure Transvaal (esp. USA), and a few South Western (I think that might be Angolan off your list- something like P.l. Blenyburghi). Would be interesting to see a zoo keeping one of these and making something of it.
 
johnstoni said:
so if Port Lympne and the other collections globally maintaining these individuals were to come out with a plan to 'recreate' a barbary animal, should the range countries show an interest in establishing a population (which I doubt), I would have a great deal more respect for those institutions continuing to breed them.
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The original 'Barbary Lion' project was started in the 1970's by selecting lions from various zoos around Europe according to their similarity in appearance to Barbaries- mostly on the grounds of mane size and extent, possession of complete covering of belly hair etc. They were graded 1, 2 or 3 according to 'quality' and a number of zoos holding animals of the two higher grades joined a programme to breed from them and 'improve' their appearance. This phase of the project faltered and petered out however.

The more recent 'resurrected' phase (1990's-present time) seems chiefly to involve Lions descended from Rabat Zoo stock and this time around there doesn't seem to be any selection process at work- a much smaller number of zoos this time are keeping and breeding from this stock- despite scientific evidence which seems to prove it has no Barbary ancestry.
 
I still think it would have some value if, say, the range countries for the extinct barbary had the desire to try a reintroduction of a managed population, isolated from all other african lions, somewhere in the Atlas mountains. Then you could justifiably work towards creating a suitable phenotpye that may be able to cope with the habitat. But, of course, those zoos holding 'barbaries' aren't doing that, they're just tricking visitors into thinking they are seeing one of the rarest cats in the world.
 
johnstoni said:
I still think it would have some value if, say, the range countries for the extinct barbary had the desire to try a reintroduction of a managed population, isolated from all other african lions, somewhere in the Atlas mountains. Then you could justifiably work towards creating a suitable phenotpye that may be able to cope with the habitat. But, of course, those zoos holding 'barbaries' aren't doing that, they're just tricking visitors into thinking they are seeing one of the rarest cats in the world.
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I've been told that this is impossible- there isn't anywhere suitable.

While for the zoos concerned, the 'barbary' lion breeding project itself has now largely been shown to be a myth.
 
^Chris^ said:
I'm guessing that Tetrapod meant the latter, though Zebras confuse me a little. As I understand it, (correct me cos i'm probably wrong) Chapman's are a subspecies of Burchell's (which seem to be called Common Zebra these days). I'm sure there are some zoos breeding pure Chapman's with generic Burchell's.

Johnstoni, (or anyone) are there any subspecies of African Lion, that are in real need of any sort of conservation effort? (Other than fake barbary.Barbaries are the one example here where I think my views are different. Whilst, usually I'd say try and keep the subspecies separate and pure where possible, I don't think the case for barbaries is a very strong one at the minute. It doesn't seem as though they are real barbaries, so trying to keep them pure seems like a recipe for in-breeding. I think Longleat have used a 'barbary' male to breed within an already generic African Lion group- which is fine by me.)
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Yes specifically that there are herds/individuals of some types of Plains zebra in some regions (Australasian comes to mind) which to artificially create a more genetically diverse herd could be merged with groups of purebred Chapman's. All plains zebras are the same species Equus quagga which consists of 6 subspecies. This includes the Burchell's (no longer considered extinct) and the quagga (just considered an extinct Western Cape subspecies). The major differences are stripe patterns and there is a general cline from more heavily striped in East Africa (Grant's) to larger and less the further south you go. This is why the Quagga project has been fairly successful at recreating quaggas as there are individuals of Chapman's and Burchell's that show features of the true quagga.

The Barbary lion project works on a similar basis, although the genetics are a little hazy.
 
Pertinax said:
I've been told that this is impossible- there isn't anywhere suitable.

While for the zoos concerned, the 'barbary' lion breeding project itself has now largely been shown to be a myth.
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I would find it unlikely that there is no where that Barbary lions could be released. North Africa is a large area. However just like the Scottish wolf debate it would be unlikely that the locals would be in favour of free-roaming lions in their backyard. They would almost certainly be behind fences.

Is the myth with most zoos just keeping large lions with luxurient manes, and not actually connected to the royal Ethiopian group?
 
^Chris^ said:
After I posted on here I went and had a look at lions on ISIS. There seem to be a fairly good captive population of pure Transvaal (esp. USA), and a few South Western (I think that might be Angolan off your list- something like P.l. Blenyburghi). Would be interesting to see a zoo keeping one of these and making something of it.
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Question is still - does the UK have enough holding spaces for a second subspecies of lion, and would the public (or even you or I) notice the difference? I suspect that lion subspecies delineation is poorly defined. I can see a reason why the Barbary/Asian group may be genetically different after thousands of years split off by the Sahara, but the the Sub-Saharan population was linked pre-modern humans.

I usually agree with splitters on taxonomy, but poorly defined subspecies is not one of them.
 
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