Woburn Safari Park woburn elephant conservation centre

kiang

kiang

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
looking at a picture of an asian elephant on flickr i saw in the background a new building going up, i think this could be the woburn elephant centre a 75 acre! facility with an 18 acre lake for bathing and a 16 acre paddock for a couple of bulls, the female group is hoped to number around 12-16 cows. There will also be an amphitheatre for displays, a 30 seat lecture theatre and audio visual interpretation throughout. Without doubt a huge undertaking, they currently have 1 bull and 2 females.Woburn Centre for Conservation & Education
 
They seemed to have had just the 3 of them for quite a while now, wonder when they will add more in to this herd, is there any updated info on them
 
Presumably when the big new facility is finished. And yes, they've had a bull and two females for a pretty long time now.

I imagine this will mean another importation of youngish females(and male?) from Burmese or Thai logging camps. The supply seems plentiful enough still.
 
what is the demographics of the centre, and after reading there site (no actually individual ele info- again bad sites lol) is it located near another zoo?
 
I can't answer the first part.

WOburn is only 12 miles from Whipsnade- probably the two nearest big animal collections in the UK. Woburn opened the Safari Park about 1960's. It has always proved competition for visitors with Whipsnade. If Woburn enlarge their elephant herd, there will be two Asian breeding herds only 12 miles apart..
 
that would be great, and if they get there act togther, they can exchange animals for enrichment, breeding etc, so manage one herd instead of 2! And excuse my studpidity but is 12 miles about 20 km. lol
 
Yep, 12 miles would be about 2Okm.. Woburn and Whipsnade are extremely close distancewise. BUT I'm not sure how close they would be as far as co-operatively managing elephants.... Some Zoos and Safari Parks in UK (and probably elsewhere too) have particular 'friends' in the zoo circle and others they don't deal with. I don't know the situation between these two but there must be a strong element of competition for visitors, given their locations.
 
Planned imports

Surely it is an exciting project for Woburn to invest heavily in Asian elephant conservation breeding. Do any of you know where the stock for the enclosure will come from (apart from their young 1.2)?

Talk of minimum of 20 elephants implies that no EEP Asian elephant animals can be sufficiently sourced. Will this be a similar to Koeln Zoo in Germany importing elephants from work camps and rescue centers in India, Malaysia and Thailand?
 
I would imagine Woburn would definately expect to source their elephants from Burma, Thailand etc rather than any zoos- nowhere else could supply that sort of number. But see on another threat about Bangkok saying they are planning to restrict export of elephants from Thailand....

A pity Twycross's four females could not be sent to Woburn as soon as this is complete...
 
Grant that is a GREAT idea, to send Twycross female to woburn, rather than just having a non breeding female herd with breeding age females seems to be a real waste, Grant maybe you could point that out to them? what do you say
 
Forget it.... If I do that, as a private individual, they will certainly be put 'on the spot' as they will be unwilling to agree. All that would happen is they'll regard me as a hostile and be less willing in future to answer my questions and queries ;)

However, if such a suggestion was to come from an official source like the elephant EEP they might be forced to take the idea more seriously. We can live in hope....
 
Believe me, I would mention it if I thought it would do any good, but I know all I would get would be a polite 'official' statement about how the EEP make the decisions regarding such movements etc. (in other words, mind my own business...;))

We can only hope pressure will be put on them to remedy this situation as it IS highly unsatisfactory. I believe it has arisen because Twycross is a comparatively small zoo and historically does not have a large number of larger animals. Possibly through lack of experience they feel keeping an Elephant bull is one risky step they don't want to take (especially as their first female killed a keeper years ago) But they shouldn't really have imported the three young females without considering the long term future for them if they didn't inend to get a bull. Producing two good female calves from the matings at Chester has highlighted the situation further.

Nor do I understand why they haven't didn't repeat the procedure
of sending the females back to Chester- probably because it would mean separating the calves from their mothers. But there's a third unmated female (NJ) who has never gone to Chester- she could certainly have gone anyway.
 
It just seems to me that they could do much better than what they are doing now, its a damm waste of good breeding females with an endangered species, sending them to Woburn would be an exellent move, I hope they can sort this out before much more time is lossed
 
Mark. Your thinking is along exactly the same lines as mine about this....

See the Twycross elephant thread too...:(
 
I saw on the net that the Woburn elephant breeding centre is due to open in the spring of 2007???? any news on this?
 
Mark,

Nobody knows for sure I guess. I have written to WCCE today and hope to get back to all of you soon with some answers.

Someone asked earlier about the individual elephants:
M Raja (wildborn 1994 Jaldapara Sanctuary, India)
F Chandrika (wildborn 1992 Jaldapara Sanctuary, India)
F Damini (wildborn 1994 Jaldapara Sanctuary, India)

No current history or anecdotes on breeding behaviour at Woburn, allthough both the male and females are sexually mature.
 
These are about the 'lowest profile' elephants in the UK...

I know they take the two females for long daily walks in the grounds and to bathe in one of the lakes. You can pay a massive fee and accompany them on an elephant 'trek'.

Obviously the bull doesn't participate in any of this. So far he hasn't had an opportunity to be useful in the UK population either....
 
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