Woburn Safari Park Woburn news 2013

Nisha

Nisha

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Can start 2013 with news of an incoming arrival at Woburn: Meet Elton, a 19 month old male Amur Tiger who's due to arrive at Woburn from Ostrava in the next few weeks
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Been to Woburn today. Lots of shows but a couple of questions for regulars:

One of the bears was being kept separate, any idea why?
Is it true there is a new male lion? There was an impressive looking chap being kept in the separate enclosure.
 
mazfc said:
Been to Woburn today. Lots of shows but a couple of questions for regulars:

One of the bears was being kept separate, any idea why?
Is it true there is a new male lion? There was an impressive looking chap being kept in the separate enclosure.
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The "new" lion is Kasanga. He arrived in early 2012 but introductions are still ongoing (hence why he's currently kept seperate)
 
Maguari said:
Now this is very interesting news, suggesting as it does a long-term plan to keep the species. Excellent.
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Agreed, this is excellent news, i had really hoped they wouldn't stop keeping the bears, that is probably my favourite part of the park!
 
Slightly off topic but did the bears share with the monkeys back in the 90's? I'm sure I saw a bear and monkey climbing the same tree and I was definitely in a car at the time, the only place that I can picture in my head is Woburn. Am I going crazy? :confused:
 
Brum said:
Am I going crazy? :confused:
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Possibly.

But the bears did indeed live in the Monkey Jungle previously (in the Rhesus Macaque days). :D
 
Maguari said:
Now this is very interesting news, suggesting as it does a long-term plan to keep the species. Excellent.
Click to expand...

It says this male is 8 years old. Anyone know how many other Bears they have, their ages and sexes? Will breeding be possible now where it wasn't before, or is he just to make up numbers?
 
Is all of the work on the sea lion area finished now? Having had a look at the website it appears there is some kind of 3D cinema thing in the building now too. Have the sea lion shows been affected much by this? It seems like a bit of a strange combination, obviously cheaper than building a separate cinema but from the one photo I saw, it seems like the room is quite dark for the sea lion shows.
 
Brum said:
Slightly off topic but did the bears share with the monkeys back in the 90's? I'm sure I saw a bear and monkey climbing the same tree and I was definitely in a car at the time, the only place that I can picture in my head is Woburn. Am I going crazy? :confused:
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Yes, they did. Until the wolf/bear reserve was created the American Black Bears shared the Monkey Reserve. Going back far enough I think that Grizzly Bears were kept in that reserve for a while, based on a photo I can remember seeing in a guidebook from about 1972. Maybe they proved too destructive to either vehicles or monkeys.
 
Pertinax said:
It says this male is 8 years old. Anyone know how many other Bears they have, their ages and sexes? Will breeding be possible now where it wasn't before, or is he just to make up numbers?
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IIRC they have been actively preventing breeding prior to now.
 
The bears and monkeys shared the reserve till about 2004 when the bears were moved, at the time nine bears were moved I think, can't be any more than about three nowadays. From what I remember I think most were pretty old, possibly remainders of the original group.

Weren't the monkeys all culled because of an outbreak of an illness? About 10-15 years ago now? And then they gradually restocked it with rarer species.
 
Riziki said:
Weren't the monkeys all culled because of an outbreak of an illness? About 10-15 years ago now? And then they gradually restocked it with rarer species.
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I think that they may have happened at WMSP, not 100% so don't go spreading it around! :p
I also know that Longleat had issues with their rhesus macaques which is why they went from 'drive-through' to 'drive-past'.
 
Riziki said:
Weren't the monkeys all culled because of an outbreak of an illness? About 10-15 years ago now? And then they gradually restocked it with rarer species.
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I believe this occurred at more than one Park and involved Rhesus monkeys. I believe whatever it was meant new rules about allowing Macaques, or their saliva, direct air contact with people resulted in the monkey drive-throughs with Rhesus became unworkable. I think at least one large troop were destroyed, possibly two.
 
As far as I know Brum, this was something that probably had a fair lot of press interest, so spreading it around not as such!

Pertinax I think you are right, Woburn did definately have Rhesus Macaques and they all dissapeared within that time frame, making for obvious reasons.

And a tiny bit of research found the answer...

BBC News | UK | Park culls monkey colony
 
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