Zoo Basel Zoo Basel News

Over the last 3 months, 3 Southern lesser kudus (Tragelaphus imberbis australis) were born (one per month).
On the 28th of October a female was born to 3-year old female Tatu.
On the 9th of November another female was born to 3-year old female Berinka.
On the 3rd of December a male was born to 11-year old female Jina.
The father of all the young is the 10-year old male Leopold.

Source:
Instagram of Zoo Basel (23/12/2023)
 
A Visayan warty pig was killed by the male Indian rhino. The rhino will remain indoors until his enclosure is made more secure for the pigs, they will continue with the mix. A pair of warty pigs has been living without issues in this enclosure since 2017. The animal killed was a female which arrived just 2 days earlier from Besancon. This is the first serious incidence with these species in any zoo (the species are mixed in multiple other zoos too).

Information zum tödlichen Vorfall auf der Nashornanlage
 
lintworm said:
A Visayan warty pig was killed by the male Indian rhino. The rhino will remain indoors until his enclosure is made more secure for the pigs, they will continue with the mix. A pair of warty pigs has been living without issues in this enclosure since 2017. The animal killed was a female which arrived just 2 days earlier from Besancon. This is the first serious incidence with these species in any zoo (the species are mixed in multiple other zoos too).

Information zum tödlichen Vorfall auf der Nashornanlage
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I am not surprised. There was a lot of tension during my visit in September 2023: the 2 female rhinos, each with a calf, were constantly chasing each other, with different charges. I saw zookeepers intervene several times.
 
JurassicMax said:
Last year Rio Pescado stubfoot toads (Atelopus balios) arrived at the zoo, in the fall they already had laid eggs. Currently the zoo has 230 little frogs of this species.

On the 18th of January 3 Central European wild boars (Sus scrofa scrofa) were born.

Sources:
Instagram of Zoo Basel (07/02/2024)
Instagram of Zoo Basel (07/02/2024)
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A first for Basel Zoo: Rio Pescado stubfoot toads breeding and hatching. The other participating institution ex situ and the driver behind eipanding the project with Citizen Science project is Zoo Karlsruhe.

Link to Citizen Science project document:
Rio-Pescado-Stummelfußkröte - Citizen Conservation
 
Recently 2 more b&r sengi were born. The zoo only received a female in September, but the pair (male from Rotterdam, female from Leipzig) have now raised 4 young.

Mehrfacher Rotschulter-Rüsselhündchen-Nachwuchs

Recently a 2 year old male Grant's zebra arrived from Gelsenkirchen to be paired with the resident 4 females. Another arrival are 2 5 year old female Somali wild ass from Attica, Greece, which have already been introduced to the 1.2.1 already kept

Eingewöhnung neuer Zootiere

The 2023 annual report has also been published (including a complete stocklist), some interesting snippets:
- The zoo has a fund of 17 million CHF which was already collected for the scrapped aquarium (due to a referendum), which is now earmarked for the expansion of the zoo on the current parking lot in front of the entrance
- They have an additional 7.5 million CHF fund earmarked for Asia/bears. No information is given as to where they plan this (though the location of the bison, reindeer and nutria enclosures is a solid guess), the zoo doesn't have any bears currently.
- The zoo donated 333.400 CHF to in situ conservation projects
- The zoo received African grey parrots, tricolored parrotfinch, blue-faced parrotfinch as new species (all not yet on show, other new species already on show in the bird house/Vivarium were mentioned last year already)
- Species lost include eider, common goldeneye, diamond dove, Lake Patzcuaro salamander, 2 species of poison dart frog
- The zoo's colony of sociable weavers is slowly ageing and dying out, no breeding has taken place for years now and I do sincerely hope a young colony can be founded again...
 
lintworm said:
- The zoo has a fund of 17 million CHF which was already collected for the scrapped aquarium (due to a referendum), which is now earmarked for the expansion of the zoo on the current parking lot in front of the entrance .
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Why has the aquarium been scrapped? It is one of the best parts of the zoo
 
Dassie rat said:
Why has the aquarium been scrapped? It is one of the best parts of the zoo
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The original Ozeanium plan, which ended up getting scrapped.

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For those who might(!) be confused now:

The people of Basel refused in a voting the construction of a brand new Aquarium/Ozeanarium (rather: the plans for it) outside of the current zoo grounds. However, the well known old "Vivarium" with fishes, reptiles, invertebrates and a few amphibians inside the zoo right behind the main entrance still exist.
 
Zoo successively puts about 30 short videos of everyday work behind the scenes. No frills. From a mundane storage of gardening tools to a surgery of an elephant shrew. Unfortunately, the commentary is only in German and French, but the visuals are often self-explaining.

Zoochatters who thought about working at a zoo might be especially interested.

I think other zoos could copy it. Such videos are relatively easy to make. It is a good way to bind people to their home zoo, and also prevent misconceptions about zoos.

Videos will be progressively made available until the end of the year:
Hinter den Kulissen
 
Zoo Basel sent it's whole troop (9 animals) of Geoffrey's spider monkeys to Skaerup Zoo in Denmark. Their enclosure will now be remodelled for yellow-breasted capuchins. In the future they want to focus on one of the 3 spider monkey species for which an EEP exists.

Abschied von den Geoffroy-Klammeraffen

I am glad they get rid of spider monkeys given their enclosure was too small for them, capuchins are a better choice. But once the new spider monkey species arrives, the capuchins will move out, so there will still be spider monkeys in what is one of the smallest exhibits for this genus in a major European zoo.


The first year of the new bird house was a success, with breeding results for marbled teal, waldrapp, violaceous euphonia, blue-backed grassquit, black-naped fruit dove, blue-crowned hanging parrots, red siskins, socorro pigeons, chestnut-backed thrushes and white-rumped shama. The red-tailed laughingthrush have left the collection, but scissor-billed starlings have come on show since.

There has also been renewed success in the pelican colony, with 2 great white pelicans and 1 Dalmatian pelican fledged and 2 great white pelicans still on the nest.

Ein Jahr Vogelwelten
 
The zoo has (today!) a Zoo Night, in this 150 year anniversary year there are 2 of these events. The zoo is open until about midnight, with keepers talking, extra bars and possibility to enter backdoors and stalls of rhinos and gorillas, among others.

The zoo will release the new 15 year master plan next month, the only thing revealed is more space for animals, including giraffes.

My private wish list (completely not connected to the zoo): 1. larger and more educative children playground with some animal education than the simple climbing frame now. 2. Spider monkeys would go to the primate island near the restaurant. 3. Redeveloping the wide area of the current bison, wild boar, owls and mouflon. Currently this area has no rare animals and little visitor interest. Maybe giraffes there, or bears, tigers? 4. Replacing long-tailed macaques with an endangered monkey, maybe even Francois langurs which are rock dwellers. LTM are common with huge introduced invasive populations which don't count to the IUCN status.
 
Jurek7 said:
The zoo has (today!) a Zoo Night, in this 150 year anniversary year there are 2 of these events. The zoo is open until about midnight, with keepers talking, extra bars and possibility to enter backdoors and stalls of rhinos and gorillas, among others.

The zoo will release the new 15 year master plan next month, the only thing revealed is more space for animals, including giraffes.

My private wish list (completely not connected to the zoo): 1. larger and more educative children playground with some animal education than the simple climbing frame now. 2. Spider monkeys would go to the primate island near the restaurant. 3. Redeveloping the wide area of the current bison, wild boar, owls and mouflon. Currently this area has no rare animals and little visitor interest. Maybe giraffes there, or bears, tigers? 4. Replacing long-tailed macaques with an endangered monkey, maybe even Francois langurs which are rock dwellers. LTM are common with huge introduced invasive populations which don't count to the IUCN status.
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Bison tell a good conservation success story, Mouflon are magnificent and not common here in UK, so I enjoyed seeing the Basel group. I probably agree on the primate issue……except the macaques are a good exhibit and fulfil the public perception of an ABC ‘monkey’
 
FBBird said:
Bison tell a good conservation success story, Mouflon are magnificent and not common here in UK, so I enjoyed seeing the Basel group. I probably agree on the primate issue……except the macaques are a good exhibit and fulfil the public perception of an ABC ‘monkey’
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Yes - but Mouflon might not be seen as quite so 'special' on the mainland...!
I had a quick look on ZIMs, and whilst only 2 UK zoos are listed, there are no less than 58 collections with them in the rest of Europe, some with large herds; and there must be many other zoos and wild-parks with them which do not use ZIMs.
 
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