ZSL Whipsnade Zoo ZSL Whipsnade Zoo 2019

M

monster

Well-Known Member
bison still there today. when I asked one of the keepers about time frame for him moving he replied " what move?"
 
Visited briefly yesterday but only saw 5 Hunting dogs. Am sure there were originally 6, does anyone have an update?
 
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I went around the time it first opened and was told the plan was to let the girls sort out their pecking order before the dominant female would be introduced to a male, but that’d be two years back now, so wether there’s an issue in the pack structure still or it’s simply taking a while to source a male I don’t know.

Side note: I spent a while trying to peer into the old Bird Garden yesterday and I was wondering if anyone had any photographs of when it was open? I’d love to get a better sense of the place.
 
BillEel said:
I went around the time it first opened and was told the plan was to let the girls sort out their pecking order before the dominant female would be introduced to a male, but that’d be two years back now, so wether there’s an issue in the pack structure still or it’s simply taking a while to source a male I don’t know.

Side note: I spent a while trying to peer into the old Bird Garden yesterday and I was wondering if anyone had any photographs of when it was open? I’d love to get a better sense of the place.
Click to expand...

The Bird Garden was always a bit random in my opinion. Obviously it was the old children's farm but apart from a big aviary for Macaws it just seemed a bit of a hodgepodge. Do miss it though, I remember when the penguins were kept there during the work on the penguin pool. For years there was also a display of old zoo maps and possible designs which always interested me!
 
Still birds, from the outside I managed to get a look at the blue cranes, whistling ducks and what I’m fairly sure was a Sumatran laughingthrush, but tantalisingly you can’t actually get in there.
 
BillEel said:
Side note: I spent a while trying to peer into the old Bird Garden yesterday and I was wondering if anyone had any photographs of when it was open? I’d love to get a better sense of the place.
Click to expand...

The Bird Garden was the original Children’s Zoo. As you walked in you would have seen stables and a round pool, which was originally a ‘pit’ for displaying bear cubs!
Carrying on, there were/are a variety of aviaries, the largest of which housed “Apache” the Bald eagle. The path continues anticlockwise, past a waterfowl pond, and brings you back to the Blue cranes.

The garden was closed a few years ago to make it an off-show breeding area, the zoo having discovered that excitable, screaming children running around was counterproductive to the birds breeding!
 
Of course! Counterproductive indeed. Thank you for the insight. Still it’s a shame I don’t think I ever got to visit it. It would be good to see some of the species held there go back on show at some point down the line.
 
Correct, it would be Donna. This is a rather exciting birth for the zoo, as it will be their first second generation ZSL bred birth, and a genetically valuable animal to boot, as all of the parents and grandparents to this calf are under-represented founders to the European population!
 
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