ZSL Whipsnade Zoo ZSL Whipsnade Zoo News 2024
- Thread starter Rosie183
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Thanks, some very good numbers there. I'd love to visit Whipsnade again in the future, only visited once in 2017 and didn't manage to get around the whole place!
Ugh...I do hate that sort of stuff ...but I guess its age -related.
If you want to see the Deer at Whipsnade, head directly to the Asian Plains Drive-through area. You really need a car as you can't enter as a pedestrian, though there's a bus-ride(in busier periods only?) that will take you through as well, though probably not as satisfying as being in a car. Barasingha and Hog deer are now in paddock(s) nearer the Cheetahs. The only exception is Reindeer which are on other side of the park.
ZooTierListe records that Whipsnade has had Indian sambar although, frustratingly, provides no further detail.
Like "Pertinax", I have no recollection of ever seeing sambar at Whipsnade. I'll search through the ZSL Annual Reports over the weekend to see if I can find more information.
I can confirm that Whipsnade has kept sambar, as the ZSL Annual Report for 1951 records that a sambar was born at Whipsnade that year. Surprisingly, I can find no reference, in earlier Annual Reports, to the parent sambar arriving at Whipsnade.
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
So did Banham in their deer field and the farmland beyond, and South Lakes apparently with Zoo Licencing issues; Shepreth too when they tried to keep ex-Banham animals on an island in a pond, and they promptly swam off and escaped.
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
A large herd in a small hard-standing enclosure years ago at Christopher Marler's Flamingo Gardens, opposite a pair of Dall Sheep.
And before they were moved to the Cotton Terraces, London Zoo's group of blackbuck was kept in the old Antelope House, from where the blackbuck had access to a large paddock roughly where the Casson Building now stands. (This enclosure is called the Eland Paddock on some old zoo maps.)
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
The reason I heard for the yaks moving was instead the fact that one of the bulls figured out how to bypass the cattle grid, and before they could isolate him the rest of the herd had learnt as well through watching him. Hence the vacant onager enclosure was an ideal place to move them, being fully enclosed on all sides. I agree that the Onager leaving always seemed like a fairly strange and unnecessary choice.
According to Lever's "Naturalized Animals of Britain and Ireland" colonies also persisted for several years outside the boundary of the Isle of Wight Zoo and close to an unnamed wildlife park in Cornwall which I assume was Paradise Park.
I’d be very surprised if that was Paradise Park!
There is often a perfectly logical or simple reason why some animal moves get made which may seem odd when that reason isn't known. So thanks for explaining the probably reason behind the Yak move. And at the same time it filled an otherwise empty enclosure.
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I wonder if 'Isle of Wight' zoo is a euphamism for Robin Hill Park- also on the Island. The IOW zoo itself is located on Sandown seafront and seems perhaps a less likely venue for prairie dogs, though still perfectly possible of course.
Cornwall- Paradise Park does sound somewhat unlikely. Perhaps somewhere like Porfells?
Yes, I had that book and I am sure it was Robin Hill not the existing IOW zoo.
From my own memory, there were several stories of escapees/animals having been released, especially when it was closing, that I was told by various people at the time. So long ago that I don't recall the details now.
Incidentally, I worked many years later with an ex IOW copper, who told me they had a long history of ABC sightings/calls on the island, and they were kept pretty quiet. He had no way of knowing this was something I had an interest in at the time, so I'm sure it wasn't a wind up.
No idea where they could have come from, but may have also dated back to the law change in the 1970s when people let their privately held cats loose, supposedly.
From my own memory, there were several stories of escapees/animals having been released, especially when it was closing, that I was told by various people at the time. So long ago that I don't recall the details now.
Incidentally, I worked many years later with an ex IOW copper, who told me they had a long history of ABC sightings/calls on the island, and they were kept pretty quiet. He had no way of knowing this was something I had an interest in at the time, so I'm sure it wasn't a wind up.
No idea where they could have come from, but may have also dated back to the law change in the 1970s when people let their privately held cats loose, supposedly.
Another species that did escape from Robin Hill before it closed was a group of Fallow Deer. Anywhere else in UK this wouldn't be an issue but there are no wild deer on the IOW and as a result hazel coppices and associated wildlife e.g. dormice are said to flourish. The Fallow deer increased a bit before they were 'dealt with'( i.e.shot). I think Wallabies would have been another likely one too.
Saw the three Banteng in the enclosure on the right as you enter passage through Asia yesterday.
Oh awesome! Don’t suppose you got a photo? No worries Ir not!
I wonder where they will be exhibited permanently?
No, I didn't i'm afraid. But they were in the enclosure which previously housed the anoa and babirusa prior to their moves over to Monkey Forest. It can just about be reached on foot ahead of the cattle grid. Interestingly they had attached small strips of red and white barrier tape at frequent intervals along the fencing. Every metre or two. Presume this is to prevent injury whilst they acclimatise to their new surroundings. Hopefully they can get a bull in and build up a sizeable herd.