Zoo News Digest 14th August 2016
(ZooNews 935)
(ZooNews 935)
Orangutan Portrait is a piece of digital artwork by Larry Linton which was uploaded on July 15th, 2011
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-orangutan-portrait-larry-linton.html
Peter Dickinson
elvinhow@gmail.com
Dear Colleague,
This week I posted
out a spoof link on the relationship between Orangutans and Red Haired people.
It was amusing and as we are in the run up to 'World Orangutan Day' I thought
it well worth posting and after all a little humor never goes amiss. It attracted
a massive amount of views. I am happy that most people enjoyed it…..however
some people actually believed the article was serious. Others declared it was a
fake…of course it was! I don't know about you but I find this extremely
disturbing.
As Taman Safari is
hosting the next SEAZA Conference I along with others are wondering what they
will do about the posing with Orangutans and Tigers? Will it be all swept under
the carpet, hidden away, for the duration of the Conference? The real irony of
the situation is that during the last SEAZA conference in Singapore the
directors of Taman Safari were the adjudicators of the workshop I attended on
this very subject.
I note that now the
Indonesian Government are preparing guidelines for zoos with the help of the
Indonesian Zoo Association. That's great news except I would question which of
the zoos will have the strongest say. Sadly if they follow the lead of some the
situation then the situation is not going to improve one iota. They need to
embrace the guidelines of BIAZA and the AZA and build upon them. I note the
article on the story states "obliges the zoos to recruit permanent
veterinarians". I think this is a great idea as long as they are not going
to follow the direction of some other Asian zoos by believing that 'hiring more
vets' will solve their problems. It won't. It is trained, caring professional Zoo Keepers who keep zoos running efficiently.
Sadly we have yet
another zookeeper badly injured by a big cat. Yet again this appears to be a
case of 'keeper error'. I do hope that she makes a full recovery. We all make
mistakes, and we learn from them. In my personal experience some of the very
best keepers I know have made major mistakes and given that second chance have
become better than the best. They know who they are.
I
wonder about the Humboldt Penguins in Mumbai. Fish scarce in the market and so
they have to eat " the penguins were being
fed fish like smelt, Bombay Duck and eel till now". Most Penguins I
know will turn up their beaks at anything out of the ordinary unless they are
starving.
Learning of the
Greenland Shark reaching 400 years of age I found extremely interesting and at
the same time very worrying. I can imagine that an interest has already been
stirred in soup from the species.
Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 26,100 'Like's' on Facebook and has a weekly reach often exceeding over 350,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 800 Zoos in 153+ countries? That the subscriber list reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.
Dear Colleague,
This week I posted
out a spoof link on the relationship between Orangutans and Red Haired people.
It was amusing and as we are in the run up to 'World Orangutan Day' I thought
it well worth posting and after all a little humor never goes amiss. It attracted
a massive amount of views. I am happy that most people enjoyed it…..however
some people actually believed the article was serious. Others declared it was a
fake…of course it was! I don't know about you but I find this extremely
disturbing.
As Taman Safari is
hosting the next SEAZA Conference I along with others are wondering what they
will do about the posing with Orangutans and Tigers? Will it be all swept under
the carpet, hidden away, for the duration of the Conference? The real irony of
the situation is that during the last SEAZA conference in Singapore the
directors of Taman Safari were the adjudicators of the workshop I attended on
this very subject.
I note that now the
Indonesian Government are preparing guidelines for zoos with the help of the
Indonesian Zoo Association. That's great news except I would question which of
the zoos will have the strongest say. Sadly if they follow the lead of some the
situation then the situation is not going to improve one iota. They need to
embrace the guidelines of BIAZA and the AZA and build upon them. I note the
article on the story states "obliges the zoos to recruit permanent
veterinarians". I think this is a great idea as long as they are not going
to follow the direction of some other Asian zoos by believing that 'hiring more
vets' will solve their problems. It won't. It is trained, caring professional Zoo Keepers who keep zoos running efficiently.
Sadly we have yet
another zookeeper badly injured by a big cat. Yet again this appears to be a
case of 'keeper error'. I do hope that she makes a full recovery. We all make
mistakes, and we learn from them. In my personal experience some of the very
best keepers I know have made major mistakes and given that second chance have
become better than the best. They know who they are.
I
wonder about the Humboldt Penguins in Mumbai. Fish scarce in the market and so
they have to eat " the penguins were being
fed fish like smelt, Bombay Duck and eel till now". Most Penguins I
know will turn up their beaks at anything out of the ordinary unless they are
starving.
Learning of the
Greenland Shark reaching 400 years of age I found extremely interesting and at
the same time very worrying. I can imagine that an interest has already been
stirred in soup from the species.
Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 26,100 'Like's' on Facebook and has a weekly reach often exceeding over 350,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 800 Zoos in 153+ countries? That the subscriber list reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.
Myths surrounding Isle of Man’s wild wallabies
Throughout the
duration of the wallaby project last year, I encountered some Manx myths
surrounding the origin and impact of the wallabies. One of the most mysterious
aspects of the wallaby story is their origin. When talking to some people about
where the wallabies came from, they are firm in their belief that they
originated from a private collection or from Glen Helen Zoo, rather than from
the Wildlife Park. As part of my project, I spent a lot of time going through
the newspaper archives at the Manx Museum and was unable to find any
substantive source for these claims. Certainly, there was one wallaby at Glen
Helen Zoo, named ‘Rufty Tufty’, but this wallaby was never reported as having
escaped. There were numerous wallaby escapes reported from the Curraghs
Wildlife Park, including ‘Wanda’ the wallaby who escaped shortly after the park
opened and returned later that year. One of the most documented incidents
occurred in 1989 when eight wallabies dug under their enclosure and escaped.
Unfortunately, the story of the wallabies thins out from 1989. Both wallaby
escapes and sightings were infrequently repo
The menu at Dublin Zoo includes rose petals imported
from Holland with elephants eating the most
Dublin Zoo spent
over €550,000 a year feeding the 400 animals at the zoo.
Dieticians carefully
prepare all the food on the menu with some animals even given rose petals which
are imported from Holland.
Asian Elephants in
the zoo get through 200kg of food a day each.
Their diet takes up
most of the yearly budget with €231,000, is spent on vegetation including
branches, hay and straw.
Elephant Nandi stuck in Sri Lanka
There's an elephant
in the courtroom and Auckland Zoo's not saying a word.
Five-year-old Asian
elephant Nandi should already be in her new home at the zoo after being gifted
to Prime Minister John Key by Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena in
February.
But legal action by
more than a dozen community groups has delayed, and may even prevent, her from
leaving her current home at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.
The Dharmavijaya
Foundation is one of 18 groups who have petitioned the Sri Lankan Court of
Appeal in an attempt to keep Nandi in the country.
Their petition
reportedly states that Sri Lanka is one of few countries home to the rare and
vulnerable elephas maximus species, and that exporting elephants like Nandi to
be displayed for commercial purposes is ill-conceived.
A decision was
expected this month, but the court has now ordered Nandi remain in Sri Lanka
until at least after the next court appearance on September 27.
Local media have
indicated the case may become a test case for discontinuing the practice of
gifting Asian Elephants to foreign dignitaries and heads of state.
Auckland Zoo has
revealed it does not know the details of the petition currently before the
court, and will not comment on the case.
But zoo director
Jonathan Wilcken spoke out to correct claims Nandi's gifting was for commercial
purposes.
"Auckland Zoo
does not make money from having elephants, but it is through our elephant
programme that we can con
Lion confined after mauling Canadian zoo employee,
staff in shock
An employee at the
Canadian Granby Zoo located east of the city of Montreal suffered serious
injuries as she was attacked by a female lion. The animal was confined, a zoo
official said adding that the zoo staff is in a state of shock.
One of the zoo’s
three lions assaulted a female worker Monday morning as she was preparing to
feed the animals and entered the lions’ enclosure. The zoo was not yet open to
the public at that time.
The animal backed
off when another employee came to the worker’s rescue, using a fire hose. The
woman suffered a cervical fracture and several cuts on her back. She was
immediately hospitalized. Stephan Scalabrini, head of Granby's ambulance
services, said the woman is now in stable condition and conscious.
Rare giant panda cub born at Vienna zoo - mother's
fourth
Another giant panda
cub has been born at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo - the fourth time that mother
Yang Yang has conceived naturally.
Such an event is
very rare - most panda breeding centres resort to artificial insemination.
The cub's sex is not
known yet. The tiny pink creature - born at 05:05 local time (03:05 GMT) - is
just 10cm (four inches) long and weighs 100g (3.5 ounces).
Yang Yang's other
cubs are now in China, where an estimated 1,864 live in the wild.
The zoo's panda area
has been closed to let Yang Yang rear her cub in peace and the father, Long
Hui, is being kept away for the cub's safety.
Zoo director Dagmar
Schratte
Putting the King of the Sea in Cages
PHRI Officials in
North Bali Wants to Build Mid-Ocean Cages to Captivate Dolphins for Tourist
Visits
The chairman of the
Buleleng chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI),
Dewa Suardipa, is suggesting that middle ocean dolphin cages be built in
offshore locations near Lovina in order “optimize” the attractiveness of
dolphin tours promoted to North Bali tourist visitors.
Currently, hundreds
of domestic and international tourists visiting Bali’s north coast pay local
boatmen to take them out on early morning boat tours in search of the pods of
dolphins that live in the area.
Suardipa has the
view that local boats chasing after the wild dolphins cause stress on mammals
and that would be remedied by turning wild dolphins into captive dolphin held
in offshore cages. Continuing to describe his vision, Suardipa told Bali Post
that the caged dolphins then could be summoned with whistles and pieces of fish
t
Former aquarium temp worker: 'I didn't know' flipping
switch was hurting fish
A switch that
controls the life support systems for the Great Ocean Tank at the South
Carolina Aquarium were turned off several times last month, and now police are
looking into the issue.
Employees say it
happened the week of July 9, after a temporary worker was hired onto the
aquarium's janitorial service. Police report says the man was caught flipping
the switches after aquarium officials set up a surveillance camera.
Employees noticed on
July 10 that breakers had been switched off. Two alarms activated -- one
signifying a sand filter was down, another showing one of the pumps was off.
According to the
report, the electrician at the aquarium could not find any electrical issue,
and was able to rule out all issues except "manual manipulation."
Three more alarms
went off July 13.
After noticing five
more breakers were switched off on July 14, employees decided to place a camera
in the room. Within an hour, according to the report, a temporary employee was
observed turning off one of the panel breakers as he walked through the room.
As of the publication of this article, the 25-year-old temporary em
Lion Bites Worker In Canadian Zoo And Is Put In
Isolation
A lion bit a
Canadian zoo worker in the back on Monday as it was being prepared for
exhibition and has been put in isolation until the zoo decides what to do with
it, an official said.
The worker at the
Granby Zoo east of Montreal had a fracture, but was conscious and in stable
condition in hospital, director general Paul Gosselin told reporters.
Gosselin said the
zookeeper was bitten in the back.
"At this point
we don't have the exact diagnosis," he said.
It was not
immediately clear how the attack occurred, though Gosselin said the employee
had been preparing the female lion for exhibition before the incident. The zoo
worker is in her 20s and has been with the organisation since 2011, Gosselin
said.
He said the zoo
would be contacting experts in the United States before making a decision about
what to do with the lion, which is one of three kept by the zoo. All three
lions had been isolated and were made unavailable for public viewing after the
attack.
When asked whether
the zoo considered killing the lion during the incident, Gosselin said that was
not necessary as another empl
Zoo releases last summer batch of threatened
butterflies
The Oregon Zoo has
released the last batch of its zoo-raised Oregon silverspot butterflies into
the wild as it winds up a summer program aimed at boosting the numbers of the
once-common yellow-and-black butterfly in coastal habitats.
The zoo has
transported nearly 450 butterfly pupae to four sites along the Oregon Coast in
the past month. There, the butterflies finish their metamorphosis in “pupae
pockets” inside protective mesh, the zoo said in a statement Monday. They flit
away when they emerge.
“It was the perfect
time of year to be out there, right in the middle of the flight season,” said
zoo conservation research associate Karen Lewis.
The silverspot was
once common in coastal grasslands from northern California to Canada. It is now
listed as threatened due und
SD Zoo Global Awards Australian Zoos for Wildlife
Conservation
San Diego Zoo Global
(SDZG) honors two major Australia zoos for their work on wildlife conservation
on the global scale.
On Monday, Aug. 8.,
the San Diego Zoo Global staff presented representatives from Zoos Victoria in
Melbourne and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia in Sydney with the San
Diego Zoo Global 2016 Conservation Partners Medal.
At the awards
ceremony, SDZG praised Zoos Victoria’s incredible contributions to wildlife
conservations and its intense focus on saving species. Zoos Victoria is
actually an organization of zoos comprised of the Melbourne Zoo, the
Healesville Sanctuary and the Werribee Open Range Zoo.
According to SDZG,
one remarkable program from Z
Religious month affecting fish diet for penguins in
Mumbai zoo reveals poor planning
Shraavana is the
fifth month of the Hindu calendar which begins in late July and continues till
the third week of August. For many Hindus, it is the month of fasting. Many
people also avoid non-vegetarian food during Shraavana.
In Mumbai, this
year's Shraavana would have been like any other if eight Humboldt penguins were
not involved.
Eight Humboldt
penguins were brought to the Byculla zoo. News18Eight Humboldt penguins were
brought to the Byculla zoo. News18
In July, eight
Humboldt penguins had been brought to the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan —
better known as the Byculla Zoo.
Penguins almost
exclusively live in the Antarctic. They are also carnivores. Although their
main diet is fish, they also eat krill and squid. They are also found on every
continent in the southern hemisphere, abundant on many temperate and
sub-antarctic island.
According to this
report in The Times of India, the variety of fish in the market has become
limited due to the month of Shraavana.
The report also said
that the penguins were being fed fish like smelt, Bombay Duck and eel till now,
adding that the appetite of the penguins had increased since they had been
brought to the Byculla z
Zoos forced to register after Big Cat fight
Two zoos at the
center of a government crackdown on illegal trade in big cats in Lebanon have
taken the first steps to legitimize their status, but activists warned that
there was still a ways to go to safeguard the welfare of exotic animals in the
country. “They have started to collaborate with us,” Dr. Ali Romih, acting head
of the Veterinary Health Service at the Agriculture Ministry, told The Daily
Star Wednesday. “It’s a good sign.”
Lebanese zoos were
given a deadline of Aug. 11 to register with the Agriculture Ministry as a key
part of the “Last Chance for Big Cats” campaign launched by the NGO Animals
Lebanon. The campaign aims to end the trafficking, sale, and mistreatment of
lions, tigers, cheetahs, and other big cats in Lebanon.
According to the
decree delivered to Animal City Lebanon and ZaZoo City zoos, registration
requires that they present a list of their animals, along with their medical
records, passports and a report from a veterinary office. The ministry
confirmed that Animal City Lebanon had submitted the requested documents and
ZaZoo City had been in contact to indicate they had begun the process.
Animal City Lebanon
in Zikrit and ZaZoo City in south-east Beirut were the main targets of the
directive. Both have allegedly sold lions to private owners according to
Animals Lebanon, resulting in poor treatment and conditions, leading to
suffering and even death. There are estimated to b
Expert visits Chandrapur for leopard safari plan
The Maharashtra
State Zoo Authority (MSZA) took its first major initiative by working on a
proposed leopard safari in Chandrapur district, hometown of forest minister
Sudhir Mungantiwar.
On Tuesday, MSZA
managing director Anurag Choudhary and former chief wildlife warden of West
Bengal and well-known zoo expert Dr Brij Raj Sharma visited the proposed
leopard safari site on Chandrapur-Ballarpur Road.
Mungantiwar, in the
last state budget, had announced setting up of two leopard safaris. One is to
come up in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGN
Shocking Plans Reveal Motivation in Push for Sea Pens
– It Is Brilliant!
Woman attacked by lion at Granby Zoo should make full
recovery: director
The head of a Quebec
zoo says an employee who was attacked by a lion should make a full recovery.
Granby Zoo’s Paul
Gosselin says the woman in her early 20s had surgery on Monday night after a
“minor” neck fracture.
The 14-year-old
female lion that attacked her will not be put down because it did not show any
abnormal behaviour before or after the attack.
Gosselin says Kao
felt threatened on its turf and acted consequently before a second employee
sprayed the animal with water from a hose
400-year-old
Greenland shark is the oldest vertebrate animal
She was born during
the reign of James I, was a youngster when René Descartes set out his rules of
thought and the great fire of London raged, saw out her adolescent years as
George II ascended the throne, reached adulthood around the time that the American
revolution kicked off, and lived through two world wars. Living to an estimated
age of nearly 400 years, a female Greenland shark has set a new record for
longevity, scientists have revealed.
The discovery places
the lifespan of the Greenland shark far ahead of even the oldest elephant in
captivity, Lin Wang, who died aged 86. It is also far longer than the official
record for humans, held by 122-year-old Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment.
“It kicks off the
bowhead whale as the oldest vertebrate animal,” said Julius Nielsen, lead
author of the research from the University of Copenhagen, pointing out that
bowhead whales have been known to live for 211 years.
But the Greenland
shark doesn’t scoop all the gongs – the title of the world’s longest-lived
animal is held by Ming, an Icelandic clam known as an ocean quahog, that made
it to 507 years before scientists bumped it off.
Grey, plump and
growing to lengths of around five metres, the Greenland shark is one of the
world’s largest carnivores. With a reported growth rate of less than one
centimetre a year, they were already
Rare tarantulas hatch in ‘world first’ at Chester Zoo
Invertebrate keepers
at the zoo are the first in the world to successfully breed the Montserrat
tarantulas, marking a crucial step towards discovering more about the
mysterious species.
Native to the
Caribbean island of Montserrat, very little information is known about the
tarantulas and how they live.
Human Ginger Gene Linked To Orangutan
ARE you a ginger? Do
you or any of your family members have red hair? Well, if so, you may be
related to one of the cleverest monkeys on the planet, the Orangutan.
Scientists taking
part in a study of genetic make-up at Trinity College Dublin have proved this
week that red haired people directly descended from Orangutans, who also have
flowing, beautiful auburn hair.
Orca calf dies under the amateurish handling by Dr.
Ingrid Visser
In their Facebook
page, Delfinarien-Info has published a comment of an expert, which we wanted to
share with the general public taking into account constant and ungrounded
criticism by extremist animal groups, with the support and encouragement from
Ingrid Visser, towards the orcas kept in Loro Parque.
It turns out that in
reality Mrs. Visser, who has recently undertaken to give care to the stranded
orca calf, has committed unthinkable number of blunders, including not having
performed a post-mortem study of the animal, which could have been a very important
opportunity to obtain vital data to help other orcas and whales in the future.
What happened in New
Zealand has caused a lot of commotion in recent days. However, I have not given
my opinion about it because we are not like those who hate dolfinariums
hysterically, nor are we activists for animal rights. Secondly, I use this
report to demonstrate to this completely unprofessional and radical woman how a
true scientist works: you wait for the results before you publish anything.
The addressee of my
criticism is Ingrid Visser, a cetacean researcher. This person tried to spread
a touching story about an orca baby and its rescue. Why tried? Well, because
the little orca has died in the process. Ingrid Visser has no better to do other
than to spy on dolphinariums led by the approved scientists and to discredit
their professional and successful rescue programs. Such is the example of
Morgan, the young female orca that was rescued on the Dutch coast by experts of
Dolphinarium Harderwijk. Again, successfully.
Ingrid Visser
criticizes the captivity of dolphins and orcas. This is the reason why she
insisted that New Zealand orca, named Bob, upon its rescue, should upon
recovery, under any circumstance, be returned to the wild. Any whale rescue
expert would tell her n
http://blog.loroparque.com/orca-calf-dies-under-the-amateurish-handling-by-dr-ingrid-visser/?lang=en
Animal activists urge Wingham Wildlife Park to halt
import of lab chimps despite blessing of expert Jane Goodall
Animal welfare
campaigners are urging a wildlife park to halt its efforts to bring seven
laboratory chimpanzees from America to a new home near Canterbury.
Wingham Wildlife
Park has already built a £1 million enclosure for the apes and say they are
confident the chimps will be happy in their new home.
It will be a huge
change for the animals, which have spent years at the Emory University’s Yerkes
National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta.
Asia’s Darkest Secret: Impending Elephant Extinction
The magnificent
elephants are revered in Asian culture and seen as the embodiment of Lord
Ganesha himself. Yet right now in the name of religious festivities that also
serve as lucrative tourist attractions, elephants are separated from their
families, beaten, shackled and enslaved in order to tame and control this
powerful, intelligent animal.
Director Sangita
Iyer created the documentary film God in Shackles as an expose of the dark side
of treatment of elephants for festivals and temples in Kerala, South India. It
reveals the pain and torture the elephants go through under the guise of culture
and festivities that generate money from unwitting tourists.
Elephants should
live as long as 70 years but in captivity they often die much earlier, either
from cruelty or exhaustion. Figures obtained from the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveal the numbers of elephants left in Asia
is estimated to be a mere 40,000.
The majority of the
Asian elephant population remaining today is situated in India and Sri Lanka at
around 30,000 and the rest scattered acro
What a wacky safari: On the lookout for cheetahs,
giraffes and endangered oryxes... in the middle of the Arabian desert
What the Sheik
desires, the Sheik will have — the tallest skyscraper in the world? No problem.
A Louvre-like gallery in the desert? The architects and auction houses will do
the rest.
Just over 100 miles
south-west of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is an
island retreat that demonstrates a different kind of ambition; one that even by
the standards set in this part of the world is a little barmy.
Sir Bani Yas
recreates the African safari experience in th
Myths surrounding Isle of Man’s wild wallabies
Throughout the
duration of the wallaby project last year, I encountered some Manx myths
surrounding the origin and impact of the wallabies. One of the most mysterious
aspects of the wallaby story is their origin. When talking to some people about
where the wallabies came from, they are firm in their belief that they
originated from a private collection or from Glen Helen Zoo, rather than from
the Wildlife Park. As part of my project, I spent a lot of time going through
the newspaper archives at the Manx Museum and was unable to find any
substantive source for these claims. Certainly, there was one wallaby at Glen
Helen Zoo, named ‘Rufty Tufty’, but this wallaby was never reported as having
escaped. There were numerous wallaby escapes reported from the Curraghs
Wildlife Park, including ‘Wanda’ the wallaby who escaped shortly after the park
opened and returned later that year. One of the most documented incidents
occurred in 1989 when eight wallabies dug under their enclosure and escaped.
Unfortunately, the story of the wallabies thins out from 1989. Both wallaby
escapes and sightings were infrequently repo
The menu at Dublin Zoo includes rose petals imported
from Holland with elephants eating the most
Dublin Zoo spent
over €550,000 a year feeding the 400 animals at the zoo.
Dieticians carefully
prepare all the food on the menu with some animals even given rose petals which
are imported from Holland.
Asian Elephants in
the zoo get through 200kg of food a day each.
Their diet takes up
most of the yearly budget with €231,000, is spent on vegetation including
branches, hay and straw.
Elephant Nandi stuck in Sri Lanka
There's an elephant
in the courtroom and Auckland Zoo's not saying a word.
Five-year-old Asian
elephant Nandi should already be in her new home at the zoo after being gifted
to Prime Minister John Key by Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena in
February.
But legal action by
more than a dozen community groups has delayed, and may even prevent, her from
leaving her current home at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.
The Dharmavijaya
Foundation is one of 18 groups who have petitioned the Sri Lankan Court of
Appeal in an attempt to keep Nandi in the country.
Their petition
reportedly states that Sri Lanka is one of few countries home to the rare and
vulnerable elephas maximus species, and that exporting elephants like Nandi to
be displayed for commercial purposes is ill-conceived.
A decision was
expected this month, but the court has now ordered Nandi remain in Sri Lanka
until at least after the next court appearance on September 27.
Local media have
indicated the case may become a test case for discontinuing the practice of
gifting Asian Elephants to foreign dignitaries and heads of state.
Auckland Zoo has
revealed it does not know the details of the petition currently before the
court, and will not comment on the case.
But zoo director
Jonathan Wilcken spoke out to correct claims Nandi's gifting was for commercial
purposes.
"Auckland Zoo
does not make money from having elephants, but it is through our elephant
programme that we can con
Lion confined after mauling Canadian zoo employee,
staff in shock
An employee at the
Canadian Granby Zoo located east of the city of Montreal suffered serious
injuries as she was attacked by a female lion. The animal was confined, a zoo
official said adding that the zoo staff is in a state of shock.
One of the zoo’s
three lions assaulted a female worker Monday morning as she was preparing to
feed the animals and entered the lions’ enclosure. The zoo was not yet open to
the public at that time.
The animal backed
off when another employee came to the worker’s rescue, using a fire hose. The
woman suffered a cervical fracture and several cuts on her back. She was
immediately hospitalized. Stephan Scalabrini, head of Granby's ambulance
services, said the woman is now in stable condition and conscious.
Rare giant panda cub born at Vienna zoo - mother's
fourth
Another giant panda
cub has been born at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo - the fourth time that mother
Yang Yang has conceived naturally.
Such an event is
very rare - most panda breeding centres resort to artificial insemination.
The cub's sex is not
known yet. The tiny pink creature - born at 05:05 local time (03:05 GMT) - is
just 10cm (four inches) long and weighs 100g (3.5 ounces).
Yang Yang's other
cubs are now in China, where an estimated 1,864 live in the wild.
The zoo's panda area
has been closed to let Yang Yang rear her cub in peace and the father, Long
Hui, is being kept away for the cub's safety.
Zoo director Dagmar
Schratte
Putting the King of the Sea in Cages
PHRI Officials in
North Bali Wants to Build Mid-Ocean Cages to Captivate Dolphins for Tourist
Visits
The chairman of the
Buleleng chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI),
Dewa Suardipa, is suggesting that middle ocean dolphin cages be built in
offshore locations near Lovina in order “optimize” the attractiveness of
dolphin tours promoted to North Bali tourist visitors.
Currently, hundreds
of domestic and international tourists visiting Bali’s north coast pay local
boatmen to take them out on early morning boat tours in search of the pods of
dolphins that live in the area.
Suardipa has the
view that local boats chasing after the wild dolphins cause stress on mammals
and that would be remedied by turning wild dolphins into captive dolphin held
in offshore cages. Continuing to describe his vision, Suardipa told Bali Post
that the caged dolphins then could be summoned with whistles and pieces of fish
t
Former aquarium temp worker: 'I didn't know' flipping
switch was hurting fish
A switch that
controls the life support systems for the Great Ocean Tank at the South
Carolina Aquarium were turned off several times last month, and now police are
looking into the issue.
Employees say it
happened the week of July 9, after a temporary worker was hired onto the
aquarium's janitorial service. Police report says the man was caught flipping
the switches after aquarium officials set up a surveillance camera.
Employees noticed on
July 10 that breakers had been switched off. Two alarms activated -- one
signifying a sand filter was down, another showing one of the pumps was off.
According to the
report, the electrician at the aquarium could not find any electrical issue,
and was able to rule out all issues except "manual manipulation."
Three more alarms
went off July 13.
After noticing five
more breakers were switched off on July 14, employees decided to place a camera
in the room. Within an hour, according to the report, a temporary employee was
observed turning off one of the panel breakers as he walked through the room.
As of the publication of this article, the 25-year-old temporary em
Lion Bites Worker In Canadian Zoo And Is Put In
Isolation
A lion bit a
Canadian zoo worker in the back on Monday as it was being prepared for
exhibition and has been put in isolation until the zoo decides what to do with
it, an official said.
The worker at the
Granby Zoo east of Montreal had a fracture, but was conscious and in stable
condition in hospital, director general Paul Gosselin told reporters.
Gosselin said the
zookeeper was bitten in the back.
"At this point
we don't have the exact diagnosis," he said.
It was not
immediately clear how the attack occurred, though Gosselin said the employee
had been preparing the female lion for exhibition before the incident. The zoo
worker is in her 20s and has been with the organisation since 2011, Gosselin
said.
He said the zoo
would be contacting experts in the United States before making a decision about
what to do with the lion, which is one of three kept by the zoo. All three
lions had been isolated and were made unavailable for public viewing after the
attack.
When asked whether
the zoo considered killing the lion during the incident, Gosselin said that was
not necessary as another empl
Zoo releases last summer batch of threatened
butterflies
The Oregon Zoo has
released the last batch of its zoo-raised Oregon silverspot butterflies into
the wild as it winds up a summer program aimed at boosting the numbers of the
once-common yellow-and-black butterfly in coastal habitats.
The zoo has
transported nearly 450 butterfly pupae to four sites along the Oregon Coast in
the past month. There, the butterflies finish their metamorphosis in “pupae
pockets” inside protective mesh, the zoo said in a statement Monday. They flit
away when they emerge.
“It was the perfect
time of year to be out there, right in the middle of the flight season,” said
zoo conservation research associate Karen Lewis.
The silverspot was
once common in coastal grasslands from northern California to Canada. It is now
listed as threatened due und
SD Zoo Global Awards Australian Zoos for Wildlife
Conservation
San Diego Zoo Global
(SDZG) honors two major Australia zoos for their work on wildlife conservation
on the global scale.
On Monday, Aug. 8.,
the San Diego Zoo Global staff presented representatives from Zoos Victoria in
Melbourne and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia in Sydney with the San
Diego Zoo Global 2016 Conservation Partners Medal.
At the awards
ceremony, SDZG praised Zoos Victoria’s incredible contributions to wildlife
conservations and its intense focus on saving species. Zoos Victoria is
actually an organization of zoos comprised of the Melbourne Zoo, the
Healesville Sanctuary and the Werribee Open Range Zoo.
According to SDZG,
one remarkable program from Z
Religious month affecting fish diet for penguins in
Mumbai zoo reveals poor planning
Shraavana is the
fifth month of the Hindu calendar which begins in late July and continues till
the third week of August. For many Hindus, it is the month of fasting. Many
people also avoid non-vegetarian food during Shraavana.
In Mumbai, this
year's Shraavana would have been like any other if eight Humboldt penguins were
not involved.
Eight Humboldt
penguins were brought to the Byculla zoo. News18Eight Humboldt penguins were
brought to the Byculla zoo. News18
In July, eight
Humboldt penguins had been brought to the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan —
better known as the Byculla Zoo.
Penguins almost
exclusively live in the Antarctic. They are also carnivores. Although their
main diet is fish, they also eat krill and squid. They are also found on every
continent in the southern hemisphere, abundant on many temperate and
sub-antarctic island.
According to this
report in The Times of India, the variety of fish in the market has become
limited due to the month of Shraavana.
The report also said
that the penguins were being fed fish like smelt, Bombay Duck and eel till now,
adding that the appetite of the penguins had increased since they had been
brought to the Byculla z
Zoos forced to register after Big Cat fight
Two zoos at the
center of a government crackdown on illegal trade in big cats in Lebanon have
taken the first steps to legitimize their status, but activists warned that
there was still a ways to go to safeguard the welfare of exotic animals in the
country. “They have started to collaborate with us,” Dr. Ali Romih, acting head
of the Veterinary Health Service at the Agriculture Ministry, told The Daily
Star Wednesday. “It’s a good sign.”
Lebanese zoos were
given a deadline of Aug. 11 to register with the Agriculture Ministry as a key
part of the “Last Chance for Big Cats” campaign launched by the NGO Animals
Lebanon. The campaign aims to end the trafficking, sale, and mistreatment of
lions, tigers, cheetahs, and other big cats in Lebanon.
According to the
decree delivered to Animal City Lebanon and ZaZoo City zoos, registration
requires that they present a list of their animals, along with their medical
records, passports and a report from a veterinary office. The ministry
confirmed that Animal City Lebanon had submitted the requested documents and
ZaZoo City had been in contact to indicate they had begun the process.
Animal City Lebanon
in Zikrit and ZaZoo City in south-east Beirut were the main targets of the
directive. Both have allegedly sold lions to private owners according to
Animals Lebanon, resulting in poor treatment and conditions, leading to
suffering and even death. There are estimated to b
Expert visits Chandrapur for leopard safari plan
The Maharashtra
State Zoo Authority (MSZA) took its first major initiative by working on a
proposed leopard safari in Chandrapur district, hometown of forest minister
Sudhir Mungantiwar.
On Tuesday, MSZA
managing director Anurag Choudhary and former chief wildlife warden of West
Bengal and well-known zoo expert Dr Brij Raj Sharma visited the proposed
leopard safari site on Chandrapur-Ballarpur Road.
Mungantiwar, in the
last state budget, had announced setting up of two leopard safaris. One is to
come up in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGN
Shocking Plans Reveal Motivation in Push for Sea Pens
– It Is Brilliant!
Woman attacked by lion at Granby Zoo should make full
recovery: director
The head of a Quebec
zoo says an employee who was attacked by a lion should make a full recovery.
Granby Zoo’s Paul
Gosselin says the woman in her early 20s had surgery on Monday night after a
“minor” neck fracture.
The 14-year-old
female lion that attacked her will not be put down because it did not show any
abnormal behaviour before or after the attack.
Gosselin says Kao
felt threatened on its turf and acted consequently before a second employee
sprayed the animal with water from a hose
400-year-old
Greenland shark is the oldest vertebrate animal
She was born during
the reign of James I, was a youngster when René Descartes set out his rules of
thought and the great fire of London raged, saw out her adolescent years as
George II ascended the throne, reached adulthood around the time that the American
revolution kicked off, and lived through two world wars. Living to an estimated
age of nearly 400 years, a female Greenland shark has set a new record for
longevity, scientists have revealed.
The discovery places
the lifespan of the Greenland shark far ahead of even the oldest elephant in
captivity, Lin Wang, who died aged 86. It is also far longer than the official
record for humans, held by 122-year-old Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment.
“It kicks off the
bowhead whale as the oldest vertebrate animal,” said Julius Nielsen, lead
author of the research from the University of Copenhagen, pointing out that
bowhead whales have been known to live for 211 years.
But the Greenland
shark doesn’t scoop all the gongs – the title of the world’s longest-lived
animal is held by Ming, an Icelandic clam known as an ocean quahog, that made
it to 507 years before scientists bumped it off.
Grey, plump and
growing to lengths of around five metres, the Greenland shark is one of the
world’s largest carnivores. With a reported growth rate of less than one
centimetre a year, they were already
Rare tarantulas hatch in ‘world first’ at Chester Zoo
Invertebrate keepers
at the zoo are the first in the world to successfully breed the Montserrat
tarantulas, marking a crucial step towards discovering more about the
mysterious species.
Native to the
Caribbean island of Montserrat, very little information is known about the
tarantulas and how they live.
Human Ginger Gene Linked To Orangutan
ARE you a ginger? Do
you or any of your family members have red hair? Well, if so, you may be
related to one of the cleverest monkeys on the planet, the Orangutan.
Scientists taking
part in a study of genetic make-up at Trinity College Dublin have proved this
week that red haired people directly descended from Orangutans, who also have
flowing, beautiful auburn hair.
Orca calf dies under the amateurish handling by Dr.
Ingrid Visser
In their Facebook
page, Delfinarien-Info has published a comment of an expert, which we wanted to
share with the general public taking into account constant and ungrounded
criticism by extremist animal groups, with the support and encouragement from
Ingrid Visser, towards the orcas kept in Loro Parque.
It turns out that in
reality Mrs. Visser, who has recently undertaken to give care to the stranded
orca calf, has committed unthinkable number of blunders, including not having
performed a post-mortem study of the animal, which could have been a very important
opportunity to obtain vital data to help other orcas and whales in the future.
What happened in New
Zealand has caused a lot of commotion in recent days. However, I have not given
my opinion about it because we are not like those who hate dolfinariums
hysterically, nor are we activists for animal rights. Secondly, I use this
report to demonstrate to this completely unprofessional and radical woman how a
true scientist works: you wait for the results before you publish anything.
The addressee of my
criticism is Ingrid Visser, a cetacean researcher. This person tried to spread
a touching story about an orca baby and its rescue. Why tried? Well, because
the little orca has died in the process. Ingrid Visser has no better to do other
than to spy on dolphinariums led by the approved scientists and to discredit
their professional and successful rescue programs. Such is the example of
Morgan, the young female orca that was rescued on the Dutch coast by experts of
Dolphinarium Harderwijk. Again, successfully.
Ingrid Visser
criticizes the captivity of dolphins and orcas. This is the reason why she
insisted that New Zealand orca, named Bob, upon its rescue, should upon
recovery, under any circumstance, be returned to the wild. Any whale rescue
expert would tell her n
http://blog.loroparque.com/orca-calf-dies-under-the-amateurish-handling-by-dr-ingrid-visser/?lang=en
Animal activists urge Wingham Wildlife Park to halt
import of lab chimps despite blessing of expert Jane Goodall
Animal welfare
campaigners are urging a wildlife park to halt its efforts to bring seven
laboratory chimpanzees from America to a new home near Canterbury.
Wingham Wildlife
Park has already built a £1 million enclosure for the apes and say they are
confident the chimps will be happy in their new home.
It will be a huge
change for the animals, which have spent years at the Emory University’s Yerkes
National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta.
Asia’s Darkest Secret: Impending Elephant Extinction
The magnificent
elephants are revered in Asian culture and seen as the embodiment of Lord
Ganesha himself. Yet right now in the name of religious festivities that also
serve as lucrative tourist attractions, elephants are separated from their
families, beaten, shackled and enslaved in order to tame and control this
powerful, intelligent animal.
Director Sangita
Iyer created the documentary film God in Shackles as an expose of the dark side
of treatment of elephants for festivals and temples in Kerala, South India. It
reveals the pain and torture the elephants go through under the guise of culture
and festivities that generate money from unwitting tourists.
Elephants should
live as long as 70 years but in captivity they often die much earlier, either
from cruelty or exhaustion. Figures obtained from the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveal the numbers of elephants left in Asia
is estimated to be a mere 40,000.
The majority of the
Asian elephant population remaining today is situated in India and Sri Lanka at
around 30,000 and the rest scattered acro
What a wacky safari: On the lookout for cheetahs,
giraffes and endangered oryxes... in the middle of the Arabian desert
What the Sheik
desires, the Sheik will have — the tallest skyscraper in the world? No problem.
A Louvre-like gallery in the desert? The architects and auction houses will do
the rest.
Just over 100 miles
south-west of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is an
island retreat that demonstrates a different kind of ambition; one that even by
the standards set in this part of the world is a little barmy.
Sir Bani Yas
recreates the African safari experience in th
Gov`t Formulating Standard Zoo Guideline
The Environment and
Forestry Ministry is preparing a standard zoo guideline for zoos in Indonesia.
"We are working
with PKBSI (the Indonesian Zoo Association)," said Director General of
Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystems of the Ministry Tachrir
Fathoni in Jakarta, Sunday (14/8).
Tachrir added that
the guideline includes several aspects, including the management of cages, zoo
area, number of animals that populate the zoo, zoo management, human resources,
food, and animal welfare.
The guideline is
still in the process of completion, he added.
Tachrir also
acknowledged some zoos in Indonesia still have poor management.
The management of
ten zoos under the supervisory of regional government, he said, is still not
optimal, for example Bandung zoo.
"We've
reprimanded the management," Tach
Gov`t Formulating Standard Zoo Guideline
The Environment and
Forestry Ministry is preparing a standard zoo guideline for zoos in Indonesia.
"We are working
with PKBSI (the Indonesian Zoo Association)," said Director General of
Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystems of the Ministry Tachrir
Fathoni in Jakarta, Sunday (14/8).
Tachrir added that
the guideline includes several aspects, including the management of cages, zoo
area, number of animals that populate the zoo, zoo management, human resources,
food, and animal welfare.
The guideline is
still in the process of completion, he added.
Tachrir also
acknowledged some zoos in Indonesia still have poor management.
The management of
ten zoos under the supervisory of regional government, he said, is still not
optimal, for example Bandung zoo.
"We've
reprimanded the management," Tach
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New Meetings and Conferences updated Here
New Meetings and Conferences updated Here
If you have anything to add then please email me at elvinhow@gmail.com
I will include it when I get a minute. You know it makes sense.
Recent Zoo Vacancies
Vacancies in Zoos and Aquariums and Wildlife/Conservation facilities around the World
*****
About me
After more than 47 years working in private, commercial and National zoos in the capacity of keeper, head keeper and curator Peter Dickinson started to travel. He sold house and all his possessions and hit the road. He has traveled extensively in Turkey, Southern India and much of South East Asia before settling in Thailand. In his travels he has visited well over 200 zoos and writes about these in his blog http://zoonewsdigest.blogspot.com/
or on Hubpages http://hubpages.com/profile/Peter+Dickinson
Peter earns his living as an independent international zoo consultant, critic and writer. Currently working as Curator of Penguins in Ski Dubai. United Arab Emirates. He describes himself as an itinerant zoo keeper, one time zoo inspector, a dreamer, a traveler, a people watcher, a lover, a thinker, a cosmopolitan, a writer, a hedonist, an explorer, a pantheist, a gastronome, sometime fool, a good friend to some and a pain in the butt to others.
"These are the best days of my life"
Peter Dickinson
Independent International Zoo Consultant        |
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