elephants are in » Taronga Zoo

on breeding elephants...
22-02-2006

i'm interested to know how heman and burma are settling in at western plains. i always thought it was an unusual decision to move its two elephants all the way to dubbo and then open a multi-million dollar new exhibit without any elephants in it. i suppose this was so not to stress the elderly animals out by having them settle into a new enclosure when the zoo was confident that it would have it's baby elephant attractions approved for importation.on my last visit to taronga about a year ago i had a chat with a keeper about the elephants. he told me that the zoo had tried to walk the elephants around the zoo but that they where "completely mad" from years of being confined, and that unlike melbournes relatively mentally healthy pair, heman and burma could not adapt to anything other than "that hell-hole" they lived in.

it has been quite remarkable the positive behavioural changes that melbournes elephants displayed when they moved into their new exhibit. but they are relatively young animals and the keepers had been working with them for many years to prepare them for the move and keep them physically and mentally fit.

so i was wondering how taronga's animals have adapted to dubbo? Zoo_Boy you may be able to provide some info on this one.

the other big question i wonder about is in relation to breeding. melbourne's elephants have undergone fertility testing and the results are that bong su, the male, is fertile but female mek kappah's reproductive system has shut down. at about 32 MK, is far from being too old to breed. however, since she did not get pregnant in her late teens early 20's her reproductive system simply shut down. this is a well researched and common problem with breeding elephants in captivity.

so melbourne are importing two "baby" females and a 12 year old named dokkoon - who they hope will breed with BS.

that means melbourne will have a breeding-age pair of elephants, but i wonder about taronga's plans.

they are importing a 12 or 13 year old female but the male is only 5! my books say asian males take about 20 years to reach maturity (but perth zoo are hoping to breed their pair of elephants - both aged 16.). this would indicate that depending on the time involved for tarongas male to mature, their oldest female may between 23 and 28 years old. add to this that it sometimes takes a few years of research and planning before a zoo can nurture a sucessful pregnancy, and it seems taronga zoo may be following in melbourne's footsteps and becoming dangerously close to not breeding their eldest female in time.

maybe they will send her on breeding loan to melbourne or perth, i don't know, but the zoo obviously chose to take an older female to be matriarch to the younger animals even though she is getting close to breeding age and will have no males to breed with!

and what of auckland zoo? they chose to back out of the plan to import any elephants. are they still talking AI (and from where?) or have they given up on breeding their younger female entirely?

22-02-2006

yea pat , heman and burma are doin great , they love there new exhibit , so much so , for the first time in 20 years they are now heard trumpeting throughout dubbo , amazing , they can now react with each other as well as cherie , yum yum and cuddles - the africans.

heman and burma are still very healthy animals , and burma is not mentally mad , she is jst a bad elephant , no keepers go in with her she is just dangerous .

tarongas new girls are aged between 5 and 13 , and the male is 5 but he will strat goin in to must at age 8 approx and will be breeding hopefully from there on .

22-02-2006

hmmmm, well see. from all information i have ever read females can breed from there early teens but males take a fair bit longer to mature.

22-02-2006

well jst repeaten wht im told

22-02-2006

i vivted melbourne zoo the day after the elephants had moved into their new enclosure. they did the same thing you say heman and burma have started doing - they began to trumpet loudly and splash around in their mud wallow together. apparently keepers had tears in their eyes as the elephants had never vocalised in this way before. i also have noticed the female has stopped swaying and they elephants also often lie down and sleep in their sand piles during the day.

melbourne is lucky in that both their elephants are very docile creatures. MK has full unprotected contact with her keepers and zoo visitors as she walks daily around the zoo. BS, being a very big male is only ever managed under protective contact, though the keepers have told me he is actually a big softie and is not a very agressive animal.

i gotta say heman is a very impressive elephant, one tusk or not. he has this massive hump and neck - he reminds me of a mammoth!

22-02-2006

he is b e a utiful ,. and burma aint bad either

Taronga Park Zoos own words
07-03-2006

I have again challenged Taronga Park about the decision to house a group of breeding elephants in their relatively small enclosure , when WPZ would be a more logical choice ?

I have copied their response ; see below . I do not neccessarily agree with what they said , but its words from the horses mouth .

I have asked Auckland Zoo what their latest thoughts are of breeding the elephants , and where will the semen come from if they still hope to achieve breeding by AI .

Zooboy and/or Patrick ; You have both seen the Taronga Park Elephant complex ;
Do you think it is really big enough for the elephants that Taronga Park have got ?
Do elephants really need flattish land ? According to Wellington Zoo , one of the reasons that they didnt replace the elephant/s there was because of the steep terrain that covers alot of the zoo . OK , Wellington zoo is very steep ,( probably second only to San Diego Zoo ) but Taronga Park is not exactly flat , or even rolling land .






Hi Nigel....thanks for your email of 3 March. I
had previously responded to
the majority of your queries in Dec last year -
copy attached again for your
records.

Yes, we do have additional land earmarked for
elephant exhibit expansion if
required at both Taronga and Western Plains Zoos.
The new Asian Elephant
exhibit at WPZ is 12,574sqm.

As part of the Cooperative Conservation Plan for
Asian Elephants in
Australasia, the herd will be managed as an
cooperative group between ARAZPA
Zoos. That means, in order to maintain a viable
herd, offspring may be sent
to other ARAZPA Zoos in the program. This will
be done fully cognisant of
family bonds, especially the recognition of
mother/daughter relationships.
In the majority of cases, they will not be
separated (only under very
specific circumstances).



I am not quite sure what you mean by 'too steep
for elephants' in relation
to topography. The elephant's habitat/environment
in Thailand can be a great
deal steeper! I am again not quire sure what you
mean about the relationship
between steep slopes and breeding?

Sydney-siders were very attached to 'Burma' and
'Heman', Taronga's resident
Asian Elephants, and needed a very good reason
for moving them to Western
Plains Zoo. Call it a marketing tool, but we used
the words 'retiring to
WPZ' to communicate to the community. They are
also very elderly for
elephants and 'retirement' was a nice word to
use.

Taronga Zoo attracts more than 1.2 million
visitors, whereas Wester Plains
attracts somewhere in the vicinity 200k. Our
conservation education and
in-situ fundraising opportunities are far greater
at Taronga.

I could probably count on one hand the number of
people who have asked for
additional information than that provided on our
website. We are more than
happy to answer specific questions such as yours
on a case-by-case basis.
You can appreciate that the majority of the
community can become overwhelmed
by too much information and end up tuning out
rather than absorbing it.

We have proven on numerous fronts (including via
the legal system) that we
have only the best interest of the individual
animals, as well as the entire
endangered species, at heart. The community for
the most part recognises the
role Zoos play in conservation. We use the
terminology in-situ conservation
for ex-situ effort. Environmental and
conservation education, research (both
laboratory and in-situ), captive insurance
populations and community
enlightenment are all part of the process. The
Zoological Parks Board of NSW
has made a deliberate decision to fight the
demise of the Asian Elephant -
believe me, it's costing us a great deal more
than we expect to get back via
any increased admissions we may receive. On a
purely commercial basis, this
is not a viable investment, but one the ZPB has
decided we must take up. We
are a not-for-profit organisation and all
proceeds are ploughed back into
conservation and environmental education. I find
it quite amusing that
groups would think this was a commercial
endeavour.

I can hear you saying 'but what about investing
in Thailand?' - well there
just isn't the land/habitat available (only 15%
of Thailand's rainforest
remains), most of the displaced elephants are
domestic and privately owned
(2,500 domestic as opposed to approx 2,000 wild)
and furthermore, Taronga
and Western Plains Zoos are operated by the NSW
Govt and thus the NSW tax
payer, who do not think to kindly to their tax
dollars being spent in
another country. We have a formal partnership
with the Thai Govt to provide
funding for in-situ programs (such as funding to
CITES MIKE for ranger
training and wild elephant tracking, as well as
funding for fencing pockets
of natural habitat), provision of husbandry
expertise and keeper exchange
programs.

Can I please reiterate that the elephants coming
to Australia are domestic
bred - NOT wild. They have spent a great deal of
their lives tethered in
tourist camps. Some of them were even walked into
Bangkok to perform for
tourists.

Hope that covers all your queries.

Kind regards

Hayley Holloway

07-03-2006

yea i have soon the exhibit, its great , everything an elephant could need, it is not steep, it has been levelled greatly and is on 2 srips, a upper and lower. they will breed great facilities , but size is an option. i agree with the eduaction purpose to put them in taronga, yes they would do better at dubbo , but i totaly understand.

08-03-2006

thanks nige.

i haven't seen the taronga exhibit finshed. from what i had seen, it looked as though it would be tiny - really, really small. but from Zoo_Boy's photos it seems alot larger than i had anticipated. however, i will forever stand by my firm belief that elephants belong at open range zoos.

in regards to the flat land thing, i have heard many argue this point, that elephants need flat topography. i have to agree with the zoo, thailand has plenty of elephant country that is far more mountainous than taronga. i have seen fully grown elephants in sri lanka scramble up mud banks that even i would find difficult, just for some tasty vegetaion.

melbourne zoo has actually gone so far as to perposefully create hilly terrain in their three elephant paddocks, claiming it is good excercise.

but i understand where you get the idea from - alot of groups claim it is important. it may come from the fact that elephants have traditionally been kept in enclosures with dry moats and that plenty have fallen in and killed or injured themselves.

it looks like elephants in the city zoos are at least for the next decade or so, here to stay. i guess the best we can hope for is that the breeding program is so sucessful, that we see breeding herds expand to dubbo, werribee and monarto as well.

08-03-2006

yea breeding herds kool, the great thing is in terms of breeding is no fmeale is related , so all at taronga nd the female offspring , can be sired to bong su in melbourne and vice versa. so it will be good , as well as spred genetic material to perth as well. i alwys forget perth with elephants. but they have been hgetting a lot of mating activity recently so mayb perth will b the firts and beat melbourne and taronga.

09-03-2006

wouldn't it be great if perth was successful in their breeding, I would fly to perth just to see a baby elephant.
Jai

09-03-2006

they are cute, but they can be nastly litle things. i like big elephants, but have been slapped and chased and growled at by too many of the little ones....

09-03-2006

http://www.lee.greens.org.au/campaigns/Elephants.html

go to this link it has a weird pic about a taronga santuary

09-03-2006

Thats crap, the elephants are being recued, but yes maybe all the circus elephanst could be retired at Dubbo

09-03-2006

look honestly, i don't know if you could say that they are being "rescued". we don't actually know anything about the past life of the animals other than a few comments regarding that once a couple of them where working the streets of bangkok. i assume this happend before the animals were sold to a tourist camp. thailand does not log its own forests anymore (instead it buys timber from laos!) so i doubt any elephants actually work in the logging industry in thailand. they may not have such a bad life in in their homeland....