Hamilton Zoo » Hamilton Zoo

Hamilton Zoo
13-07-2008

Hey guys, I recently visited Hamilton Zoo and thought you might like some information on their animals:

White Rhino: Hamilton Zoo currently has five white rhino: Kruger (M1989), Mwisha (F1993), Caballe (F1994), Kito (F2000) and Imani (F2007). They are currently kept in two groups of either [Kruger] vs [Females] or [Kruger, Mwisha and Kito] vs [Caballe and daughter Imani].

They are trying to breed Kruger with Mwisha and Kito as all they animals are of wild origin and not represented. Caballe, although wild born, has had three calves with Auckland's male Zambezi called Inkosi (2002), Mtoto (2004) and Imani (2007) so may not breed with Kruger for a while.

Chimpanzee: Hamilton Zoo has six chimpanzee. They have two elderly females born to tea party chimps who didn't know how to raise offspring therefore Sally and Susie were hand-raised themselves. The other four are 31 year old Mike and Lucy from Taronga Zoo and their offspring Lucifer (20) and Luka (15). Luka has recently taken over from Mike as the dominant male.

Hopefully a mate will be found for Luka soon although it is hard to find one when nearly all the chimps in Australasia are related.

Sumatran Tiger: Hamilton Zoo currently holds two sumatran tigers. Brother and sister Jaka and Mencari who were born on the 10th January 2000 at Wellington Zoo. Their other littermate Molek also lived with them at Hamilton up until 2006 when she went to Auckland to breed.

There are no plans to breed from Jaka and Mencari in the forseable future.

Cheetah: Hamilton Zoo has four Cheetah. The oldest is Temba at nine. After failing to breed with male Kaitoa, three new Cheetah brothers have been brought in called Moyo Matusi and Jambo.

African Hunting Dog: The pack started with males Hasani and Rafiki and female Zuri. Hasani and Zuri are the dominant pair and had their first litter of nine in 2004 called Moja, Mbili, Tatu, Nne, Tano, Sita, Sabba, Nane and Tisa. After a while two more females called Shirra and Mwenzi were brought in from Oran Park in exchange for the seven females in the 2004 litter.

Recently (March) Zuri gave birth to twins. One male died soon after birth but the other one seems to be doing well and has been named Ishe.

Giraffe: Hamilton Zoo currently has six giraffe which form a bachelor herd. Ndoki and Makulu are the oldest two. Ndoki was born in 1998 at Wellington Zoo and Makulu was born in 1999 at Orana Wildlife Park. Makulu is a pure bred rothchilds.

The younger four are the offspring of Makulu's ten year old brother Zabulu at Auckland Zoo. They are Masamba (2002), Jabari (2002), Ndale (2004) and Dume (2006).

Golden Cat: A new female has been imported as a mate for three year old Hotan. She is called Mao and occupies the bobcat enclosure after they left for Franklin Zoo.

Leopard Cat: Sadly 18 year old Ree has died. I think they said it was due to old age related problems.

Lemurs: A new ruffed lemur called Lucky and a new ringtailed lemur called Bruce.

13-07-2008

You might want to check the source of your information - Imani was born at Hamilton Zoo and Kito was born at Auckland Zoo. Mtoto was also captive born at Hamilton, and is currently at Auckland Zoo.

13-07-2008

If you read carefully you will notice I referred to Kito as being of wild origin not wild born, this is because she was conceived in South Africa to an unknown male.

And yes Inkosi, Mtoto and Imani were all born at Hamilton Zoo but as mentioned above the father is Zambezi (now Auckland's male).

Auckland Zoo's herd nw consists of Zambezi, Inkosi and Mtoto.