Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Sumatran rhino history
Pictured above is Emi(who died Sept. 5, 2009) with her unprecedented third calf, Harapan(male).
"Andalas," Emi's first male calf, and the Cincinnati Zoo's first Sumatran rhino calf, has produced the first Sumatran rhino pregnancy in Southeast Asia for the global captive breeding program. Andalas and his mate, "Ratu", both eight-years-old, were brought together through international goodwill and cooperation in an effort to save this critically endangered species.
One of the greatest books written on the history of rhinos in captivity(which is a member of my personal library that I have read 3 times, and am going to read a 4th time after the holiday's) is THE RHINOCEROS IN CAPTIVITY, SPB Academic Publishing 1998, Authored by L.C. Rookmaaker, Marvin L. Jones, Heinz-George Klos, and our very own Richard J. Reynolds. Below is a taste from google books:
The rhinoceros in captivity: a list of 2439 rhinoceroses kept from ... - Google Books Result
Monday, December 6, 2010
No Elephants at the Garden Next Spring
For decades the blooming of circus cotton candy has been the surest sign of spring for city apartment-dwellers. But for the first time in 80 years the nation’s oldest continuously running circus will not arrive in Manhattan for a springtime performance at Madison Square Garden.
The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus will be dislodged from its March run by the renovation of the Garden, a project estimated to cost from $775 million to $850 million. Instead, the circus will add a week of extra performances to its Meadowlands run in New Jersey (it also plays in Newark and at the Nassau Coliseum) but this year customers from the five boroughs of New York will not be able to hop on the subway to see the show.
“The Greatest Show on Earth is also the largest arena show on the planet,” said Kenneth Feld, chief executive of Ringling, “and there isn’t enough room for our animals.”
Joel Fisher, a Garden executive vice president, explained that “there is building in the space” under the garden normally occupied by animals and circus props. And if the construction isn’t completed, Ringling could be exiled from the Garden for a second year. “We have to see what space will be available, and what’s possible,” Mr. Fisher said. He declined to estimate how much the Garden would lose in circus revenues. So did Mr. Feld, who said that “we might lose business this year, but we’ll be coming back to a better, transformed Garden where business will go up dramatically,” he said.
The springtime Garden circus run was not only a decadeslong institution, but also marked what the circus considered the traditional opening night for each year’s new show after it wended its way north following its January unveiling in Florida. Until the 2008 recession guests in tuxedos and formal dress were invited to the Garden opening night to mingle with circus performers at a catered party. This continued the decadeslong tradition of top hats, claw-hammer coats and Champagne libations in the old Garden.
The new show, the 141st edition of the circus, will be called “The Greatest Show on Earth, Fully Charged!” The circus has scheduled a week of performances at the Prudential Center in Newark, from Feb. 23 to 27, two weeks at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., from March 2 to 13, and a week at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., from March 16 to 21. “It’s just a 15-minute train ride from Manhattan to the Newark arena,” Mr. Feld said.
The multiphase renovation at the 42-year-old Garden began in 2009 and is not expected to be completed until 2013. It will include refurbished and reconfigured seats and V.I.P. suites, new locker rooms and dressing rooms for performers, upgraded public areas, a new Seventh Avenue lobby and pedestrian bridges spanning the arena.
Ringling’s Garden tenure has been longer than 80 years. According to the circus the combined Ringling show (aggregated from the circuses of the brothers Ringling as well as P.T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey) first played at an arena named Madison Square Garden on March 29, 1919. That was, as Garden aficionados know, the second Madison Square Garden.
The circus played in the third Madison Square Garden until 1928, according to Ringling, and then, after a two-year hiatus the show played at the Garden from 1931 to 1967. Then the Ringling show played every year until last March at the new Madison Square Garden on Seventh Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets – the fourth incarnation of the facility – after the arena’s opening in 1968.
Courtesy of Mike Naughton
Chapultepec Zoo--Yesterday and Today
Completion of the lion and tiger exhibits above in 1942, built by Benjamin Dominguez. Everybody has "roots" including Larson Themed Construction, I guess.
Giant Panda--Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City 1999
Sometimes, I don't think it has anything to do with scientist's, Drs., reproductive specialists, letters behind your name, and least of all magic. I think it has nothing more to do with anything but paying attention, and noting small details or "sweating the small stuff." From Wikipedia, here is Mexico City's Panda production record. I don't know if it is correct or recent, and please correct it if it is not:
- Pe Pe and Ying Ying were a mated pair of Giant Pandas donated to the Zoo by the Chinese government in September 1975. They both died in 1989.
- Xengli was born on August 1980, but died after just 9 days.
- Tohui was born on July 21, 1981. She became a 'star', even having his own song, 'El Pequeño Panda de Chapultepec' (The Little Panda from Chapultepec) performed by Mexican singer Yuri.
- Liang Liang was born 22 June 1983.
- Xiu Hua was born in the Zoo on 25 June 1985; her parents were Ying Ying (mother) and Pe Pe (father).
- Shuan Shuan was born in the Zoo on 15 June 1987. She is a sibling to Xiu Hua.
- Xin Xin ("hope" in Chinese) was conceived via artificial insemination and was born in the Zoo on 1 July 1990. Her mother is Tohui (she died 16 November 1993) and her father is Chia Chia from the London Zoo.
MEXICO CITY HAS MAGIC TOUCH FOR PANDAS
Reuters Nov. 4, 1990
Against all apparent odds, Mexico City's Chapultepec Zoo boasts the most successful, and natural, panda-breeding program outside China. And no one, not even the zoo's proud director, can seem to figure out why.
Far removed from the rarified atmosphere of their native habitat in China, caged up in the smog-choked heart of a city so polluted that birds have been known to fall dead from trees, the plucky pandas are thriving.
Eight pandas have been conceived naturally, without any human help, at the zoo since its original "husband and wife" team, Pe-Pe and Ying-Ying, arrived here in 1975. The number of natural panda births is unmatched anywhere outside China.Although the bears' black-ringed eyes may give them the appearance of someone chronically affected by the high levels of pollutants that plague Mexico City, zoo director Marielena Hoyo says the pandas appear unfazed by it and are actually happy.
It certainly hasn't affected their sex drive, she said.
Hoyo spoke at her zoo office, which is cluttered with the stuffed remains of several animals, including a baby hippopotamus, a camel, a South American sloth and a diminutive giraffe.
But distinguishing the office from a stuffed animal emporium were three of Chapultepec's baby pandas who died soon after birth. Hoyo keeps their tiny bodies, each weighing about four ounces, in jars on a shelf in her office.
One was crushed when its mother, weighing about 260 pounds, took an unfortunate turn in her sleep. The others, twins by separate mothers, were rejected in favor of their brothers or sisters.
The interview was interrupted by occasional squawks from Sydney, Hoyo's Australian cockatoo, and by her own raucous laughter.
There are various theories about the success of the Chapultepec panda program. One centers on Mexico City's 7,300-foot altitude, similar to that of the bears' native habitat in Szechuan, China.
But Hoyo described most of the theories as hogwash, preferring instead to talk about magic.
"There must be something magical here. . . . There's something about this place," she said.
A gorilla who never mated during 20 years in a zoo outside Mexico began to do so twice daily soon after his arrival in Chapultepec, Hoyo said.
"If that isn't magical, what is?" she asked with the delight of a mother who just found the right wife for her aging son.
Four of the six pandas now living at Chapultepec are the offspring of Pe-Pe and Ying-Ying, the two original pandas who died within six months of each other in 1988 at the age of 14.
On July 1, one of the couple's daughters, Tohui, gave birth to the only panda born outside China by a mother who was herself born in captivity.
The father of the cub, whom Hoyo affectionately refers to as her "Englishman," is on loan from Regent's Park Zoo in London.
The cub is healthy and expected to start walking soon.
Giant Panda--Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City
The money that has been spent on "Panda Conservation" is mindbogglingly, and almost beyond comprehension. The monies spent to built an enclosure to exhibit them at a zoo is equally as unreal. The electronic and video equipment required by the Chinese Government Panda agreements rivals what is housed a NORAD and Nasa. The demands which must be met if a zoo hopes to acquire Panda's for a 5 year lease, are similar to the demands made on Ringling Bros. when the brought the first Chinese Troupe over in 1992. A new, special railroad car had to be built and equipped with a private dining room, kitchen, and a chef brought from China to prepare the meals for the troupe, as well as a specially equipped sleeping car.
I wonder if there is any way to estimate how much the National Zoo has spent on breeding Panda's, with little success until lately? That unsuccessful breeding of an animal is a great mystery, like may in the annuals of zoology. How can every effort, with the finest facility, unlimited funds produce squat, or next to nothing, and a junk yard with the bare minimum produce wonders!!! Portland of the early 70's come's to mind with elephants. The Chapultepec Zoo acquired two Panda, of which I think the female was already impregnated, yet it wasn't until the advent of AI, and frozen semen that Panda's were produced in any great number, no matter how fine of a world class 5 star Chinese restaurant you built them to live in.
Does any one know how the Chapultepec Zoo was able to acquire their first Giant Pandas, which placed them in the annuals of Zoological History forever?
Giant Panda--Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City
I have always been fascinated by the forearm bone structure and the "lack of a chest" of an Giant Panda
Tohui
This coin was from a series of medallic pieces struck to celebrate the 5th Birthday of Tohui. Tohui was born July 21, 1981 at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico. Tohui was famous for being the first Giant Panda born outside China to stay alive, so her 5th birthday was quite an event. Medallic coins commemorating Tohui's first five years were struck in silver, gold and platinum.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Lahore Zoo Elephant House
At least there is some great art work on the outside wall of the elephant house, built in 1972 for the zoo's 100th birthday. Speculation is that Lahore may be the 4th oldest zoo in the world.
Lahore Zoo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Suzi--Lahore Zoo--Pakistan
I may be wrong, but it looks to me like there has been more then one Suzi generating revenue at the Lahore Zoo, over the years.
Suzi--Lahore Zoo--Pakistan
From what I have read, the people give Suzi money for a "trunk reach" which intern is kept by the keeper as his salary, for looking after Suzi.
Asian Buffalo with a star? Colored Asian Buffalo update
These domestic Asian Buffalo in Lahore, Pakistan are truly unique genetically. Note the curled horn's, the white head patch, and the white nose, and if you double click you note the "chocolate" cow and the front cow have glass eyes.
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