I few snippets from a visit to Welsh Mountain Zoo yesterday. It's been over 18 months since my last visit and in this time the zoo has built and stocked the Lemur Woods Walkthrough exhibit and commenced the building of a new exhibit area that will house Red Panda & Otters - next to each other but not together.
I enjoyed my visit immensely, helped in part by glorious weather for this time of the year and the fact that it's in term time and hence much quieter!
I spoke to many keepers during the day and found them all very helpful, knowledgeable and good ambassadors for the work they do and WMZ's contribution to the species they work with.
Snow Leopards - both of the pair were very active first thing in the morning as the zoo opened, interacting and scenting their enclosure. Upon speaking to the keeper about the breeding program and their unfortunate lack of contribution to it following the death of the 2009 cubs to cowpox, I was told that they are still very much trying and the pair had in fact produced cubs earlier this year that due to congenital defects did not survive. But it is heartening to know that there is still a possibility that this pair could produce cubs, worrying about the defects but we can live in hope.
Red Panda - the arrival of a 2 year old female NURI from Barcelona earlier this year to join the existing ex-Chester male MING MING and their relocation to a temporary enclosure in the woodland area near the bears whilst the new habitat is finished does not seem to have phased them as they have 2 roughly 4 month old cubs with them, as yet unsexed but due a trip to the vet next week which should see that rectified, the adults were very active with Ming Ming studiously scent marking and Nuri trying to coax the cubs out of their den to explore - one did briefly but the world is a scary place to a red panda cub obviously!!
The rest of the zoo appears little changed - the reptile house is much improved on my previous visit and yet again I have still to see 'Jack' the Margay - the keepers said he is very active in the early hours before the zoo opens but tends to sleep during opening hours - I despair of ever seeing this beautiful cat :(
The chimp group was very active and the new Alpha Male following the sad demise of Bob to a heart defect apparently is Sixpence - also recent DNA testing of the whole troup has identified 2 of the males as 'pure' whilst the rest are hybrids - here my notes let me down but I think pure refers to west african?
The lone male Sumatran tiger FLYNN/BRYN is to be joined by a pair of young females this winter from an unspecified collection in Germany - the keeper couldn't remember which one but 'it's not one of the big collections' - they are NOT to form a breeding pair here as it exists - if the male were different that might change. It's possible that WMZ are a holding zoo for these 2 females and they will either move on into a breeding program OR they are not desired for breeding for some reason, either way I look forward to their introduction to the collection.
Nothing else of note to share I think - I'll share some images when I downloads my card later.