Zoos provide a great opportunity for people to learn about and connect with animals they may otherwise never see. In particular, zoos may be the only chance to see some international species up close, a very different experience to watching them on TV. These ambassadors for their wild cousins provide a connection for people to learn about the challenges facing the species, and what they can do to help.

In an effort to better focus Zoos SA's international conservation efforts, five ecosystem areas, that provide protection to a range of species, have been selected for our support. These projects will allow Zoos SA to make a real difference, not only to specific species but whole ecosystems and human communities.

1. Lady luck. Let's be honest, this can play a big factor!

2. Find your inner ninja. The quieter you run the better. Running on your toes helps, as this reduces the "thudding" sound of your feet hitting the ground.

After leaving Lewa Downs I travelled with trust trading staff and Scouts to catch up with staff from Zoos Victoria at Melako but on the way we purchased beadwork from several conservancies and met many of the women involved. Most of this beadwork – over 25,000 units - had been ordered for Xmas sales through Zoos Victoria. The Melako area is famous for Grevy’s Zebra and is home to the Grevy’s Zebra Trust. The main town there is Laisamis and the zebras come through town to drink at the permanent water there every night during the dry season. With only 2500 left in Kenya they are truly an endangered animal.

Lewa Downs was a cattle station which has been converted by the conservation-minded Craig family into a wildlife haven. While there I saw Reticulated giraffe, Grevy's and Grants Zebra, Leopard, Black and White Rhino, Grant's gazelle, Beisa oryx, Buffalo, Eland, Klipspringer, Warthogs, Olive baboons, Vervet monkeys, Somali ostrich, Crowned cranes, Secretary birds, Kori bustards and more. Lions frequently walk through the guest house area.

Last October I visited Northern Kenya as the guest of the Northern Rangeland Trust. This had been arranged through Zoos Victoria which already supports a community conservancy area there called Melako. The trust has been helping to facilitate community-led conservation initiatives in this region for many years and now works with Samburu, Rendile, Maasai and Borana people in an area covering over 1.36 million ha.

Let me introduce to you “The Wombat Wranglers”........ 

Dr David Taggart (Tags)

Principal Scientist.
Alias = Speedy Gonzalez

Tags has worked with wombats for 18 years and can tell you pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about the animals. He is the fastest runner to ever grace a burrow filled paddock - generally all you will see of him when he is chasing after a wombat is a puff of dust. "Ándale! Ándale! Arriba! Arriba!” 

As part of the visit I met with the curators and head vet who are involved in making sure everything goes well with getting two Giant Panda's, Hu Bao and Wu Jie, next year who will live at their new property River Safari.

The River Safari will be a 12 ha park adjacent to the Zoo and Night Safari, on land bordering the reservoir and will house one of the world's largest collections of freshwater aquatic animals, with more than 300 plant species, 500 animal species and over 5,000 individual animal specimens.

Hu Bao and Wu Jie will be the first pair of pandas to be living in the tropics – there is a pair at Chiang Mai in Thailand but they are further north of the equator in a sub-tropical zone. A purpose built facility (1500 sq m) is being constructed as part of the new River Safari development and will see the pandas having a climate controlled facility that will be maintained around 18-22C, with 50-60% humidity, with some access to the outdoors although the conditions will be slightly different to what they are used to now!

Wendy
Manager of Conservation Programs, Zoos SA

Photo 2: Curator Ang Cheng with 1:50 scale model of new panda exhibit for Singapore's River Safari

Within Wolong there is a sculpture showing the efforts made by people to rescue pandas. The sculpture was in the park prior to the earthquake, but the same sentiment and dedication was seen after the earthquake. 

It is humbling to come and visit the facilities in China and to get an appreciation of the efforts people are putting into saving this iconic species – and with it some of the world's amazing biological diversity in Sichuan – a biodiversity hotspot.

The last thing on the agenda as part of this visit to China was to attend a celebration at the Bifengxia panda base.

Guests from the five countries which have pandas from the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP) – USA, Austria, Thailand, Japan, Australia – plus Singapore who will be receiving pandas next year, were invited to attend the event. The event was to celebrate two things:

• The opening of the Overseas-born Panda Paradise and the end of quarantine for the two recent arrivals from San Diego (Su Lin and Zhen Zhen)
• The debut of the 16 pandas born at the base in 2010.

Two years on from the earthquake, Wolong again has pandas back on site as part of reintroduction training. In June this year an initial conference on wild training was convened and lead to four mated females being returned to Wolong in July 2010. One of these females (Cao Cao) gave birth to a cub, on the 3rd August 2010.

Cao Cao and cub are now living with limited human interference in a relatively small enclosure (2400 sq m) in an environment similar to that found in the wild. Once the cub is about 5 months old, the pair will be moved in stages to successively larger and higher altitude enclosures (40 000, then 240 000, then 1 000 000 sq m).

In addition to the physical challenges faced by staff, they also faced the challenge of losing family members and friends in the earthquake as well as several pandas.

The significant foresight which had seen another base built west of Chengdu, near Ya'an proved to be incredibly valuable in helping to save the pandas. This base, Bifengxia, has been where the other staff who have had the privilege to visit the facilities in China have worked.

Bifengxia was established in 2003 and originally housed 16 pandas. Over time the numbers increased to the current total around 80, but there was never the intention to house CCRCGP's entire captive population there.

From the new base, we headed to the Wolong (Hetaoping) base and saw the impact of the earthquake on the facility.

On one hand we were impressed at how the facilities at the base had stood up in the earthquake (although what we saw was the result of a very large clean up/repair effort). And also with how pretty the area is – it is a beautiful view from the centre with the mountains and forest (higher altitude forest to Bifengxia – 1800m in contrast to 1100m at Bifengxia). On the other hand the impacts were obvious to see with landslides near the entrance area to the panda holding facilities and the scaffolding track that had been erected to allow the workers to get to the facilities.

Eventually, after a very bouncy ride, we reached Gengda township – the new home of the panda centre.

Here Prof Huang took us to the site of the new base where we gained an understanding of the scale of the work to be done – both in terms of pure size of the facility but also in terms of amount of work to be completed and financial input. The Hong Kong government is putting a lot of support into the rebuilding of the panda base – in the realm of 2 billion RMB (~$300 milion) for infrastructure. Construction will commence next year depending on road construction and is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

Heading out of Yingxui gave us a much better understanding of the challenges faced in the region as we travelled along one of the large challenges – the road to Wolong.

In order to be able to rebuild an area you need to be able to get people, equipment and supplies in and out of the area. And here that means by road – or at least an approximation of a road. When you don't have a functional road that makes life extremely difficult.

After a few days of meetings in Beijing, Simon and I arrived in Fuzhou to attend a Conference of Chinese Committee of Breeding Technique for Giant Pandas.

This conference is held each year and is a great opportunity to share knowledge and learn from each other. This year's conference had attendees from more than ten countries and highlighted the great work being done to protect this species... and by extension the other amazing species in the Sichuan region.

Hi All,

This is the first time I've done a blog for the Giant Pandas, and I've got so much to tell as last month I was lucky enough to travel to China as part of the Giant Panda Conservation program, along with Simon Habel, Executive Director of Conservation Ark.

We went to China to work with some colleagues on the conservation and research plans on Giant Pandas because as you know, involvement in the international breeding program by having Funi and Wang Wang in Adelaide is only part of the story....

Once we had all the wombats back in the shearing shed, it was about 2 in the morning and we all went to bed for the night.

Hello, this is Mishelle from Monarto Zoo.

A few weeks ago, I went on a research trip for the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat. We set up camp in a shearing shed on a property near Swan Reach. The research team have been working with the wombats on this particular property for over 15 years and in this time have gathered lots of information about these wombats and their habits.

Hi everyone,

It's always a bit of a grind to back into the swing of things at work after being away for a long time. Have been back a few weeks now from the Warru field trip and 3 weeks in North America and the jetlag is just about gone!

The Warru (Black-flanked Rock Wallaby) trip up in the APY Lands near Ernabella went great. It is beautiful country up there and the opportunity to work alongside the local Anangu people was a wonderful experience. This trip was the latest in a series of expeditions to assess the populations in northern South Australia, which has suffered significant declines in recent times, primarily due to fox predation.

Tonight we are doing our first cross foster procedure. The tiny little joey gets flown down and a staff member will meet the plane at the airport and bring the joey back to the zoo.