Breeding Programmes at Papanack Park Zoo |
| Papanack Park Zoo is involved in a number of National and
International breeding programmes. The primary objective for these breeding programmes is the conservation of
endangered species. Snow Leopards: The first programme that we became involved in was the Species Survival Programme for Snow Leopards. Georgina, our first Snow Leopard arrived in 1995 from Jungle Cat World in Orono, Ontario, but it was not until three years later in 1998 that we welcomed her mate from Germany. Yashin, as he was aptly named by a group of visiting school children, proved to be a good mate and Gemini, the first Snow Leopard to be born at Papanack arrived on the birthday of Keith Forgie, the owner of Papanack in 1999. These births were followed by a set of twins, Grumpy and Grumpier, then Baggins and Bella. Most of the babies have left for other facilities, but Grumpy is still with us and will replace Yashin and Georgina when they retire from the breeding programme. His new mate will be a young female named Berlin, who came to us from Berlin, Germany! With less than 700 snow leopards in captivity globally and less than 20 of those in Canada it is essential to maintain good genetic diversity. Due to the political situation in the countries that provide the native habitat for snow leopards it is not practical for us to re-release them back into the wild at the present time, so the primary focus of the SSP is to create a sufficiently diverse gene pool of captive snow leopards to guarantee success when they are eventually re-released back into the wild. Lemurs: We are also involved in a Lemur Breeding Programme and house the largest collection of lemurs in Canada and the third largest in North America. We have had great success with Ring-tailed Lemurs and have included the critically endangered Black & White Ruffed Lemur and the very endangered Mongoose Lemur our collection, this breeding season. With only 100 pairs in captivity the birth of the baby Mongoose Lemur was very exciting. All of our breeding females gave birth this year, with one set of twins, which is quite rare. We have recently expanded our collection to include two pairs of Brown Lemurs and two pairs of Black Lemurs. White Bengal Tigers: The first White Bengal Tigers to be exported from the United States in ten years will be arriving at Papanack sometime this summer and this will bring the number of White Tigers at Papanack to seven – the largest collection in Canada! White Tigers are not Albinos; they usually have some pigmentation in the form of dark stripes and have blue eyes. Albinos have no pigmentation and red eyes. A litter of five White Tigers were recently born at a zoo in the U.K. At present, Neptune is too young to breed with Venus, but hopefully in the future we will see White Tiger cubs born at Papanack, as part of the U.K. based Global Tiger Patrol. Neptune’s two sisters, who are present on an exhibit loan to the Assinniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, will also be part of that breeding programme when they return at the end of the summer. Guinea Pigs: Even though we have a large collection of Guinea Pigs, they are not part of an International breeding programme. We just loves them! |