In the course of the year of 2006 we bred altogether 38 species of mammals. Not all of them are kept in such conditions that would enable them to reproduce. In several cases there are one-sex groups (e.g. African bush pig, Eland antelope, Grant's zebra, kulan) and at other species we stopped the reproduction temporarily (e.g. lowland anoa or beisa oryx), at some species there is no breeding male (e.g. Burmese deer) or he is still too young (e.g. bison). Out of the 23 species that are able to reproduce we managed to reproduce 20 species. Out of the total number of 85 born young ones, 56 individuals (66%) lived in the garden or outside at the end of the year.
Undoubtedly among the three most important breedings there are: Southern pudu (Pudu pudu), takin (Budorcas taxicolor) and 5 Rothschild’s giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi).
In the group of Equidae we have been breeding 5 species of horses for a long time. Traditionally we have the most individuals of Przewalski’s horse (Equus przewalskii) even though their numbers decreased significantly in the course of the year. The base of the Prague herd is formed by two mares for a couple of years and both of them had foals; Uršula had the filly Kordula (June) and Ycory had the colt Kristián (September). The breeding male Gino who came to the garden in 1998 celebrated his 20th birthday. In Prague he became the father of 17 foals and so it was recommended that he would move to another zoo within the framework of the coordinated European breed. In September he departed for his new home in the zoo in Nuremberg. At the end of the year the two foals (Jáson and Jessica) born in 2005 were still members of the herd. On the first day of spring and with the presence of the media we celebrated the birthday of the oldest living mare of Przewalski’s horse Cilka, who was born in 1972. However, in the following months her state was decreasing continually and at the moment when her problems with motion overcame the bearable border we had no choice but euthanasia. Cilka lived for 34 years, 4 months and 22 days.
There were also changes at the breeding station in Dobřejov where were at the beginning of the year 5 stallions and 14 mares in separate herds (one of them is the 14-year-old mare Fauna who is now after the death of Cilka the oldest horse in our breed). The number of the mares decreased to its half. The first transport took place at the beginning of May when 3 young mares left for a new reservation near Potsdam. The other group that had also 3 members found their home in a vast game park in Thorenc in the south of France. The last but the mot important was the departure of the two-year-old Isabela to the Ukrainian breeding station Askania Nova. As an exchange for her we obtained a new breeding male that is very precious from the genetic point of view. Len is four years old and for the time being he lives in Dobřejov.
As there is still no interest at the side of other breeders, we still have not renewed the reproduction of kiangs (Equus kiang holdereri). So the only event there was the death of the oldest female (22 years) that was caused by the irreversible changes of her carpal joint. In the breed we have 5 mares and 1 stallion in Prague and 4 more stallions that were bred in the past years stay in Dořejov. For the same reasons we stopped the reproduction of kulans (Equus hemionus kulan) a few years ago but here we also do not have enough space. The five-year-old mare Adéla left the trio of mares (the oldest one was 22 this year) and she will take part in the breed in Bratislava.
The two mares of Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi) were joined by the stallion in the spring. He was separated over the winter out of the exposition. It seems that the temporary separation helped to diminish his aggressive behaviour and there were no big riots in the group in the course of the year. Immediately after the return he mated with the younger mare Hattie but we will see the possible success in the course of 2007.
In November 2003 we introduced a new male to the group of Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) and at the beginning of 2006 it brought the first fruits. After a three-year-long pause the first little camel was born in the middle of January. It was a female Vanda and soon she found a new home in the zoo in Košice. In March two more little ones were born, both males but none of them survived the first month. The following birth was a success and in July the male Vítek was born as the last one that year. In the group of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) just as last year, three little ones were born but this time it was a better combination – not three males as in the previous year but two females and one male. Two of the males born the previous year left for a private breed and so there were 8 individuals at the end of the year. At the end of October we had to move the breeding herd of llamas alpaca (Vicugna pacos) to the bottom part of the zoo as their exposition was inhabited by guanacos due to the construction of the new range for brown hyenas. Only five days after the moving to the children’s zoo one of the females gave birth and the other one was successful only three weeks later and it was also a female. Both young ones lived till the end of the year which is for the first time after four years when the young female alpacas lived longer than for a few days.
In the group of deer mammals we had the first results of the reconstructions of the breeding groups that took place in 2005. Undoubtedly the biggest success was the birth of a young Southern pudu (Pudu pudu) that was born to one of the females in the middle of August. The male Oliver was the sixth pudu born in the Prague zoo but it was the first one after ten years that survived the first weeks of life. The only seamy day in the breeding of pudu was 16th February when the breeding male died due to kidney failure. After a three-year-long pause reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) had little ones as well. However, only the last one out of the three lived till the end of the year (the first one was born dead and the second one died due to Klepsiell infection at the age of almost 4 months). All the three young ones were from the original females and one of them died in the second half of the year. The four females that enriched the group in 2005 did not take part in the reproduction as they are still too young. We are expecting the first young ones also in the newly composed group of Pere David´s deer (Elaphurus davidianus). The stag who joined the two does in August 2005 used well the first rutting season and so at the end of the year we could observe the rounding as well as first movements of the little ones at both of the does.
In the breeding of moose (Alces alces alces) we had at the end of the year the record number of twelve animals. In the group that lives in Dobřejov, male twins were born in the middle of May – Guliver and Goliáš. The other adult female Cassandra also had a little one but the little female died soon after the birth. The group of four females was joined by a new breeding male Ruska from Finland at the beginning of July. Also the females in the expositional group met a new male in the middle of the year. It was Koloděj that had been up to then a member of the group in Dobřejov. The Prague herd was also enriched by a year-old female Šárka who came in September from the zoo in Brno.
There were no changes in the group of a stag and three does of wapitis (Cervus elaphus manitobensis) and also in the group of nine does of Burmese deer (Cervus eldii thamin). We hope that the beginning of 2007 will bring a new impulse to the breed of these exotic deer as a new male will come from the zoo in Zürich.
Among the successes of 2006 there must be mentioned the first successful breeding of takin (Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor) after five years and it is also just the second one in the history of the Prague breed. On the second day of March the nine-year-old female Nicki (in the previous reports mentioned under the name Kurti) gave birth to a female that was later on named Sněhulka due to her white forehead. The first female born in Prague also gave birth but as she was a primipara the young one was born prematurely and dead. The young male Micha was a member of the group of takins for the second year but he still resembles rather another little one due to his size than a future breeding male.
The group of five females of European bisons (Bison bonasus) got in summer a new breeding male, a two-year-old Arbo from the zoo in Amsterdam. Despite the fact that he arrived in the garden at the end of July he spent the rest of the year out of the group in the quarantine. The suspicion that he was infected by Para tuberculosis that caused such a long separation was fortunately proved wrong by several tests and finally at the beginning of 2007 he could join the group. Just as in the previous year, in 2006 the population of the bisons living in the wild near Bieszczady in Eastern Poland got a reinforcement from the Prague zoo. Within the project called “Would you help us back to the wild?” sponsored by the Opavia company, a year-old cow Prvosenka left for Poland on 30th August. In November she was successfully set free from the acclimatisation station.
The neighbouring group of American bisons (Bison bison) did not change significantly apart from the departure of a young bull and there were ten members at the end of the year. There were also no changes in the group of two males and two females of lowland anoas (Bubalus depressicornis), the female Cora was put together with the male Henry and so maybe next year we will have another little one.
Traditionally successful is the breeding of the endangered desert antelopes addaxes (Addax nasomaculatus). In the course of the year two males and two females were born but one male shortly after the birth caused trauma to himself and we had to put him to death. The base of the group still are the four females and a breeding male who is according to the accessible data the oldest male of addax in the whole world – on 6th December he was 20 years old. Two of the previously bred males left for the zoos in Krakow and Zagreb at the end of the year.
In the herd of other desert antelopes scimitar-horned oryxes (Oryx dammah) six little ones were born and one of the females managed to give birth twice in that year. The first two little ones died but three males and one female lived till the end of the year and so the final state was 12 individuals. In the group of beisa oryxes (Oryx gazella beisa) there were no births this year. The only female that is not related to our male was not put together with him as we do not have enough space. The competition for the space in the dormitory was less severe at the end of the year as the historically first bred beisa oryx, the male Stuart born in January 2005, left for the Thoira zoo in France.
There were many changes in the group of sable antelopes (Hippotragus niger). Altogether five young ones were born in the course of the year and one female just as at the scimitar-horned oryxes gave birth twice in that year. A young female born on 8th March became the jubilee 100th little sable antelope born in the Prague zoo. Not all of the young ones were bred successfully the first baby of that year died a week after the birth and a young female born in May died at the age of almost a month. The deaths did not avoid the adults as well as we lost two breeding females in that year. Three out of the previously bred animals left the garden, two females to the breed in Dvůr Králové and one three-year-old male called Cloudy left for the male group at the safari in Monde Sauvage.
The most important event in the breed of bongo antelopes (Boocercus euryceros isaaci) was the arrival of a new breeding male from Tierpark Berlin. The four-year-old Piccolo came in the middle of September and after two-month-long quarantine he successfully joined two females from our breed. Three other females were responsible for the other “arrivals” as they each gave birth to a male. The male Davy born in 2003 left for the garden in Ebeltoft. Just as last year the older previously bred young animals were moved for the summer to the neighbouring exposition to the company of other species of antelopes. This year there were three males.
For sitatungas (Tragelaphus spekei gratus) the year of 2006 was not much successful compared to the previous one. There were several deaths in the breed as the three newly born animals died and also 2 adults died in that year. We managed to breed 3 females and the 3 previously bred females left for the newly founded breed in Nyiregyhaz in Hungary and one male from the male group found a new home in the zoo in Szeged. In the bottom part of the zoo in the area of Water World we had for the second year in a row an exposition of young male sitatungas where we moved three maturing individuals from the main exposition in the top part of the zoo in the middle of the year. Towards the end of the year the group was added by a bred male of Nile lechwe antelope (Kobus megaceros) that got used very well and very fast to the new spaces. The breeding of Nile lechwe antelopes suffered from several unpleasant events. At the end of summer due to a complicated birth one of the breeding females died and we did not manage to save the young one as well. At the beginning of November we had to put to death another breeding female as she suffered from a complicated numerous fracture of a fore limb. We do not know how it happened. The third female gave birth to a male at the beginning of October. This young animal together with the above mentioned acclimatisation of the last year young male in the group of sitatungas and the departure of the second young animal from the previous year to the zoo in Reynou were the only pleasant events in the breed of these interesting antelopes in 2006.
The range with Nile lechwe antelopes and beisa oryxes is also shared by a three-member group of blesbocks (Damaliscus pygargus phillipsi) This group is formed of two young females and the male Billy who alternates between this range and the numerous group of females in the African panorama. Both females gave birth to their first young ones and in both cases it was a male. However, one of them at the age of four months injured himself when running around the range and he died of that injury a few days later. The base of the other group of blesbocks is formed by five adult females but we were forced to put one of them to death at the beginning of May but due to her problems with mobility (irreversible changes at carpal joints) that were getting worse. The only new member in that group was the new born male who came to the world in the winter stables at the beginning of December. Throughout the summer this group of blesbocks inhabited the exposition of African panorama that is the largest range in the Prague zoo. Among the other traditional inhabitants of this range there are: a pair of ostriches (Struthio camelus), a group of three mares of Grant's zebra (Equus quagga boehmi) and a group of three male addaxes. For the first time in the range there were the groups of three females of Eland antelopes (Taurotragus oryx), two from the zoo in Herberstein and one from the zoo in Münster, and four females of lechwe antelopes (Kobus leche kafuensis) from Dvůr Králové that were joined at the end of the year by a male from the zoo in Nyiregyhaz. The list of the animals using that range would not be complete without Rothschild’s giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi) that are the dominant of the whole range. The year of 2006 brought a “population explosion” as the females who mated with the new male Johan started to give births. The first young one was born on the 26th January to the female Kleopatra but in this case the father was the old male Šimon who was 20 at the end of the year. The female Zora later baptised as Gábina became the jubilee 50th giraffe born in the Prague zoo. In the course of the year other five females gave birth and except for one young one who died immediately after the birth they are all healthy. The record number of 15 giraffes welcomed the beginning of the new year in the African pavilion – 2 breeding males, 8 adult females and 5 new-born babies.
The other traditional inhabitants of the pavilion are the two males of African bush pigs (Potamochoerus porcus pictus) that were from May able to use a new range and aardwarks (Orycteropus afer). The female Pieta and her young one Danny were in May joined by a pair that had been kept in the rear spaces so far – the female Miška and the male Dudley. After about a month the female Miška left for a new male in Suffolk and her place was fulfilled by a-year-old female Quote from Arnhem in the Netherlands. The air space above the expositions for African bush pigs and aardwarks is traditionally inhabited by a mixed group of seven species of quelea birds (Ploceidae), Sudan golden-sparrows (Passer luteus) and garden bulbuls (Pycnonotus barbatus).
The quarantine also belongs to the administration of the department of Ungulates . Altogether 445 individuals of 151 species came here in 2006. The most important part of the workload of this department is the provision of the obligatory quarantine for the animals that come to the garden from other breeding institutions (51 % arrivals in 2006). However, the quarantine plays an important role in the lives of animals confiscated by the Czech Inspection of the Environment (23 %) and to a large extent the quarantine serves to the animals from the garden that have to leave their expositional dormitories temporarily for various reasons (health, technical, organisational reasons) (21 %). The remaining capacity is used by handicapped animals who come here from the wild.
Jaroslav Šimek, Ph.D., the curator
Back to previous page
