BREEDING

A second generation birth of captive Sun bears Helarctos malayanus

at East Berlin Zoo H E I N R I C H D A T H E Director, Tierpark Berlin, East Berlin, Germanjl

The first Sun bear Helarctos malayanus to be bred and reared in Germany was born at East Berlin Zoo on 4 April 1961* (Dathe, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1967). On that occasion the mother ‘Tschita’ deserted her cub, ‘Evi’ after seven weeks and it had to be reared by hand. Subsequently, Tschita produced more young, one cub at a time. The dates of these later births were 30 August 1961 (it \\as interesting that Tschita produced two litters in 1961), 28 June 1964, 18 January 1966, 9 September 1967 and 17 February 1969. A second Sun bear, ‘Bomo’, gave birth to one cub on 23 November 1964. All these young bears survived.

The first of Tschita’s offspring, Evi, was mated, in a back-cross, with her father and on 16 January 1969 gave birth to a cub. Because she nibbled its toes it had to be removed from her and reared artificially. Its weight at birth was 300 g (10.602) which is about the same as in the Spectacled bear Tremarctos ornatus. It reached a weight of 430 g (15 02) by the end of the first week but then, unfortunately, it suddenly died of peritonitis, without any previous symptoms.

Evi had meanwhile been mated again and we await the outcome with interest. Her first oestrus

79

was recorded when she was 3.5 years old but she did not conceive until three years later. The reason for this delay is not known.

In all our cases the gestation period was 95-96 days and it is interesting that Asakura (1969) has noted a gestation period of 95 days for the hybrid Sloth bear Melursus ursiniisx Sun bear.

R E F E R E N C E S A S A K U R A , s. (1969): A note on a bear hybrid Melursus ursinus x Helarctos malayanus at Tarna Zoo, Tokyo. Int. ZOO Yb. 9: 88. DATHE, E. DATHE, H. (1966): Bareneltern miner Willen. Wittenberg Lutherstadt. DATHE, H . (1962): Malaienbarenzucht im Tierpark Berlin. Freunde Kaln. Zoo j: 41. DATHE, H . (1962): Breeding the Malayan hear Helarctos malayanus. Int. Zoo Yb. 3: 94. D A T H E , H. (1963): Beitrag zur Fortpflanzungs- biologie des Malaienbaren Helarctos m. malayanus. Z.f: Saugetierkd. 28: 155-162. DATHE, H. (1966): Einige Bemerkungen zur Zocht des Malaienbaren Helarctos malayanus. Zool. Gart.,

DATHE, H. (1967): Bemerkungen zur Aufzucht von Brillenharen Treinarctos ornatzis im Tierpark Berlin. 2001. Gart., Lpz. 34: 105-133.

LpZ. 32: 193-198.

Observations on the Oriental short-clawed otter

a t Aberdeen Zoo Aoiz~~x cineren

G E O R G E L E S L I E ,Ilanager, Aberdeen Zoological Garden, Aberdeen, Scotland

A male Oriental short-clawed otter Aonyx cinerea brought up as a family pet. As a result it had mas donated to the zoo on 7 December 1966 by become imprinted on human beings. On arrival Lieutenant F. A. Clark of the R.A.F. The at the zoo ‘Koko’ transferred his affections from animal, which was then five years old, had been Lieutenant Clark to me and, gradually, to the rest bought as a baby by him in Malaya and had been ofthe keepers. Although I did not think that such

*The birth date, 21 April 1961, given on p. 94 of Vol. 3 of the Yearbook is an error.

80 B R E E D I N G

an imprinted otter would be compatible with one of its own species, I nevertheless tried to obtain a female to see if they would breed. This was especially worth trying as at that time no births of the Oriental short-clawed otter had been re- corded in Great Britain. Thanks once again to Ikutenant Clark, a female, named ‘Ovaltine’, arrived from Penang on 23 llarch 1967. l f te r quarantine she was introduced to Koko in his 6 i 3 m (20 x 10 ft) enclosure.

1t-e fed the two otters a varied diet, each rc- ceiving daily I kg (0.5 lb) fresh fish, 0.; kg (0 .25 lb) fresh meat, four one-day old chicks, eels (when available). two raw eggs and some bone meal. Once a week they had a carnivore supple- ment capsule and a whole hen each, and once a month they were each given a rabbit. -4lthough I tricd to persuade them to drink milk they stead- fastly refused it, no matter whether it was full strength or diluted cow or goat milk.

Behaviourally, a strange thing I noticed was that in the zoo neither of the otters would go under water, although in Malaya short-clawed otters are often seen swimming off the coast in deep water, and are as skilled in aquatic acro- batics as their European counterparts. In the zoo a large aquarium of water was provided for them but they used it only to wash their food in a raccoon-like way and to nct their claws for grooming each morning.

Despite my fears, Ovaltine proved to be as friendly as Koko. In fact the two otters showed no fear of humans at all. For example, when I was conducting a party of visitors around the zoo the otters would play hide and seek between the visitors’ legs. They found it equally diverting to sit on my feet, one curled up on each shoe. If I xalked away and left them, they would give a curious high pitched whistle and run after me to be picked up and stroked. But, if they had an affection for human beings, they seemed to be quite compatible with one another as well - a t least at first.

Ilating took place as soon as they \\-ere intro- duced. Ovaltine came into oestrus every 28 days, for three days at a time. On 28 July 1967, she gave birth to a single male cub. -4Ithough earlier she had shown little sign of pregnancy apart from a marked viciousness - a few weeks before giving birth she had savaged my hand when I had tried to pick her up - by the night of 27 July it \vas

obvious she was going to have young. A sleeping box 60 cm (z ft) square was therefore prepared for her and, to give her further privacy, the xhole enclosure was shuttered off. Koko was removed.

The cub, which weighed about 57 g (2 oz), was completely ignored by its mother, who did not even try to keep it warm. We therefore returned Koko to the enclosure where he proved to be a better father than Ovaltine was a mother. The first thing he did was to gather straw for the baby and make a nest for it. Subsequently, apart from allowing the female to suckle it, he did not allow her to come near the cub but looked after it himself.

In due course the screens were removed from the enclosure and this revealed a fascinating side of Ovaltine’s behaviour. She would wait until she had an audience, and then pick up the cub in her mouth. Taking it from the nest she would run to the wire netting and proudly display it to the vis- itors. m’henever she did this Koko would immed- iately try to reclaim it and a chase ensued until he got the cub from her and had put it back into the sleeping box. This state of affairs continued until I replaced the screens, which stayed in placc a further three weeks.

The cub’s eyes opened on 6 September 1967 and it ate its first solid food on 18 October 1957. This consisted of a raw egg and part of an eel. Three days later it started to eat anything it was offered. Unfortunately, as its appetite increased, so did its mother’s viciousness towards it. A- though their food was given in separate t r a y the mother would eat both lots. By the end of Nov- ember it was therefore decided to move the youngster to an enclosure of its own. As the neather was cold an infra-red lamp was used to provide heat but much to our dismay, on one particularly bitter winter’s night, the electricity supply failed. Next morning the cub was found dead.

In February 1968 a second cub was born to Ovaltine. It survived for 15 minutes only and 1 noticed that its dead body had been partially eaten. Ovaltine’s third cub came in October 1968. It was again a male and the mother refused to let it suckle, so I took it home where it was fed on milk at hourly intervals. Unhappily it survived only five days.

Ovaltine gave birth to twin cubs in 1969, one on 16 March and one on 21 March. Determined

B R E E D I N G 8 1

this time to succeed in raising the two cubs we nailed screens round the enclosure. But apart from cleaning out the soiled straw and giving

food this time we have left the otters severely alone. Five weeks later the cubs are still alive and apparently thriving.

Breeding the Banded palm civet and the Banded I i nsa ng Heniigalus derbyanus and Prionodon linsang

a t Wassenaar Zoo

J . W. W . L O U W M A N Dii‘cctor, Dierenpark Wassenaar, Holland

For several years the Wassenaar Zoo has had a good collection of 10 species of Viverridae. During recent years we have bred the meerkat Sut icata suricatta, the binturong Arctictis bwturong, the African palm civet Nandinia brnotata, the Banded palm civet Hemigalus derbyanus and the Banded linsang Prionodon linsung. The successful breeding of the last two species appears to be the first in captivity.

lye received a pair of tame Banded palm civets on 27 February 1968. For the first few months we kept them in quarantine, but by the end of June we were able to give them a semi-outdoor cagerneasuring3xzxz .5m(10~6.5~8ft ) . It is a sunny, wire-netting cage with a 50 cm (20 in) nall around it. It is covered by a glass roof. In the cage we had a heavy climbing-tree and boulders on which the civets rubbed the secre- tion of their glands. We gave them two of our straw-filled, duck breeding-boxes which measure 32 3 ’ 3 2 ~ 32 cm ( 1 2 . 5 ~ 1 2 . 5 ~ 12.5 in) with a round 16 cm (6in) entrance hole. The breeding- box does not have a bottom, and this turned out to be very practical, because we never have to chase the animals out of their boxes; we just lift it. .it dusk, they become lively and spent their time climbing trees. When they got upset about something, their tails would become swollen just as they do in cats. Their diet consisted mainly of finely minced meat, day-old chicks, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, bananas and occas- ionally a whole chicken or pigeon. They refused to eat fish and they could not manage to open the shell of small eggs. A mixture of vitamins and minerals (‘Gistocal’) was added to the meat.

Although no signs of mating were observed, we noticed that the female was apparently preg- nant some three weeks before she gave birth. Her nipples were pink and swollen. We decided to separate the female in an indoor cage measuring 3 ~ 0 . 7 5 ~ 1.5 m ( 1 0 ~ 2 . 5 ~ 4 5 ft) kept at a tem- perature of 25°C (77°F). In this cage she had her same nesting-box straw-filled, boulders, climbing- tree and, in a corner, a cat box with peat-mould, which she always used. We did not notice any nest- making activity on the part of the female. On 26 October 1968 between 1330 and 1430 hours two female cubs were born. Unfortunately the birth was not observed. The tame mother was not at all nervous after the birth, which gave us a chance to weigh and measure the cubs.

The new-born young weighed 125 g (4.4 02)

and had a head to tail length of 25 cm (10 in). They were scarcely able to crawl; their eyes were closed and their ears folded. Their coloration resembled that of the adult animals but was a little darker and the stripes on their head were less pronounced. The mother refused to eat for the first three days and during the first week or so she defaecated irregularly. The eyes of the young opened after 8 and 12 days. After we had weighed them, the mother would take the young from us and carry them by their waists back to their nesting box. (We once saw the mother carrying a young by its tail after he had tried to run out of the cage). After day 18 the youngsters started walking around and at four weeks they followed their mother in the climbing-tree. By day 20 they had doubled their birth weight and after four months it had increased eightfold and their