This new baby at the Bronx Zoo is making a real splash.
After a bunch of births there so far this year, including three primate babies. a snow leopard and a hefty 120-pound Indian Rhino, the latest addition just made her debut at the Sea Lion Pool.
The still unnamed female pup was born at the zoo on June 28th, the third baby born to mother, Indy.
Alas, daddy Kiani, who has fathered six offspring including the latest, won’t be around to be a father figure. He was transferred to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium, where he will be put to work doing his (ahem), love machine thing with the lady sea lions in Coney Island.
The new pup, still keeping pretty much under her mom’s wing – er, flipper – will be keeping company with Halftime, another rescue brought to the Bronx in 2012; Margaretta; McCabe; Nav; and Indy in the pool on the zoo’s historic Astor Court.
California sea lions are exhibited at all five WCS facilities: the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo.
Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Zoo and the Queens Zoo also added some sea lions, who traded the West Coast for the Big Apple, WCS officials said.
All four were rescued from the wild.
Two female sea lions arrived at WCS’s Prospect Park Zoo after being orphaned and stranded off the coast of Point Hueneme, Calif.
The pups were brought to Six Flags Vallejo in Ventura County California for initial care and rehabilitation. They were brought to Prospect Park Zoo after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined they were unlikely to survive in the wild.
The pups are doing well and learning basic behaviors from the zoo’s animal keepers. They are on exhibit in the sea lion pool along with the Prospect Park Zoo’s two other females, Stella and Beebe.
Two adult male California sea lions from the West Coast now live at WCS’s Queens Zoo. They came from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as part of a local wildlife management project.
Animal staff from the Queens Zoo and a veterinarian from the WCS Zoological Health Program went to the Pacific Northwest to examine, care for, and begin basic training of the two bulls at a local holding facility. They worked closely with the animals for nearly a month before transporting them to their new home.
The two join Butch and Taylor to complete the bachelor group of four in the zoo’s sea lion pool.
“We are happy to provide a home for these rescued animals and to add genetic diversity to our sea lion propagation program,” said Jim Breheny, WCS Executive Vice President and Bronx Zoo Director.
California sea lions are not endangered and live in healthy populations along the west coast of North America from Alaska to Mexico. All marine mammals, including sea lions, are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
For further information regarding the Bronx and other zoos, go to www.wcs.org.
