Dublin Zoo and Fota Wildlife Park in Co Cork have been fertile zones in recent months. The zoo has six different species of animals which gave birth to 13 young, including twins and quads.
Fota park in Carrigtwohill has gone one further with quintuplets. Five cheetah cubs were born early this month at the wildlife park, as was a zebra foal and a giraffe calf, the second in a month.
Dublin Zoo also has some new acquisitions, not born in Ireland but on show since early this month.
Bamboo, the male, and his female companion, Russet, two red pandas acquired from Vienna and Zurich, arrived here in January, but have been acclimatising to their new surroundings before going on show in their specially-adapted enclosure. They are distinguished from their better-known relative, the black panda, by their distinctive red features.
For the almost 500,000 visitors to the zoo so far this year, a record number because of the bad weather, there are other new arrivals. The births at the zoo include a snow leopard, a tapir, tamarins (twins), meerkats (quads), a black ape and . . . domestic pigs.
Mildred and George, a couple of Tamworths (a rare breed of pig with Irish origins, according to the zoo authorities), became parents for the second time when Mildred gave birth to four piglets in June.
The most recent births, again quads, were meerkats, which arrived into the world on July 13th. They are best known for their "sentry duty", which is the ability to stand on their hind legs for long periods of time. Dublin Zoo said they were made famous by the television ad Meerkats United.
Perhaps the birth of most public interest is that of a celebes macaque, more colloquially known as a black ape. This baby was born on July 12th, and its birth is part of a European Endangered Species Breeding Programme, run by Jersey Zoo. This breed of macaque is sought by poachers to sell as pets and they are in danger in the wild as their habitat is being destroyed.
The snow leopard is also an endangered species and the zoo's baby, Shimha, named after a region in India where snow leopards originated, is now 3 1/2 months old. He will be fed by his mother, Medan, for the next three months and will remain with her at least until next spring while it is decided whether he will be transferred to another zoo.
The other animals born as part of the European breeding programme were twin golden lion tamarins last month. Tamarins (small monkeys with squirrel-like bushy tails) have been successfully returned to the wild by the international zoo community. Ireland, in fact, is the base for the European breeding programme for this species.
A South American tapir was also born on July 1st. The zoo director, Mr Peter Wilson, said it had "strived to provide a safe and secure environment in which animals will feel comfortable and happy".
At Fota, a cheetah from Edinburgh, brought in for breeding purposes, gave birth to five cubs 11 days ago. Nameless, she is known as cheetah 151.
According to the director of the park, Dr Noel Stronach, she will keep the cubs for the best part of a year because they will be separated from her for weaning and eventually the males are separated from the females. The cubs are still too young to be out in the open, but visitors can see them with their mother in the cubbing den on a video monitor.
The park also has a new zebra foal, born a week ago. It joins the herd of five zebras in the park and another foal is expected before the end of the summer. The foal has not yet been named because staff have not identified whether it is a male or female. They do not go near them in the paddock which they share with giraffes, ostriches and antelope.
A second giraffe calf, Sonia, has been born at the park within a month. She and her half-sister Tweega are said to be both thriving and "enjoying the open spaces of the grassland".
Like Dublin Zoo, Fota Wildlife Park has had some record attendances. Over the August public holiday weekend, there were 4,100 visitors on the Sunday, the highest number on any single day since the park opened in 1983.
