Species not in zoos that we'd want to see in zoos

12-06-2008

I've never heard of platypus at Antwerp, particularly as recently as 1993. Perhaps you could contact the zoo and clarify...

15-06-2008

Sun Wukong- So they have to think and use their senses.

19-06-2008

@PAT: Well, they surely do "think" without any obstacles... However, I agree with You that environmental enrichment would be appropriate, yet I think mobile items (like large balls, rubber rings etc.) that can easily be added and taken away would be more useful than objects that obstruct the free swimming area, become soon all too familiar and might even injure the animals in the case of an accident. In the book I mentioned before, the captive River dolphins seemed to have especially liked playing with the underwater microphone.

04-07-2008

A small wish. I wood be nice to see tool-using woodpecker finch from Galapagos in captivity, and land iguanas.

Overall, it would be great if some zoo made Galapagos walk-thru exhibit, with giant tortoises and other friends of Charles Darwin. But I don't see it coming soon...

04-07-2008

Part of Rotterdam's Oceanarium is a replica of Darwin's ship, with the Galapagos giant turtle exhibit attached to it. In my opinion the area has a hard time getting the message really across, but perhaps that's only my view. It's as close as it's gonna get and a decent attempt nonetheless.

04-07-2008

I've seen the koala's in antwerp in '93, but there never was a platypus, or else they had it really well hidden!

I don't think river dolphins are a good idea. the bouto's never did well except for duisburg and texas(?). as could be said for cetaceans in general.

before I'd like to see new species in zoos, I'd like to see more intercontinental collaboration. e.g. american and australian zoos all exhibit nice populations of local animals, yet it's virtually impossible to get those species to Europe. and I'm not even talking about rare or difficult ones but american blackbears, bobcats, wombats, ...

05-07-2008

@forumbully-re: Botos: take a look at the Venezuela links I mentioned. According to the late Dr. Gewalt who caught the botos for Duisburg back then, they seemed to have been much hardier in captivity than the Commerson dolphins he also caught for the zoo.

05-07-2008

how many were caught over the years and how many reached an acceptable age in captivity?

I know the duisburg boutos hold the record for longevity, but I'm pretty sure they are the exception and not the rule.

allthough I love to see dolphins etc in the flesh, I have serious doubts that they make good display/show animals. breeding in captivity isn't going all that well in almost all species.

05-07-2008

@forumbully: You could ask the same question in regard to many animal species which are nonetheless still kept in zoos today-like Great Apes, penguins, antelopes...

I would estimate that about 20-30 botos were caught in the previous decades-a rather small number compared to the estimated amount of specimen regularily drowing in fishing nets or being killed deliberately by fishermen. I think a lot of the losses especially by the American zoos can be contributed to incorrect catching, transportation or husbandry. Reading Gewalt's accounts of the catching, transportation etc. lets one realize how little was known in the past about these important issues and how "inventive" the collectors had to be due to problematic and "primitive" conditions.

Back then, Gewalt animadverted the reluctance of his coevals to try out new paths and thus gain knowledge about animals that could prove to be important in the future. Therefore, I consider the husbandry of botos over decades at Duisburg Zoo not as an odd exception, but as a great waz to learn more about these animals and as proof that it is possible to keep and, as the case of Venezuela shows, even breed river dolphins in captivity. And in regard to the situation of the river dolphin species worldwide, I do think that one should not easily scrub the possibility of, additionally to better in-situ protection, keeping some ex-situ populations of highly endangered river dolphins like the Ganges River dolphin. Your hint re: better international collaboration would be of high importance here, too.

The botos at Duisburg have always been very popular among the visitors, especially after "Father" and the still living "Baby" moved to their new exhibit. And judging from the videos and travellersˇs accounts, the ones at Venezuela seem to be popular, too.

06-07-2008

the difference between cetaceans (to keep it general) and big apes, okapis or even green iguana's for that matter, is that over the decades we have learned to keep and breed them, thus sustaining a captive population.

I should think that over 4 decades of dolphin keeping has taught us a thing or 2, yet still they need to be taken from the wild and still breeding results are quite rare and survival rate of those born is low.

I have absolutely no problem with rare animals taken from the wild for ex-situ breeding programs like is done with the visayan pig or tasmanian devil.
but in the case of river-(or any other)dolphins, I'm afraid this will just put more pressure on the population before we even hope to keep them alive and breeding, by which time they just might be "last of the mohikans"

06-07-2008

I think sooner we see in the West some Irrawady dolphins or similar species from Asian aquariums.

Interesting fact: Europeans like botos, Asians like Irrawady dolphins and pilot whales (short nose).

06-07-2008

@forumbully: There are cetacean species like the Beluga, the Orca or the ever-popular Common Bottlenose Dolphin in serious American or European captive populations that breed already in the at least third generation, with no wild-caught animals added to the groups in the last 2 or even 3 decades. And for example in the case of the Great Apes, not all species or subspecies couldn't establish themselves in zoos-think of the Eastern Gorilla.
If zoos stopped keeping all the species with no established, self-sustaining zoo populations, we would look at a lot of empty exhibits and tanks, especially in the avian, (marine) fish, invertebrates or amphibian/reptile section. Of course, this should not be considered a blank approval for the zoos worldwide to get all the animals they want without caring to establish self-sustaining populations-after all, this is one reason why CITES came up...But I think that the all too anthropomorphising, sometimes merely emotional approach to cetacea husbandry is not justified. Or is a dolphin more worthy of protection than a shark or a crayfish? Nobody seems to care about an aquarium replacing their deceased reef fish with new ones freshly caught from the ocean, while the same aquarium would be heavily animadverted by various animal right groups if they got captive-born belugas...I do not ignore and hereby state my sorrow that the "infant" mortality of cetaceans in captivity is still pretty high and the numbers of successful births in comparison is pretty low. But the same or even worse can be said about various species of the groups mentioned above which are kept and traded for more than 4 decades with, if at all, only a few people caring about it.
What I want to convey is that I fear that this "golden cow" status might do more harm to cetaceans than good-so that the "last of the mohikans" might be already gone before apt actions are taken up.
I do not think that catching river dolphins from the wild would add more pressure on the species. If Gewalt and Pilleri managed to capture botos/Indus dolphins "gently" and without losses more than 30 years ago and, in the case of Duisburg, keep them alive for decades, it should also be possible today, if not better, as we can now rely on the experiences and knowledge gathered back then, and improvements on the field of zoo/wildlife medicine, general husbandry etc. And in the unfortunate case that ex-situ reproduction and husbandry would not live up to the expectations, re-release or an elementary change of the situation might be faster undertaken than in the case of Qi Qi...

@Jurek7: Don't forget the belugas, Pacific dolphins or Commerson's kept in Western zoos. The attraction of Cetacean "Childlikeness" does seem to be appealing for "long nosed" Europeans/Americans, too...

06-07-2008

Yep, I also think that secrets of succesful keeping of bootlenose dolphins and few similar dolphins, belugas and killer whales are now known. It is wrong to put together now and mortality in 1960's or 1970's. The effort should go towards replacing old cramped tanks with larger ones.

Thats why I totally hate greens from Nurnberg, who oppose building bigger delphinarium, and want dolphins to stay until their death in small tank...

Unfortunately, cetacean exhibits will be always rare. They are always tied to big cities and holiday areas with enough visitor population to sustain cost. So perhaps no chance for keeping populations of more species of dolphins.

06-07-2008

aha, fish and reptiles: my area of expertise!

yes, here zoos are magnificent in absence when it comes to breeding these. yet there are no exotics known that do better in private hands. and yes, that includes marine fish. except for some species like surgeonfish and the very large marine species, more and more are being bred every year. in fact, a good friend of mine published a book on the very subject last year (soon to be translated in english)

but to put some nrs on it. most of the fresh water fish are now being bred commercially on farms, asia is full of them. for marine fish and inverts: several species are also specially cultivated (many species of corals, giant clams, ...) and for others there are new catching techniques that allow more specimens to survive in the wild and in the aquarium trade (if there is any interest, I can elaborate on that) as for reptiles. here too, farms begin to come into view. so far mostly for larger and more prized species, take into account the breedings that are done by private herpetoculturists and one sees a great decline in wildcaught animals over the last decade! to put a figure on it: 50-60 % is either farmraised or bred here as opposed to only 10-20% in the 90's

so, allthough breedings of these species are not a zoo priority, it seems to me that they are in a better captive status than any dolphin species.

and allthough there is no denying that capture and husbandry techniques for cetaceans are much more gentle than 30-40 years ago, there is also no denying that it is still not as easy as we would like it to be.

I'm not against dolphinaria, and situations like in nurnberg are ridiculous. but first it needs to be proven with existing populations that breeding and survival can be achieved on a steady basis. only then it should be allowed to expand captive populations through new wildcaughts.

as for the bouto specifically: the last ones caught and shipped overseas were the duisburg ones. a total of 30 has been caught over the years of which only 1 in duisburg and a few in venezuela are alive today. venezuela has bred them you say? how many young over the time they keep the species? IF that is a big number and IF all those young are still thriving, then I think it should be ok to catch more to build an ex situ population and maybe try the same for the asian species.

looking forward to your answer.

07-07-2008

@forumbully: Excellent, another soulmate in terms of the lesser popular vertebrates...
Before I answer, could You please explain what this sentence of Yours meant:
"yet there are no exotics known that do better in private hands." TIA

I do know about the improvement in commercial breeding, catching techniques, transportation etc. in the last years. However, besides the still existing, unfortunately not-too-small numbers of species traded where commercial breeding and careful catching hasn't established itself yet (and might never, as the creature in question is hard if impossible to reproduce in captivity, still "abundant", the people in charge are unwilling/unable to switch to other methods etc. etc.), You shouldn't forget that these commercially produced species need food and create waste. And where do the breeders get the food and lead the waste back to?-right, the ocean or the other waters closeby. Luckily, this problem isn't as big as it is in aquacultures where fish are farmed in large numbers for human direct consumption, but it underlines the boundaries of such procedures. And don't forget various other problems, like spreading of neozoas, energy consumption etc.
BTW: If I compare the situation in terms of successful breeding in captivity of, say, the popular Sand tiger shark, the pet herbitcrabs or many grouper or barracudas (...) species, to that of one of the cetaceans mentioned above, the ratio in regard to the captive status seems to favour the marine mammal, not the fish or the crustaceans...

Of course catching cetaceans isn't easy-although the accounts of previous caughts seem to strech that some species, like the Beluga or the Indus River Dolphin, seem to be easier to catch than others. But it should be at least tried, instead of ignoring successes made 30 years ago.

"I'm not against dolphinaria, and situations like in nurnberg are ridiculous. but first it needs to be proven with existing populations that breeding and survival can be achieved on a steady basis. only then it should be allowed to expand captive populations through new wildcaughts." Glad to read that, and total agreement from my side-however, the same should also be true for all the other species kept in captivity, even the ones without a loud agenda behind them.

About the botos in Venezuela: I doubt that the ones currently kept there have been there since the 1970s. In terms of successful breeding: I know of at least one successful offspring that is still living and doing fine, but that's all I heard of so far.