Has anybody heard anything about this project? San Diego Zoo and the Audubon Zoo are building a large scale animal facility (1000+ acres) outside of New Orleans to house populations of Masai giraffes, okapi, antelope including oryx and bongo, whooping cranes, and no doubt other species. Is this going to be strictly a breeding facility or will it have a public exhibit component like the SDWAP or the Wilds? Interesting development... San Diego Zoo, Audubon partnering to save endangered animals - latimes.com
Cool I knew there had to eventually be more Wilds type facilities and the South is the best place for them. Cheap land and agreeable climate
Just saw the article on the news splashes on the right side of the main page. This is a really exciting development and great to see two different zoo organizations working together. (Although the article only says Audubon Institute runs "parks and museums" they also run a zoo and aquarium in New Orleans - an unforgivable omission in the article IMO. Also please note that this Audubon Institute is in no way affiliated with the Audubon Society that works with wild birds).
Followup. I just remembered the Audubon Institute already has an off grounds breeding and research facility. So I am not sure if this is going to be a new facility or if it is the same one and San Diego is just going to help run it now?
So ACRES (Audubon Center for the Research of Endangered Species) has been open since 1996. Its not all that new. Over the years, the Audubon Zoo has done the bulk of its IVF and cloning research here, along with breeding cranes and a limited number of ungulate species. What this article implies is that Audubon has the land (the center isn't entirely developed and was once considered a potential site for TNEC) and San Diego has the money. Its basically an expansion of ACRES using San Diego money and animals.
They once had a plan to use generic tiger females and implant them with viable embryos of pure-bred tiger subspecies. Thereby, increasing the output of offspring from genetically under-represented individuals. Never heard more about the project than that.
Here are some more details on the project from the New York Times. It looks like it will be a non-public facility, at least at first. Lions, flamingos, and pink-backed pelicans are mentioned as species that will be there. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/u...-effort-to-breed-endangered-species.html?_r=0
These kinds of facilities are needed for "surplus" animals. Much more palatable than a hunting preserve IMHO. I know I say this all the time, but it would be nice to have more safari parks that were AZA accredited.
