taronga's elephants pregnant already » Taronga Zoo

30-01-2007

i'm not sure but there are only around 5 hybrids i believe - at melbourne, auckland and taronga. thats not too bad. my personal viwe is they pose equal educational opprotunities as the purebreds and that our zoos have a responsibility to look after them since we bred them. the biggest issue concerning orangs is probably that in consolodating all the borneans to new zealand and sumatrans to australia we still ended up with a zoo (auckland)holding a subspecies that is not part of the regionally recommended program. ideally another overseas zoo, not holding orangs, will take interest in the entire colony and auckland can move them on and start the slow process of aquiring sumatrans. i belive this is the long-term plan, its just about finding an decent institution who wants them.

30-01-2007

we did a good job getting pure orangs, but we did only have a small population.

i beleive chimps could be done, but let say taronga, auckland and meblourne take over, and leave mogo, monarto, and any other zoo taht wants em, take the others, maybe we can manage mixed groups, such as charlie who was congo caught, he can be mixed with pures, whilst leaving samantha etc on contraceptives.

that would be the best way, introduce new animals to troops (a nightmare thou) that are pure, whilst leaving others on conracepts, or moving to zoos, or i would like to see a retirement park for excess animals, and allow big zoos concentrate on pure species/sub-species.

31-01-2007

There's currently 30 orangs in the region:

6 hybrids, at Auckland, Melbourne and Taronga
16 Sumatrans at Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Taronga
8 Bornean at Auckland

The long-term plan is to replace the hybrids with Sumatrans. As you probably have read elsewhere, Perth released a female Sumatran into a National Park in Sumatra late last year.

31-01-2007

and what if we found that not only did we have the hybrid chimps to manage for the next 60+ years, but we had representatives of say, 2 or 3 different subspecies present in the population also? pretty impractical wouldn't you say? especially since some zoos like melbourne have no plans to ever house chimps.

a chimpanzee pipe dream
31-01-2007

i agree with patrick on this point, insofar that replacing our hybrid population of chimpanzees would be extremely unlikely.
its highly unlikely that we are ever going to see a pure viable population of lions in this country, or giraffes or chimpanzees. in the case of the chimps, the region should just continue and expand its focus on in-situ work and import unrelated animals as needed.

31-01-2007

much like our chimpanzees, our lions come from various sources. i'm fine with this, but i'm hoping that there are none left in the region whos ancestry traces back to asian lions. i'm probably somewhat of the belief that there are simply two subspecies, asian and african and if this is the case at least our lions are pureblood african regardless of what area of the continent they hail.

31-01-2007

Correct Glyn. There are very few chimps of known wild origins in the pedigrees of the living chimps in the region, and only two of these are alive (1 at Willowbank, and 1 at Auckland).

All of the chimps in the region have been managed at species level for many years, because, as Pat points out, we are breeding chimps in this region purely for display purposes. With the huge proportion of chimps that are not pure subspecies in this region, there is absolutely no point managing them any other way.

We will never phase out these subspecies hybrids in favour of animals of known subspecies, and even if we did, there are so few pure subspecies chimps in captivity available to us, that it would be a pointless excersie - we would never obtain enough unrelated animals to start a decent regional group.

The regiona currently has 48 chimps in 8 institutions, and plans to increase to 60 chimps in 9 institutions within the next 5 years. Breeding recommendations are developed each year by the species coordinator, and agreed upon by all institutions holding chimps. Only specimens listed with breeding recommendations are to breed, and all other breeding must be prevented or a recommendation agreed upon by the species coordinator and institution if breeding to institutional capacity.

DNA testing is being carried out here and in other regions to determine paternity, where unknown, and this will provide data to enable more complete studbooks, hopefully tracing all animals back to wild founders, and therefore a better idea of which animals originated from the different subspecies.

provenece of our chimps
01-02-2007

just for interests sake, and i know at least two us would be interested (pat & me) it will be great when they establish what chimpanzee is descended from who and what part of africa...going on characteristics does our regional collection show certain features which would indicate a high proportion of a certain sub-species?

on a historical timeline from the start of captive breeding to todays more organised captive breeding programs it seems the species that proved easiest to breed are the ones today in the worst case of genetic mixing.
lions, chimps, giraffes, lots of primate species, leopards, orangutans, pumas have all bred historically well in zoos and now exist in such big hybrid numbers.
its ironic to observe that the species that were more difficult to breed, or at least to do so consistently in the past such as gorillas, elephants, lemurs and tigers stand the most genetically pure today.

01-02-2007

too true. with perth and melbournes original animals hailing from penninsular malaysia and the newbies originating in thailand, we are in a position to manage our elephants at the subspecies level unlike most american and european zoos. i hope this remains the case.

sumatrans are pure, but tigers are relatively easy to breed in captivity (albeit not as easy as lions) and lets not forget the large population of hybids we have here also!

one of melbournes gorillas is listed at the species level on isis. however isis is behind the 8-ball when it comes to the latest and most excepted nomanclature of species/sub-species so it really could mean not much at all. though its entirely plausable, i doubt shes a nigerian cross river gorilla.

01-02-2007

Although some taxonomic references describe different subspecies of Asian elephants, (and Perth in fact list one of there's as Elephas maximus hirsutus), Asian elephants in this region are managed at species level.

All of Melbourne's gorillas are now shown on ISIS at subspecies level. It's quite likely that the one that was shown at species level was entered that way incorrectly, at the institution where the animal was born. ISIS assumes that the recorder of the birth of an animal should have the most accurate details on its taxonomic level, and this is what is shown on the ISIS web site, until such times as all institutions that have held the animal agree on the taxonomy, and change their ISIS records accordingly. It's highly unlikely that this animal was recorded that way because it was thought to be a subspecies hybrid.

01-02-2007

yeah i thought so. melbourne and taronga list their animals simply as Elephas maximus. whereas if you take into account what seems to currently be the most excepted division of subspecies, its very likely they are all purebred Elephas maximus indicus.

is there areason why the zoos have chosen to do it this way?

as for gorillas, an error i'm sure.

thanks zoopro.

16-02-2007

You may be interested to know that in Europe, EEP is trying to concentrate on purebreeding West African Chimpanzee (P.t.verus) and phasing out all the other hybrid breeders. No easy task as many zoos keep large groups which comprise many 'mixed race' animals. Also the parentage is often difficult to trace/ascertain where multi-male groups are kept and multiple matings with females occur, unless DNA testing is used.

West African chimp is also sometimes known as 'masked chimpanzee' as in younger animals there is a distinctive area of dark pigmentation around eyes and upper face. This fades with age though so isn't a reliable marker for older animals.

16-02-2007

the other thing is this - there are many different techniques of DNA testing that harbour remarkably different results. recently i read that certain wild chimp populations seemed more closely related to pygmy chimps than other chimpanzees. suffice to say i'm sure there is a degree of "blending" that at least prior to habitat fragmentaion occoured between different so-called "subspecies".

even african forest elephants now designated a seperate species - still interbreed with their savannah cousins in some areas and what about african buffalo? two "subspecies" that couldn't look any more different from eachother!!

whats my point? (actually let me think for a sec ) oh yeah, my point is that the jury is still somewhat out on the precise taxonomy of chimpanzees, and thus zoos could spend the next 10 years on the ardous process of re-ordering their troops and phasing out, only to find it is was all unnecessary!

16-02-2007

I agree with you 100% on this point. As the taxonomy of chimps still remains a clouded issue, what's the point in zoos 'jumping the gun' on this. Also, after decades of freely breeding in captivity, virtually all zoo chimps are mixed race anyway and a nightmare to trace their ancestry/parentage etc. This isn't something I feel is high priority for zoos to attempt.

17-02-2007

On the other hand, if you have a group of chimpanzees from which you know they all came from the same region, and you keep breeding with them you are pretty sure you're breeding pure-breds...

A large group of chimps just recently entered the European zoo community from a testing centre in the Netherlands and all these chimps came from one collection centre from one country, and are all believed to be p.t.Verus. They are now focusin to continue breeding with this specific group, and whether or not the subspecies are allready set, i'm happy they at least try to use a group from the same region.