Species you oppose to the holding off

15-01-2008

Easy, dude-relax; read what I wrote before and chill . That was a general statement about banning cetacea husbandry, once again not aimed personally at You.
And about zoonosis, You're talking with the right guy there... Faeces is just one of many, many ways of transmission. And as stupid as it may sound: You can't get ornithosis from parrots. Huh? Yes, that's correct, yet only nitpicking. If You get the disease via a parrot or two and if the disease breaks out in parrots, it's psittacosis; if it breaks out in all the roughly 400 bird species the agent has been found in, it's ornithosis. And nevertheless it's in both cases the same agent-Chlamydophila psittaci, a mean little intracellularly parasitising bacterium.

special treatment (in terms of dolphins, apes etc) =privileges = "positive discrimination"
"special" generally-see examples of toad, insect, bird-> species-appropriate & animal-appropriate husbandry

15-01-2008

Sun Wukong - sorry to out-nitpick you but parrots are birds (as I'm sure you are aware) and therefore it is perfectly permissible and correct (although less specific) to refer to a human disease picked up from them as ornithosis



To get back to the original post: I would object to the keeping of whale sharks which can currently be seen in two institutions, because we know virtually nothing of their biology and behaviour; there is little or no experience of keeping them or similar animals in captivity (I appreciate the circularity of this point); they are endangered; they are huge and require huge and expensive accommodation which I am not sure is currently on offer (I haven't visited Georgia or Okinawa aquaria however); there have already been deaths and replacements of these animals in a fairly short time. The conservation message coming from these two places regarding this species seems even more hollow than the usual zoo message of "helping to save the species".

16-01-2008

There is indeed a risk of transmission through zoonosis (and not forgetting reverse zoonosis). I was thinking more in terms of the diseases we Europeans need to be inoculated against whenever we travel to the tropics, some of which are carried by animals, often invertebrates. Yes, it's unlikely that zoos would go to the trouble of exhibiting malarial mosquitoes in a walkthrough exhibit , so I suppose it's more of a hypothetical point.

No, I'm quite sure they wouldn't. But, they could be replaced by similar but more endangered species of much higher conservation value which zoos would be more justified in keeping and breeding. Unless, that is, they fall into my category (a)

16-01-2008

@Pygathrix: sorry dude, but You're wrong; I'm not making the veterinary guideline rules. The seperation I mentioned above is quite common in governmental epizootic control programs, f.e. in Germany. According to them, an outbreak of Chlamydophila psittaci in parrots (=psittacosis) is of greater importance than one in other birds (=ornithosis) and thus has a higher safety status, resulting in state-run veterinary control measurements (by executive veterinarians). This has two reasons: a) Parrots usually are the kind of birds people have the closest relation to (pet parrots nibbling at Your face) and thus the risk of transmission is higher. b) In former times, ps. and o. were considered two different illnesses, with p. leading to more fatal results due to a) (f.e. sailors).

And about the whale shark: all sound and fine-but how should more knowledge and experience about their husbandry be won if they are not kept? Same situation with Great White Sharks in Monterey Bay Aquarium; everyone told them it's a bad idea, and nevertheless their program seems to work after all.

@Chris79: Why shouldn't zoos not be "justified" to breed and keep "common" species instead of rare relatives? Take the African branch of the Colobinae as an example: no zoo has so far succeeded in keeping red or olive colobus monkeys alive for a longer period of time, while f.e. the Eastern Black-and-white Colobus is doing pretty fine. Why not rather concentrate on in-situ projects for red and olive colobus monkeys and keep the hardier Guereza as an "ambassador" species in the zoos, instead of keeping red's and olives in zoos? Same is true for meerkats & Liberian Mongoose, Blue & Sansibar Duiker, Giant & common Sable antelope, East Lowland & Mountain gorilla etc. In most cases, the conservation value of the above scenario (popular common species as ambassador in zoo, endangered & less popular species rather taken care of in in-situ projects "behind the scenes") is much higher than what You suggest. And don't forget how soon a "common" species can become endangered-f.e. the river hippopotamus.

About zoonoses: some of the mysterious tropical "diseases" You're inoculated against (IF You can be vaccinated against them at all....) before doing the Great Jungle Adventure do belong to that category-at least partly; yet it depends on the scenario & the illness whether invertebrates are involved (like in the case of an arbovirus or a trypanosoma infection) or not. However, so called "tropical diseases" play only a very small role in the zoo world, at least in western zoos; it's rather other epizootics, supported and spread by the productive livestock market that are of interest here.

The term "zoonosis" btw. automatically includes "zooanthroponosis" as well as ""anthropozoonosis (aka "reverse zoonosis"-a quite rarely used term and nowadays in Europe of interest in the case of TBC).

16-01-2008

@Pygathrix: good point about the whale sharks. Maybe we should throw that question out there...has anyone on ZooBeat actually been to either Georgia or Okinawa Aquarium? Hopefully someone can shed some light on the living arrangements of these magnificent creatures. I know that Georgia also has about 5 beluga whales, and they are another contentious animal for any-captivity activists. The Vancouver Aquarium has 4 belugas and it has been a bit of a battle over the years to keep them at bay from activists.

16-01-2008

Sun - ok I concede that the veterinary distinction may be there, but from the human medical point of view it is pointless as it leads to the same illness. The same as if you are a human ill with salmonellosis, the same disease will be manifest in the same manner whether you caught it from undercooked chicken or playing with your pet terrapin.

Re whale sharks: field studies should be the first stage in acquiring basic information about an enigmatic animal. This creature is rare and zoos will contribute to its rarity if they exhibit them. Monterey seem to be involved with mostly field studies of GWS and keep small injured sharks for short periods before returning them to the sea. They have no plans or facilities to keep adults or to breed them. This is not the case with the whale sharks at the other two aquaria. They may make a spectacular exhibit but it will be short-lived, all we will learn is that they do not thrive in captivity, and the conservation value will be zero. Basically the situation orcas were in 40 years ago, which is approximately the situation they are in today.

16-01-2008

Chris - Singapore Night Safari does have a walk through mosquito exhibit it's the whole zoo!

16-01-2008

Haven't studies shown that bears tend to do better in captivity in pairs/small groups?
And what is this Leipzig Bear "funeral"? Don't sound pretty lol

16-01-2008

New Orleans Insectarium is going to have a mosquito exhibit-yet they have to build it on purpose (in opposite to Singapure...)

There is actually a debate about how many whale sharks exist at all; nevertheless, the pressure on their population due to fin-fishing is there and shouldn't be broadened by the aquarium trade (though I doubt that many private fish keepers have a tank that big...). However, I do remain to my statement that You should first gather knowledge and husbandry experience before judging whether the species is compatible to human husbandry or not. I'm also aware that this can't work in the case of a highly endangered species, though, where each individual is of importance.

About Chlamydophila psittaci: yes, the outcome in a human is pretty much the same-yet the differentiation is important for You as a bird-keeper in the case of an outbreak, as not reporting the outbreak of psittacosis in f.e. Germany is chargeable.
And about the salmonellosis: sorry to correct You again, but also this scenario of Yours is not that explicit as You think-the individual serovar/ phage type can differ according to the "source" and thus the outcome of symptoms and its therapy (think of multi-resistant phage types like DT104) can vary. In the case of the chicken, Salmonella enterica spp. enterica as well as gallinarum, pullorum etc. is possible; in the case of the little terrapin, there are more possibilities...

16-01-2008

@ashley-h : There are some speculations (like SAMBRAUS: Zoo animal husbandry) that groups in zoos can have positive effects in terms of positive social interaction in usually solitary species like bears or Orang-utans.
In the 1990s the Leipzig Zoo sold some of its surplus brown bears; some ended in a restaurant. The local media heard of this and started to make a hoopla, which resulted even in a church service for the "murdered" (sic!) bears, attended by quite a bunch of Leipzig residents.

16-01-2008

Don't they also have a walkthrough cobra exhibit there?

16-01-2008

A good example of this is Chester's Sumatran Orang Utan group. The two youngsters interact with every other Orang in there and this seems to bring the entire group together. Puluh and Padang (the two males) sometimes go on their own at opposite ends of the exhibit but don't shun the attention from the other Orangs. The keepers have said to me that when Realm of the Red Ape was being designed that they wanted to keep the Orangs together at night and allow them to form their own sleeping groups, rather than seperate them like in the old house and I'd imagine this helps the group to bond more...

16-01-2008

Yeah and the black bears in Berlin zoo were playing around in the water moat.
That sick about the bears in Leipzig Zoo Don't quite understand the church service tho :S

16-01-2008

What's so sick about it? Better kill the surplus animal quickly & professionally and use it in an apt way instead of shirking the bear off to an unsuitable husbandry where it will suffer for years. Just my 2 cents...And about the church service-media and overboarding emotional humanisation of animals can lead to absurd results...

16-01-2008

And it being sick is my 2 cents What do you tell the kids? "Oh yeah, you're eating that bear cub you saw in the zoo last week"... lol imagine...