Port Lympne Wild Animal Park giving up Asian breeding program ? » Port Lympne Zoo

01-04-2008

Absolutely. I think it would be ideal if Way Kambas was able to add one more male and female, and Cincinnati could receive a young mature bull. Then there might be a real hope of setting up a viable captive breeding group between these two locations.

23-04-2008

Javan Rhino's would be amazing to have in a zoo but there are only about 75 individuals inculding the Vietnam species so it would be strange to have such a rare species.

22-09-2008

i agree that if a zoo outside indonesia was going to be used as a staging centre for establishing an ex-situ javan rhino program than singapore zoo would be a good choice. Cincinatti Zoo, San Diego, Taronga Zoo and Howletts would, I think make good centres for holding additional animals because of their experiences in breeding endangered rhinos, and in the case of Taronga/WPZ and Cincinatti their work on assisted reproduction.
However, with the population in the wild at such a critical low I think an ex-situ program should only be established if it posed minimal risk to the wild population, especially in terms of demographics and genetics.

22-09-2008

I agree completely. I just wondered whether anyone thought of bringing the smaller population (I think this is the mainland population) into captivity (5-7 individuals) as this population has no future in the long term.

Using these individuals as a way of studying them, to help there wild counterparts and hopefully breed a few.