He is an unwanted circus animal, became non-trainable after reaching sexual maturity. Possibly he was smuggled originally (there are quite a few ads in Russian web offering gibbons & siamangs, with pics of very young babies...) So getting to our zoo means better life for him (and for our female). They may even produce a hybrid offspring in future.
I agree that this animal will be better off in a zoo, and with a mate. But why to produce a hybrid? There must be enough male lars in Europe. If your permanent exhibit is at least half-decent, I can´t see big problem in getting a male, they are not in EEP. And how is it with subspecies of this male - do you know?
The chance of reproduction is questionable, considering the female's old age. For the same reason a reproductionally valuable young male Lar is not acquired (this may be useless), they're scarce in Russia (breed in Leningrad & Novosibirsk), and importing from abroad is problematic. Primary goals are just finding company for a female and homing a circus male. The subspecies isn't known yet. You may see an exhibit here: http://www.zoochat.com/1496/white-handed-gibbon-hylobates-lar-340528/
Here is short video from FB of Ohrada-Hluboka zoo, with brown bear Altaj that came in summer from Jekaterinburg. I thought maybe you want to see where he lives now. His enclosure is not big, but Ohrada is a small zoo so they don´t have much space. Video
Thanks for the video! This exhibit is MUCH better (in terms of space & stimulation) than those in Russian zoos (especially horrible newly-built ones in Rostov)...
As usual, stupid news reporters confused something: Aardvark born at Yekaterinburg Zoo travels to Czech Republic | YekaterinburgNews The aadrvark's name is not Star, but Eka. She is called 'star of the zoo' in the original atricle.
it looks to me like a leucogenys, so it would be good if it could join the EEP. They have a surplus of males, but if this is a wildborn animal...
The Greater brown galago was born on Dec. 23. Ekaterinburg Zoo has an exelent history with this species. 2004 a pair came to the zoo and already the same year the first young was born. Since then every year at least one young was born but there were aslo years where twins were born.
Another red-necked wallaby was born, as usual... No wonder it's the 2nd most abundant marsupial in Russia after sugar gliders, both at zoos & private collections.
The Zoo is home to two pairs of Prevost squirrels and both have young at the moment. One pair has 1 young, the other has 3 >
The breeding female aardvark has been USG-tested, but the pregnancy is not 100% confirmed yet. http://www.e1.ru/news/video/552cf2e16bfd6f471b8b4567