I also think that it is a good piece written by Zoopro . Although NZs biosecurity laws appear to be draconian to other countries , they are there for a reason . NZ doesnt want or need Foot/Mouth disease , or any more noxious species . Australians will have some understanding , as they also have biosecurity restrictions ( although to a NZer they appear quite lax ) but I guess this is something that is quite foreign to other members around the world . Animals from NZ zoos do not escape that often , but it has happened , and nobody can rule out it happening again in the future . Despite this , we do have a small number of excellent zoos , which are improving over the years , and are doing good work for conservation of selected species .
Thanks ZooPro, I have been slapped around a few times too here, I believe! What I would like to see is stricter observance of veterinary and transport regulations for all wildlife and domestics (not just in Oz, but everywhere), but with transparant and efficient guidelines to allow for transport (including import and export) in the interest of improving breeding programmes (both wildlife and domestics). When looking at the European arena: wildlife transport and veterinary health laws are quite strict on exotic species, yet domestics are not treated on the same firm basis. This continually endangers veterinary health ....! Perhaps, you may have heard of recent outbreaks of f.i. FMD in various countries (Holland, Germany, UK). All outbreaks have been down to lax observance of veterinary health and transport guidelines for domestics (while firm regulations exist for exotic species). European zoos were at first not allowed to protect their animal collections at risk from FMD (even though effective vaccination could have been in place). In effect, in the interest of economics - the US does not allow for import of FMD vaccinated meat products - the health regulations for domestics were relaxed across the EU (even though Holland for instance had a tradition for years to protect domestics by vaccinating for FMD). Now, for Europe .. to make it absolutely clear .. I want strict observance of wildlife health, trade and transport regulations for domestics and exotics. The domestics need to come up to the standard of zoos. And I very much think that vaccination, testing and should be compulsary for all species before transport or trade. On top of that I advocate that animal transport become also fully regulated in domestics (as is already the case with all exotics). It requires a fresh look at how we manage natural resource and agricultural markets. Now, from ZooPro I understand the equine flu in Oz started inside the equine industry through a lax attitude to veterinary health restricutions? Does this point to a similar cause (as I described for Europe)? The challenge is not just for Australia to find a balanced policy for animal health, trade and transport, it is a true global affair! Not just the OIE (te world animal health regulation authorities in Paris) but the governing IATA (international animal transport) and CITES (international animal trade) should be the driving forces behind a new effective and strict animal transport, veterinary health and trade policy. That should pacify all interest groups - be they vet health officials, the agricultural industry, native species protection or zoo species management programmes - the world over. What does this challenge constitute for Australia? How can we move forward on this while doing justice to native species conservation? How can we protect an agricultural industry yet improve veterinary health? Where do zoo species programmes fit into all of this? I am not set to have the answers, but need more feedback from you Ozzies to know what is realistic or what ...
i think Australian zoos should just work hard to keep the species we already have in sustainable numbers and not import any more species. the only zoo which will suffer ultimately from the decline in artiodactyl species will be WPZ, where a renewed focus on carnivores, primates, elephant, rhino, hippo and available artiodactyl species would be fine. as i said elsewhere Australian zoos cannot be considered true players in global breeding programs for artiodactyl species due to the contentious nature of our quarantine laws, better to place emphasis on species which can b imported relatively freely. yes, i would like to see more bongo, and forest buffalo, blah blah blah. but with zoos taking their commitment to conservation seriously biosecurity and our native fauna is of maximum importance, not to mention the overriding priority of safeguarding our agricultural industries.
could australian zoos get together rather than import new hoofed species, import new blood for the existing groups such as the bongo, hippo and kudu, one last import for the time being.
@jelle: Oh, Europe and especially the EU regulations aren't that lax when it comes to regulating animal transfers-may they be domestics or exotics. Transferring & getting animals was never easy for European zoos either, and it's only becoming worse. Same goes for the USA, for when it comes to animal transfers within the country, each federal state has a different policy dealing with exotics. The problem is that You always have Your flock of black sheep-and if You have the money, You can actually get everything You want. Australia's (too) strict rules on ex-and import do not bother these people; I know of at least one East-European parrot breeder smuggling Calyptorhynchus sp. and other Australian parrot eggs out of AUS in his underwear...Another example is the case of a Czech businessman who called the coordinator of the European tomistoma breeding program, telling and finally also showing him that he had at least eleven (that's almost as much as all tomistomas kept in European zoos combined!) tomistomas and several other crocs as pets... @Zoopro: I can't understand the strict rules for zoo animals due to quarantine reasons. Most of the major zoos in Europe and North America have a veterinary staff on at least eye-level im comparison to their Australian colleagues, which results in normally healthy zoo animal populations with, due to constant monitoring, a much, much lower risk of spreading diseases like pets or animal products brought over from Asia...Having to deal with this paperwork from both sides to transfer animals is a nuissance-and decreases the wish of the zoos to cooperate on an international level. Equally, it's a pity in consideration of Australia's apt conditions: the climate, the nature awareness in the public and the stable political system could be excellent to establish large ex-situ breeding programs for sub-and tropical species like Dama gazelles, Hunter's hartebeest or several endangered crocodilians without the problems and costs Europe and USA would have to face in doing so... Nevertheless, I have to smirk when I read Your wishlists. Not only because I know more than a few European or American zoos that would love to get rid of their surplus capybaras, Bongos, American Bison, Wisent etc., but also because the Europeans and Americans would love to see more Australian animals in their zoos. While older European zoofans still marvel about the time when Frankfurt had several tree kangaroo species, younger ones hope that the DFTD will prompt AUS to send out more Tasmanian devils to their zoos(not just Denmark.... While in former times representatives of the Australian fauna were quite prominent in European zoos (Rotterdam!), the theme "Australia" is represented in most European and many American zoos by the following: -Bennett's Wallaby (almost hated by European zoofans for having become almost synonymous with the term "kangaroo"), Red-necked Wallaby, Parma Wallaby and Woylies -Bearded Dragon -Cockatoo (Galahs f.e.)/cockatiels and maybe rainbow loris -Budgies, Gould's amadines and zebra finches -Kookaburra -Rainbow fish -Frogmouth -Black swan -Sugarglider and one or two possum species (most often Common Brushtail) There are a few (one might say "relict") populations of tree kangaroos(Goodfellow & Matschie), kowaris, short-beaked echidnas, wombats, Australian Water Rats, magpie geese, Australian magpies, agile kangaroo, Australian lungfish, dingos, freshies and salties and a few more Red and Grey kangaroos and koalas as well as some more or less prominent bird, reptile, amphibian and arthropods species. A few American zoos (like San Diego, San Francisco or Omaha) have additional Australian animals like quolls or Rock-wallabies, but that's it. The following link, known to most members here, shows the European zoo collection of marsupials to illustrate what I wrote: Zootierbestände Säugetiere The situation is even "worse" when it comes to species from New Zealand: Kākārikis and Keas are the one You will most likely run into; add Stuttgart's kakas, a few North Island brown kiwis, Little Penguins (Cologne, Omaha f.e. )and the Chester's/Berlin's tuataras-that's most of it. So in the case You can ease down Your goverments' rules in the future when it comes to international zoo animal transfers, I'm pretty sure the other zoos wouldn't mind offering the animals You want for a nice Tasmanian devil or two...
sun wukong - welcome to the forum. if your suggesting we might get a few more animals if we traded a few tasmanian devils i couldn't disagree more!! firstly, overseas zoos wouldn't know the first thing about breeding devils, because as far as i know, they never have. us australians are not even in a position were we can say we have established a sustainable captive population, (something that has now become extremely important) so why on earth would we waste animals on overseas zoos? the contribution overseas zoos can make at present to devil conservation is extremely minimal and if anything, not worth it in my opinion. have i yet made a wager with anyone that copenhagen will NEVER breed any of their devils? if not (and i think i did) it still stands. you are however, in my opinion, welcome to have some devils in the future when things are looking much more secure for them in captivity, provided european and american zoos prove they can breed the species. you are also welcome to koalas, though i sincerely think you'll find they are a massive wate of money for northern zoos who can't grow a constant source of eucalyptus!! i imagine common wombats are probably a good australian display animal for european zoos, i am supprised there are not more of them there.
Sorry to correct You, pat, but Tasmanian Devils HAVE reproduced in the past in European zoos-and that quite successfully. Unfortunately, back then (1970s) CITES and thus stricter regulations kicked in, and with no other zoos being really interested in keeping Tasmanian devils, the zoo population ceased to exist. I know of the following zoos in Germany having bred Devils: -Cologne -Duisburg -Neuwied (this little zoo was really successful, having 3,7 animals in 1977) Therefore I think it should be worth to at least try and send out TD to these or other good European and American zoos. European zoos already HAVE more than enough koalas-thanks to Duisburg. And yes, feeding them is expensive. About wombats: it depends on the individual animal and the display; the one in Hannover has gained a kind of local fame and just got a new exhibit.
if they bred so successfully then i wonder why the only devils in europe are a couple we exported there a few years ago? i'm not being slefish here, i'm just very concerned by the low number of devils currently in australia and it annoyed me when the tasmanian government sent animals to copenhagen, who are clearly never going to breed. so i think jumping the gun and sending animals to europe prematurely is likely to continue to be of no benefit whasoever. of course if the EEP already had even a small established reproducing population or australian zoos had reached a target for numbers then i would suggest it be a good idea. but right now i am firmly against it.
Pat, once again: The European population of Tasmanian Devils broke down because a) It was no longer possible to easily exchange animals for breeding purposes due to CITES (and stricter animal export regulations of the native country), "bring in fresh blood" as so to speak. The same could be observed in the case of the Frankfurt's Rockfowl group, the Zurich African Oxpeckers, Zebra duikers, the European population of Gerenuks, Tarsiers, Graueri gorillas, various kangaroo species, Baikal Seals etc. etc., which resulted in the few and last zoos keeping these species to drop breeding them bit by bit, until the last animal dies/died alone due to old age, or the breeding group ceased to exist due to inbreeding and/or the death of important fertile individuals (f.e. Pygmy hogs at Zurich or nowadays Saiga antelopes). b) Those days conservation commitment wasn't the big great advertisement thing for zoos as it is now-and TDs weren't really threatened back then. With the zoos (like today) being more interested to keep the crowd-pleasers or really "rare" animals, the interest in TDs was rather limited-so the zoos keeping them ended up having the youngsters and not exactly knowing where to put them-or not willing to give them to fellow zoos due to individual animosity of each other's director... c) Unlike some other animals, these mentioned species didn't seem to have had influential "fans" in the zoo community (like zoo directors) who would have tried everything to keep these particular species in their zoos. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying: send TDs to EU or USA/CDN-AT ONCE! And add some numbats and a bilby or two to that package... But I think that an ex-situ TD group outside of AUS isn't a bad thing-and with the experience of husbandry gathered in those zoos back then, they could do a good job.
im sorry, am i the only one who would find the notion of the American Government, for example, sending black-footed ferrets to Australia or Spain sending Iberian Lynx to Australia to establish CBP here stupid. i think CBP are incredibly important. but Western nations really should be able to look after the indigenous fauna by themselves. international ex-situ Conservation breeding programs are best left for species from developing nations. thats not to say that tasmanian devils shouldnt be going overseas-theyre excellent display animals. but an international conservation breeding program for Tasmanian Devils, well thats a bit silly in my books.
The way Zoo Boy described the program planned makes sense to me. @glyn: Is it really "silly" to incooperate other nations in conservation breeding-even as a Western nation? I dare to say it depends on the individual case. The number of available founder animals for a zoo population is one factor to think about-and in this case the TDs is currently doing better than said Iberian Lynx, Black-footed ferret or Japanese ibis. (BTW: The USA also uses/used to work together with Mexico considering CBPs in the case of animals like the Mexican wolf). I personally prefer conservation programs to stay as close to the native habitat as possible-but what's so bad about having a "back-up copy for the back-up" as someone here put it once aptly. Once again: I'm not saying that AUS should immediately send out their TDs all over the world. But once having seperated sick from healthy and having established a thriving healthy captive population, I don't think it would be too wrong to send some individuals abroad to responsible husbandries that could help increasing the overall population. And having geographically isolated colonies especially in the case of an epizooic outbreak isn't a bad or "silly" thing. However, one should make sure that these particular individuals do not test positive on DFTD like the ones in Copenhagen...
ha ha! no, because i was going to bring up the very point of western nations (technically) being able to take care of there own fauna myself. look i'll be honest monkeymagic, i don't really trust european zoos with devils. so far the copenhagen animals haven't bred, and i doubt they ever will because tasmanian devils have very short life expectancies and usually need to be bred in the first year. i'm also a bit sceptical of just how well they have ever bred them, but i'll give you the benifit of the doubt. as far as i'm concerened all the reasons you explained in c) and many of d) are still a valid problems in zoos today. but look we are all in agreement here. yes, you may (and no doubt will) get your devils. but for the good of the devils its probably the least priority right now, and i certainly would put it after re-introduction into fox and cat free preserves on the mainland (which i hope will happen).
Hey, "patrickmagic", give the Danish TDs some time; maybe Copenhagen should play some Barry White (or maybe some Kylie M. in the case they're homesick) to get them into the right mood. And Your general distrust about European zoos not being able to handel some devils-just look at the examples I gave You. As far as I heard about it, the TDs at Neuwied had a swell time there... Anyway: once You guys have made it to point 3 of Your "no, thanks-we-can-do-it-on-our-own-" program (and the Devils have not followed the Thylacine by then..., I'll remind You of Your promise to get us some Devils to EU. Or do the other European monarchs have to marry Tasmanian girls to get an even distribution of Devils in European zoos ? In the case of conservation, I do think that countries-may they be Western, Eastern, Southern, Northern or from any other direction -should bite the bullet and work together (including the US) as the situation demands it-and not behave like f.e. Uganda in the case of the last Northern Rhinos...
in australia and the UK, the cult japanese television series based on journey to the west was named "monkey" but the theme song lyrics sung "monkey magic" during the chorus. thus thats what everyone called it. (in case you were not sure what i was on about there, though your obviously a monkey king fan so maybe you already did!)... ANYWAY.... since the western regions of europe, australasia and north america are entirely capable of looking after their own respective endangered species, i think its best that rather than share our rare animals amongst ourselves we look after our own and then devote our outside resources to species who DO NOT already have proper captive conservation programs within their home range. in australia, we are phasing out virtually ALL palearctic fauna. we are no longer keeping brown bears, badgers, pumas or any other american or european animals. whilst they are interesting animals its probably better we devote that space to sunbears, goodfellows tree-kangaroos, sumatran tigers and other endangered animals were we can make a significant contribution. we don't need to. we have very little to offer them. infact, australia doesn't even keep back up populations of newzealand fauna and vice versa, even though we work together under the same regional association. which is good. becuse i believe we are each are capable of looking after our own fauna better than the other is. i do however, understand the desire to have a diverse range of display animals in zoos and i understand that australians animals are very exotic to people overseas. so yes we all agree , you can have your devils, but LET US secure their future first. meanwhile those amur leopards really need your help. because i think the desire to display tasmanian devils is the driving force behind your desire to have them in europe, not so much conservation.
Like I said-I'm not always convinced that western countries in general are capable of looking after their endangered species on their own (which is made clear in the case of Bruno the Brown Bear; R.I.P.)-but let's leave it to that...I understand and support the Australian increased attention to sub-and tropical animals; good idea. About the Amur leopards-at the moment they're more than enough of them in European and American zoos-to the extent that one might ask whether there exists any other leopard subspecies at all... In my personal case, it's not about keeping TDs "just for fun"; I'd be actually more interested to study, work with/on these animals and re-create the successful conditions of f.e. Neuwied to learn more about the general husbandry of this species.
i think for display purposes export of tasmanian devils is ok, at some point down the track. but the way things stand atm, its futile and not practical. at the moment, with proper quarantine screening, a mainland based CBP for this species is as good as sending Tasmanian devils overseas, and is quite cost effective. as tasmania is an island, sending them to the mainland states represents the establishment of a back-up population. i stand by my point that Western nations are equipped to deal, mainly, with their own wildlife conservation issues. here in Australia, we may have the worlds worst mammal extinction rates, a huge contingent of introduced species, a natural resource export based economy and until now a stubborn stance on KYOTO, but happily, all of our countries threatened species have been identified and almost all have active or proposed recovery programs. at this stage, only a small number of species have ex-situ conservation breeding programs nominated as a conservation tool. the few that do, past, present and future, all tend to focus on breeding programs based within animal's range states. Tasmanian devils and Christmal Island birds are one of the few exceptions of species where ex-situ populations are recomended for outside range. reflecting this trend, zoos tend to concentrate on working in with not only state wildlife authorities but also smaller instituions. South east Australian fauna tends to be conserved by zoos in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and the ACT. simialrly, Perth Zoo works closely and quite effectively to conserve their fauna, and QLD and the Northern Territory also mimic this trend. unhappily for you Sun Wukong i think its more likely that any Tasmanian Devils heading to Europe in the future will be display animals only. besides the reasons menitoned above, the relatively short life span of most of Australia's mammal species and short generation times means that any overseas population would need to be built up rapidly from a large founder stock and have whole range of zoos participating. i dont think this would represent, in a global conservation context, an efficient use of zoo resources.
Tasmanian devils have bred in North America--Toronto and Cincinnati and I think Brookfield Zoo spring to mind.
@glyn: Actually, I think most Europeans or Americans would also be happy to have TDs-let's say cryptorchids, infertile females or any other animals not suited for breeding (similar to the Okapi situation in the 1980s/90s)-and I personally would enjoy getting more general husbandry experience with these individuals that might benefit TDs in general. I especially agree with the last part of Your post- the Platypus is a great example for that-though I'd dare to disagree about generalizing the capability of Western nations...like I said: think of Bruno or the ongoing wolf "problem" or the current European Bison status in Europe. However, I do think there are some species native to Australia and New Guinea already kept in European and American zoos that could benefit from more new animals brought in from both countries to improve the genetic diversity within the American/European zoo population of said species. Tree kangaroos, Dingos (including the New Guinea Singing Dog), wombats or Short-beaked echidnas f.e., all species whose keeping zoos are desperate to get new conspecifics.
