yes, OS zoos have bred echidnas, but its not easy, not even in australia apparently. a taronga keeper told ,me there is one US zoo that has the "magic touch".....(was it LA? i can't remember)
sun wukong - tasmanian devils have a very short life expectancy. not sure if its worth the costs importing non-breeders for the sake of display as suggested. you would be having to re-import every 4 years or so....
Short-beaked Echidnas births in some non-AUS zoos: 1908 Berlin 1955 Basel (not successful) 1967 Basel 1983 Philadelphia 1995 Saarbrücken 2007/8 Frankfurt (still ? at the moment) About the TDs: I think due to the rare status of the species, it might pay off-even as a temporary display. Oldest TD in a zoo was about 8years old-so there exists the chance that they might stick around for a bit longer than 4 years.
Philadelphia has had the most recent success breeding echidnas. St. Louis has also had a couple of puggles. Some of the keys seem to be lighting, proper humidity levels, excluding the male from the nesbox and then removing him after successful copulations. Echidnas are fascinating creatures! We house two animals and are watching for signs of breeding activity. Most institutions videotape the animals during breeding season to monitor the activity levels. Elaine
North America doesnt seem to be a high priority for anyone on here despite there being a lot of unique species from the continent: Pronghorn, Beaver, Cougar, Moose, Bald Eagle, Manatee, Alligator Snapping Turtle, Pileated Woodpecker, Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goat, California Condor, Gila Monster, Javelina (Peccary), Hellbender, Sea Otter, Prairie Chicken, Red Wolf, Turkey, Thick-billed Parrot, etc. Though its a shame that the US tends to "hog" its unique and rare species, but I guess other countries do as well (ie Australia (no offense) and China). I know we would certainly like more tasmanian devils, tuatara, tree kangaroo, tiger quolls, numbat, platypus.
Oh well. I guess we will have to put them on the wish list with the okapis and sumatran rhino's and all the other animals.
I have liked them since I worked on a ranch in Montana. We had them living there and moving through all the time. They are a interesting animal.
probably from an australian perspective this is because our zoos are near to phasing out ALL palearctic fauna. there will be no european or north american zones in our zoos in the future. anyway, everything from the far northern hemisphere is a drab brown or grey. we all know that.
In about 40 years time, when Aussie zoos are nothing but Australian and Sth East Asian animals (with a handful of African "charismatic mega-fauna"), some bright-spark will get hold of some Arctic wolves, some Grizzly bears, some Wapiti and some Bison and create a Holarctic display , and it will be lauded as the Big New Thing! This I predict! Hope I'm still around to see it (hardly likely - I'll be over 100 yrs old then!)
as i've said before, ultimately i don't care what a zoo displays so long as i start to see species managed more sustainably. australian zoos can't continue to rely on american and european zoos offering them "surplus" animals and are going to have to making it a priority of their own to breed and manage them. obviously they are aware of this, though the decisions and the tastes of individual zoo directors seems (at least from my outside-the-industry-perspective) to be counter productive to this much of the time. the truth is as it stands today, collectively - australian zoos have an excellent collection of animals that certainly puts them on par with those in europe and the US.... but like i said this is collectively. without melbourne's primate and cat collection we would certainly be worse off. likewise, dubbo are the guys holding the lion's share (bad pun) of all the cool ungulates. they are the species i wanna see imported into australia more of the ones already here. tell your local zoo to stop building million dollar mega-exhibits that house about 3 species and to commit some simple spaces to 20 instead. and ara, on the palearctic thing. the way i see it there is little in the far northern hemisphere that doesn't have a close equivalent closer to the equator, thus i am totally for discarding as a policy american and european fauna. think about it... grey wolves - i'm happy with dhole, hunting dogs and maned wolves raccoons - coatis are pretty much raccons. brown bears - sun bears lynx - caracals are a type of lynx puma - they exist in sth america sure, there are exceptions (i can't think of tropical beavers, maybe capybara?) but do you get my point. i think covering australia, sth america, africa and sth asia, we got pretty much all the world genera covered.
Wolverines, weasels, fishers, martens and badgers are all pretty neat to see. Over here in North America most major zoos also have some of the following: pronghorn antelope, bison, elk, musk ox, mountain goat, caribou, bighorn sheep, and an assortment of deer species. Rarely are any of these species held in Australia...although Monarto Zoo has a herd of North American bison. Don't you guys want to see any of these animals? Folks over here can't get enough of your marsupials, as we only have the oppossum in that category.
