Babirusa have been mentioned a few times in recent threads, so it got me thinking are they now doing better in Europe than 5/6 years ago? Currently ISIS lists 19.16.2, with 4 born in the last year. I remember hearing that they only had a few breeding females a few years back is this now changed? Is it also current practice to separate males from females when the female gives birth?
Could be, they definitely have 2.2 thou. Last time I was there they had 3 animals but that was 3/4 years ago now. As I say, I know they recieve Babirusa from chester but am not sure how many, but this was from either Zoodays or Micheleas Zoo babies.
South lakes list them as having 2.1 but ISIS lists 2.2 South Lakes Wild Animal Park Anyhow would be nice to know if anyone has an answer to my questions posted at the top.
At start of 2009 they had a brother and sister. I don't know where they came from. Then the young male arrived from Chester where he was born as a mate for the female. The surplus male was due to leave for Germany sometime last summer however ISIS is indicating that for some reason he still hasn't left.
I understood that one of the breeding pair at Chester - probably the male - was bred at South lakes . So if the youngster bred at Chester some time ago has gone to South Lakes it will be very closely related to their other animals . Though I think the entire European stock is all very closely related and inbred . Have the breeding pair that was at South Lakes died ?
I think the female may have died but not the male,I do know that they were taking one to Wuppertal around August last year not sure on the sex of this animal.
So...7 years later, I thought it would be interesting to revive this discussion. It seems like the situation of Babirusas in Europe is getting worse and worse. According to Zootierliste, only 7 zoos now have Babirusas in their collection with very small breeding success. Where and Why it went wrong for Babirusa?
Didn't realize it was going so bad with the European Babirusa-population ! Just checked Zootierliste and indeed only7 collections still working with them. Inbreeding seem to be really one of the main reasons with a potential founder-stock of 13 animals 1971 : Frankfurt recieved 1-0 from Surabaya Zoo . 1974 : Antwerp recieved 1-1 from Surabaya Zoo ( female pregnant and 2 young born later ) 1975 : Stuttgart recieved 2-2 from Surabaya Zoo 1977 : Rotterdam recieved 1-1 from Surabaya Zoo 1984 : Antwerp recieved 2-2 from Jakarta Zoo As you see this founder-population should have been large enough to build up a healthy captive population for a longer period but the problem is that 11 of the 13 founder-animals came from one source ( Surabaya Zoo ) and could have been ( close ) releated. A total of 43 European collections have kept the species and now-a-days only 7 zoo are left keeping them, so I guess there is also a surtain lack of intrest in keeping them... .
There is no a surtain lack of interest in keeeping babirusa in europe-some of them are working on a new import from Indonesia.
That would be awesome! Babirusa is one of my most favourite animal, so I´m glad to hear that. Maybe zoos can try also the other direction - importing animals from USA as Jihlava did last year.
On the more positive side, Chester Zoo has been breeding the species very regularly in recent years; when one considers this fact, along with the plans mentioned by @Bib Fortuna which a number of collections are working on in order to import fresh blood into the European population, I would suggest it is rather too early to write the species off!