At Longleat is there a pride of lions which is lead by a male Barbary lion? Sorry if there is already something about this.
Kabir moved as he has fathered 4 litters of cubs at Longleat and there was no need to breed from the lions for a few years, so the idea was proposed to move him on. Newquay had lost their male 'Ronnie' (former Longleat resident male) to old age a few months previously, so Kabir was an ideal choice. However he didnt enjoy much of a retirement.... poor lad. Newquay now display a single female (also a former Longleat resident) on her own now with no plans to obtain another male
Thanks for the info. You say that no Barbary lions in zoos are pure but they would still have barbary genes. Is it bad if longleat introduced barbary genes into the captive African lion population?
Probably yes, but its a similar situation with elephants (subspecies being mixed). They are still african lions so am not that fussed myself. Means you can preserve a larger population.
It wouldnt matter that longleat bred a part barbary lion to their pride, as all safari park lions are just generic hybrids anyway. to the average safari park visitor, a lion is a lion, thats what they pay to see.
Are Asian elephants then not Indian elephants but mixtures of Sri- Lankan, Sumatran and Indian! And African elephants African forest x African bush?
i think chester have one sub-species of asiatic elephant, and blackpool and whipsnade (and formely london) have another. (presumably they are either Indian or Sri Lankan) and as far as i am aware, there are no african forest elephants in captivity
These lions are said to have Barbary genes but scientific tests of their DNA has proved they don't have any Barbary Lion genes, so it is a fallacy.
There have been several projects to do this, and some still ongoing- however they are pretty pointless for the reason given above.
Why do you say this? Chester have had elephants from the London line before (Thi-Hi Way) so the 2 herds at both collections couldn't be from seperate subspecies
On top of which the Twycross herd are almost certainly of different races/sub-species. Just look at the origin of Noor-jahan compared with Minbu and Tonzi. Now with Karishma at Whipsnade, how is it possible that each collection is keeping a different sub-species?