This is not well-known in Korea, but a private petting zoo named "Aniland" in Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province, has two male of Wilson's bird-of-paradise, a pair of Red bird-of-paradise and I don't know how many of them there are, but they also have Lesser bird-of-paradise. You can see pictures of the Wilson and Reds on the this exhibition animal description page of the Aniland homepage. And you can see a picture of the lesser on this Naver personal blog. Aniland is the only zoo in South Korea to have Bali myna as well as the Wilson and Red. But Most of the visitors there simply enjoy feeding the animals and are not interested in them. So Visitors there don't write in detail about the animals they saw, I don't know their bird-of-paradises are still alive.
Thanks for this, definitely very valuable information! Have you visited recently, or do you know anyone that has, and do you know if the Wilson's are still present? If I'm interpreting the site correctly the picture of the two male Wilson's is dated from January 2016 which is, of course, already 4 years ago now... EDIT: Oh, I see you addressed this as well at the end of your post. I hope we can find more information about this intriguing park soon!
Sorry, unfortunately, I have never been there and have no plans to go now. This place is so far for me..So I'm not sure if Wilson is still there. The last time Wilson were mentioned in the visitors' writings here is what was written on December 31, 2018. That visitor said visit here on Aug. 26, 2018, There are not photo of Wilson, but said saw Wilson. But I think one thing is for sure, this place is maybe the poorest of the world's bird-of-paradise breeding facilities. This picture is the Wilson's cage at there. it was taken in 2016, this Naver personal blog is the source. and you can see more photos took this place at that time. it was only a short time since its opening, but I think nothing has changed much now either.
How popular are Birds-of-Paradise in private collection? I haven't seen anything about them in the United States. The most "exotic" birds I've come across are turacos, toucans/aracaris, and hornbills.
Indeed. None in truly private hands in the US or Canada currently, however in Europe, they have at the minimum, Kings, Lessers, Greaters, and magnificents in private hands.
Something which I started thinking about the other day. In the past 30 years, Bronx has bred successfully hatched nearly 60 Lesser Birds-of-Paradise, including at least one hatching from the past year. Despite this and the fact that BOPs are relatively long-lived birds, the species is very rare in North American and European collections alike. So, where are all of the Bronx-bred birds? Bronx still has 4.7 despite aforementioned successful breedings, 1.0 Raggiana, and 4.1 Red. ~Thylo
If it helps, the CITES Trade Database shows about 15 P. minor being exported ("live") from the USA from the 1980s through the 2000s. The remainder of the "nearly 60" can probably be explained by dispersal to zoos within the USA and then subsequent deaths, especially if there has been an excess of males produced (I don't know if that is the case, but obviously the more males there are then the lower the number of breedings will be as opposed to if a lot of females were being produced). Birds passing into private hands may also be an answer (I don't know how that works in the case of US zoos). There are roughly similar numbers of raggiana and rubra exported as well.
Prague zoo plans to build a small off-show breeding facility for birds of paradise. With six outside aviaries and corresponding number of inner boxes. Planning and permit stage is done, now the zoo accepts offers from construction companies.
I don´t know what species they plan for in detail, I´ve just seen a set of documents provided to construction companies. My personal wild guess, with just 6 aviaries, the zoo will focus on Raggianas only.
It's actually 5 outside aviaries and 7 inner boxes Raggianas are already present in zoo, and I would guess they'll maybe add one or two other species later.
Possibly, 2 species if and when they open! Raggiana's birds of paradise confirmed. One more added on.
Taipei Zoo's only red BoP died sometime this year, leaving them with no BoP species. Lesser BoP males should still be at 2 small parks in Taiwan, though.
Interesting, thanks for this update! Do you have more information about those Lessers? Which parks specifically, how many, and when they were last seen? Any more info would help tremendously.
One male at Chaofeng Farm, Hualien, mislabeled as Greater BoP, seen 01/2019. Another male at Green World, Hsinchu, in a mixed species aviary, seen 02/2019 (in the gallery here under Taiwan - Other).
Prague got 1,1 king birds of paradise from Walsrode in May. (has been mentioned in zoo´s own thread before but I put it here too to keep the info in one place for future reference)
