Can Any Animal be Held in Captivity?

There are actually a number of different species that do fairly well!

The stables of the industry are of course the most durable. Pacific, Altantic, Black Sea and Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins all adapt extremely well to life under human care, regularly meet and exceed wild lifespans, and show excellent reproductive success. Populations of Atlantic Bottlenose in Europe and North America are at the state they are totally self sustaining, to the point that there are now animals bred to the 5th generation captive bred. However all 4 species/subspecies have actively breeding populations throughout the world.

Belugas do fairly well, but they come with their own set of issues. They seem to be much more prone to illnesses than more southerly species, and when they get sick they can succumb much more easily to whatever is ailing them. Additionally, they have fairly limited breeding success, and seem to fair much better breeding wise when housed in larger groups, something that is not often catered to. They are also suffering from a lack of founders in North America in co-operating facilities. To put it in perspective, in the US there are currently 27 animals, with 6 (possibly10) founding male lines (only 4 of which have breeding success), and 10 founding female lines, most of which are breeding, luckily. There are usually 1-2 calves born every 2 years. In comparison, at Marineland in Canada, there are 7 founding male lines,and some 18-19 founding females, at least 14 of which are already breeding, and this is all at one park!

Like @littlewallaby mentioned, Orca also do very well. For the past 20 or so years they have enjoyed very good survival rates, excellent reproductive success, and have generally been thriving. They are extremely smart, and within the top 5 species that adapts best to captivity. Were it not for their large size, expense of care, and public controversy, (mainly the latter 2) I have no doubt they would be far more common in zoological collections.

Pacific Whitesided Dolphins also do fairly well. They, much like the belugas, suffer from an EXTREMELY limited founder base (like really bad, there is only 1 founding male and 6 founding females left, all are older, 1 has never bred, 1 is post reproductive, and 1 is both). All the others are captive bred, and all are sired by one of two males (the living founder and another deceased male) with the exception of one, he was conceived via artificial insemination with a Japanese male, but is a grand offspring to the deceased founding male, and is related to a number of the living females). However other than limited genetics, they have decent life spans, reasonable breeding success, and also adapt well to captive life.

Finless Porpoises and Commerson's Dolphins are two others that actually do surprisingly well! Both have fairly good longevity and breeding success under human care (commerson's especially, virtually every animal given the chance to breed has produced offspring), and their small size makes housing them fairly easy. Japan is the stronghold for them, as they are the only country breeding Commerson's and the main breeder of captive Finless Porps as well.

Harbor Porpoises do alright, but they seem to be a tad on the more sensitive side and have limited breeding success, however virtually all animals (sans 1 captive bred female in Europe) in captivity currently are rescues, which no doubt gives them a disadvantage for long term success.

Other species that generally do well with proper husbandry, but aren't kept in large numbers include Pseudorca, Short Finned Pilot Whale, Rough Toothed Dolphin, Risso's Dolphin, and Amazon River Dolphin.

 

I thought that river dolphins mostly did poorly in captivity? I know that there used to be many more, but that over time the population could not be sustained and they all died out.

 

I haven't read into it too deeply, but as I understand it the dolphins actually for the most part needed shallower water (in at least part of their tanks) or even land space for them to pull on to, to sleep. They aren't able to sleep like oceanic dolphins (if I read correctly), which can stay afloat on the salt content in the water (or something to that extent). Obviously there isn't very much (if any) salt in freshwater tanks, and as a result, most individuals died from exhaustion since they couldn't sleep properly in their deep tanks. If this issue is addressed, they seem to do fine.

The only modern attempt on their husbandry that I know of never went through. The Dallas World Aquarium tried to get a permit for 4 dolphins to be imported around 2000 (before the opening of the Orinoco exhibit), and they were to be the stars. However, the public for word and they cancelled their application.

 

Yes, Jayjds2 has it mostly correct. These guys actually adapt superbly well to captive conditions,as they are adapted to living in shallow, dirty water and maneuvering in tight spaces. What this equates to is animals that deal with the transition to life in tanks very well (they have excellent barrier avoidance), and since they naturally live in water that is relatively "dirty" compared to marine dolphins, they are quite forgiving with water conditions.

The biggest issue, like jay said, is that no one anticipated the dolphins actually needed specific areas to sleep. Pretty much what happens is that the marine dolphins keep enough of their brain awake so that they are able to still surface and breath while resting, while the river dolphins go into a much deeper sleep, to the point they are unable to breath and sleep at the same time (marine dolphins can still sleep normally in fresh water, the limiting factor for them is how aggressively their skin deteriorates in fresh water) So they need shallow areas where they can rest on the bottom just below the surface, to get proper rest (they don't actually haul out to sleep). So essentially what happened is that all these dolphins were kept in the standard deep, vertical walled tanks, and they all slowly died of exhaustion. By the time people really figured out they needed shallow sleeping areas, the majority of the population had died off the captures were no long being practiced. The few that managed to survive this (Duisburg, Pittsburgh and a facility in south america) just by chance had them all in tanks that allowed them sleep, thus allowing them to survive, and even breed for the south americans, for many years.

 

From my personal experience, no. There are a select few that you cannot keep on a zoo. These are animals such as Great Whites and Blue Whales. In concept you could have a massive tank, or have a netted portion of the ocean, however this would be so large it would become rare for the animal to be seen. There are other animals that cannot be kept in a zoo as well, however I cannot remember each one. In concept though, yes you can. However would it be a good attraction? No it wouldn't.

 

Aren't Great whites kept at the Monterey bay aquarium?

 

They were kept on-and-off at one point, but the program has since been halted (2011 or so I think). Individuals were kept for varying lengths of time and rereleased. From what I can find through a quick search, the longest-held individual was kept for 198 days. It would not be feasible to have the species on exhibit for a long period of time. Its food and space requirements would eventually become too great.

 

I would also point out that river dolphins tend to live in smaller social groups than most oceanic dolphins, I imagine that would be another advantage.

Since we're on the subject of river dolphin captive life... Does anyone know why most of the baiji taken into captivity didn't survive long? I know Qi Qi had a respectable lifespan, but the same can't be said for the others.

 

Well I guess they just don't do very well in captivity. Although other dolphin species have been kept just fine in zoos and aquariums ( Bottlenose dolphins in the National aquarium in Baltimore) maybe baiji dolphins are just more fragile than other species of dolphin.

 

I hate to break off the topic but it kind of irks me seeing various species that are hard to keep alive in captivity (even for major facilities) up for sale. Moorish idols being a good example

 

It is true that most captive Baiji captured in the 70s and 80s did not live long, but it has to be noted that not that many got captured. In 1992 an oxbow of the river was closed off to create a semi-wild reserve for both Baiji and Finless porpoise. The later species is still present in the reserve, but only one Baiji was every introduced and that animal died during a flood. A male captive Baiji was kept from 1980 to 2002 at the Wuhan institute for Hydrology.

The problems with Baiji are very similar to those of the Vaquita. Conservation efforts too little too late. And if you add human error to that process you get this end result.

 

Many animals called 'difficult to keep in captivity' were only kept decades ago, when knowledge was much worse, or only few single individuals were ever imported. They should not be called so. In fact many such species thrive under current zoo conditions.

Take sportive lemurs, which are often written as difficult to keep due to their leaf-based diet. But one Red-tailed Sportive Lemur was imported to Paris and lived over 7 years - not a low lifespan at all.

 

Or hoatzins, which are also notorious for their "difficult-to-service" leafy diet, despite the Bronx successfully switching them over to a normal vegetarian diet and keeping them alive for 5 years in the 1990's.

 

I think another aspect to consider is not just provision of care, but attention. Every zoo has limitations on how long keepers can spend being attentive to individual animals and to species with most keepers managing several species/animals/pens. In some they might even manage a whole grouping of animals.

As a result some difficult to keep animals might be a result of being assumed to require less attention than they actually needed. That minor problems went unnoticed until they became major problems; this exacerbated by a lack of proper/full understanding of their requirements.
Budget constraints and possible limits on what is possible within the working day might also be limitations on how animals are kept. With those proving more difficult possibly requiring changes or adjustments which are simply outside of specific zoos capacity to deliver.

If those species are kept by very few establishments this might well raise the question of those species being difficult to keep within captivity; whilst private owners or other establishments might have more resources or simply less species to care for and thus allow for a greater level of flexibility and active observation.



Of course tied into this is the skill of keepers in reading animal body language and behaviour. This is one of those things that can be taught but is often hard to teach as many who learn it often learn informally and thus never have reason to put what they know into structured thinking. Again those who have a greater level of understanding might well find less problems than those with a lesser understanding; as those with greater awareness are more able to identify problems before they become serious issues.



All this and more can, I think, add up easily to miss-represent animals as hard to keep when in fact they simply require different methodologies and a greater level of understanding to overcome inexperience within the captive environment in delivering suitable care.


Whilst I think on it another aspect to consider is breeding. It's well known that different parents within the same species can produce young who will have a chance of similar behavioural traits as their parents. As a result if a species has a very limited pool of captive stock it might well be that the stock which is accessible could come from a bloodline that has behavioural traits which prove to be more difficult to manage/keep.
Thus a different bloodline might well present a variation in behaviours and tolerances. Of course if the captive population is very small and those with experience in keeping also very restricted there's a good chance that this kind of variation in behaviour will be very difficult to identify; at least unless there's a concerted effort to source different bloodlines from the wild to bring into captivity.

 

How have pilot whales and false killer whales done in captivity? Have they ever been kept?

 

SeaWorld San Diego right now has Short-Finned Pilot Whales. They seem to be in good health.

 

In reality, no. And for example, let's bring up aquatic creatures. The longest a great white shark lived in captivity was less than a year. They would eat other life in their tank. And then, there is the blue whale. They would need such a large area for just one, it just isn't possible. Even the Georgia aquariums ocean voyager would be too small. So my answer is no. A lot of animals can, but at the same time, there is a lot that can't

 

There is at least one known example of this. Not a well-known zoo animal, but with a tiny species of stick insect beloved by insect breeders: Sungaya inexpectata. There are two "bloodlines" in captivity. The first is the highland variant which is rather sensitive, reproduces strickly asexually and is know for a relative high mortality rate in eggs and nimphs. The second, more recently collected lowland variant is very easy to breed, reproduces sexually and has very low mortality rates, making it a good species for beginners.

I suspect that other animals might be in more or less the same situation as the highland population of S. inexpectata.

 

Who knows, maybe as time passes and technology grows, maybe zoos and aquariums can house great white sharks, blue whales, and other animals. Zoos did so before with animals like the western lowland gorilla and the cheetah.

I'm curious, what other animals (besides large aquatic life and the hoatzin) have trouble in zoos?

 

Would it be possible to keep Giant Squid?