Elephant seals in captivity.

Hello all! first time on this forum and with people I could discuss about zoos and animals with the same interest and passion as me! and a question that ive wanted to find out- are there any current zoos that keep southern elephant seals, particularly large males. I know that some marine parks keep walruses and Taronga zoo were in possession of two leopard seals for a while, but Casey was unfortunately put to sleep this year. And this made me think, both leopard seals and walruses are rather specialised pinnipeds so I started to think if maybe elephant seals have been kept in captivity/are currently so I thought it would be a interesting question to find out if anyone knew!

 

This link will show you the collection that used to hold them in Europe,there are none in Europe at present and I doubt they will be again!

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Here is an older thread about elephant seals in captivity: http://www.zoochat.com/2/there-still-elephant-seals-captivity-322076/

And this thread (plus others) discusses pinnipeds in general: http://www.zoochat.com/2/pinniped-species-captivity-203726/

 

Oh thankyou! yeah was thinking maybe their captive care would prove problematic due to their size or possible feeding and behaviour habits. Not to mention enclosure space would have to be crucial and stocking densities would need to be fairly low in that sort of confined space.

 

The main problem was the missing breeding.Altough many european zoos had several birhs , but just ONE animal could be raised to adulthood-the male"Eric", born at Antwerp and later send to Berlin, where it died very young-like most other elephant seals.Fortunately, elephant seals are now a proteted species, and it isn't allowed to import them again to europe, but, the zoos regognized that this animals can't be kept in"Captivity".Too many of them were imported and died, more were imported, they died, and so on. And just ONE was raised...I guess, around hundred or more were imported...if not more.......

 

There are elephant seals brought into captivity, usually temporarily, at the Marine Mammal Center in California. These are usually young animals that have been injured. They are rehabilitated and released. Occasionally non-releasable animals do go to American zoos. Pittsburgh Zoo has an elephant seal as of late 2014.

http://www.pittsburghzoo.org/PressRoom/PressReleases/Zoo Rescues Injured Elephant Seal

In the relatively recent past the San Francisco Zoo has housed recovering young elephant seals until they are releasable.

http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/assets/pdfs/communications/pressreleasearchive/tmmcelliessfzoo.pdf

 

A film from Copenhagen zoo in 1937 of their bull GOLIATH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-iwkPvm-Ss

 

All I know is that the Brookfield zoo had them in the 1930s but are long gone

 

Pittsburgh Zoo houses a rescued male named Coolio.

There was another poorly know female who lived at a research facility in California for many years, however she passed away a few years ago.

 

A shame. I think, Berlin Zoo had also an elephant seal in the 1930ties, but it is also gone I belive, his name was"Roland".

 

According to Crandall (1964) Brookfield Zoo acquired a male northern elephant seal in the summer of 1936; this animal lived in Chicago for over three years and, very sadly, died from intestinal impaction after a visitor fed it peanuts.

Again according to Crandall, Berlin Zoo acquired the southern elephant seal “Roland” from Hagenbecks on 10th March 1930 and it died on 26th December 1935.

(Incidentally, I have several old Berlin Zoo postcards depicting “Roland” who was certainly a very impressive animal.)

Finally, another snippet of information from Crandall that may be of interest:-

The first elephant seals at Bronx Zoo arrived there in 1957. They were previously housed in the New York Aquarium with the walrus “Olaf”; unfortunately the elephant seals kept biting "Olaf" so were transferred to the zoo to prevent their “persistent annoyance” of the walrus.

 

I first visited Berlin Zoo in 1985 and have been numerous times since then, most recently in 2014; I have never seen a life-size statue of "Roland" on any of my visits.

I have never visited the "Berlin Sea Museum"but am tempted to check it out next time I am in Berlin.

EDIT:- I hadn't heard of the "Berlin Sea Museum" but after googling found out that:-

"The German Maritime Museum was founded in Bremerhaven in 1971 to replace the Museum of Marine Science in Berlin, which had been destroyed during World War II."

 

There is no "Berlin Sea Museum". Roland's "death mask" is exhibited at the Maritime Museum in Stralsund in a corner on the ground floor.

Page 23
https://www.meeresmuseum.de/fileadm...atenschaft/140217_dmm-patenschaftskatalog.pdf

If you want to see it anytime soon, you better hurry; the (lovely) museum is going to close next year for a complete refurbishment and re-open again in 2020/2021.

There is no life-sized statue of Roland at Berlin Zoo.

 

There never was a statue. The taxidermists Karl Kaestner and Gerhard Schröder of said Natural History Museum in Berlin created a dermoplastic model of Roland and crafted his skin onto it. This museum display was destroyed in 1944 during the Bombing of Berlin in World War II. All that is left of Roland is the bronze "death mask" at the German Maritime Museum in Stralsund, Germany.
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