Is it me or do we seem to have Flavours of the month when it comes to species suddenly appearing in our zoos. For instance a few years ago Lion Tailed Macaques - where are they all now ?
Interesting thoughts. In the US at least it seems that meerkats are a flavor of the month. The reason lion tailed macaques have disappeared from quite a few zoos is due to risk of disease transmission.
Very definitely. Bush Dogs and Maned Wolves were being acquired by everybody 25 years ago; they are now both distinctly scarce in the UK.
The former *are* certainly getting scarce, although they are hanging on, but the latter are still pretty common - nine UK collections hold Maned Wolf, which stands up quite respectably to the eleven collections holding African Hunting Dog, Raccoon Dog and Fennec Fox. In terms of once-common canid taxa, the one in the worst state is Arctic Fox.
5 UK still have lion-tailed macaques and the species is quite common on the continent so the species did not disappear at all. The disease dangers have been exagerated and can be easily prevented especially in a zoo-setting.
Of the five UK collections with Lion-tailed Macaques; 1. Bristol- not breeding any more, so a small static(ageing) group. 2. Colchester- appear to have less than 4 left- could be phased out shortly? 3 Chester- still breeding(?)/increasing with a large group. 4. Howletts- most recent group- now large and still increasing. 5. Belfast. Don't know their situation. 6. Fota- in Eire- also had them but not sure if still holders. Some other current 'new flavours'- Aardvark, Giant Anteater, Raccoon Dog, Hunting Dog, Gelada Baboon, Mangabey, Visayan Warty Pig, Rainbow Lorikeet.
In the bad old days, a zoo often acquired a pair of animals, preferably unrelated, bred them every year and traded the offspring on until one of the parents died. That still happens with some species, for example the aforementioned maned wolves, but at least now the studbook system allows the stock to be managed sustainably by making it easier to re-pair animals that have lost partners and to pair up young stock. In the case of species like the lion-tailed macaques, they may be held by fewer collections, but the sizes of the groups are much larger now; so there are now probably significantly more specimens in the country. Of course these larger groups need more space, so the older zoos now all hold fewer species than they did twenty or thirty years ago. Several species have been phased out to make space for new ones, either by exporting the animals to collections overseas or by contraception and moving the animals to 'retirement homes'. Other species have not bred well enough to maintain their numbers - as we have seen with purple-faced langurs and Hamlyn's monkeys in recent years. Among the primates the species which seem to be rising in popularity include buffy-tufted capuchins (which is good as they are threatened) and white-faced sakis, which used to be thought too difficult to keep in zoos. Alan
Giant otters seemed to have a small surge of new holders at the turn of the decade (in Britain at least), and for a while it seemed as if they were on course to become flavour of the month. They are a very popular species: large, active and vocal. I feel they would fit in at London and Edinburgh, and I'm sure a great many other collections, but their rise in Britain seems to have come to an abrupt halt.
In terms of larger species a few collections have added Indian rhino in recent years. Two I can think of are Chester and WMSP although thinking about it these may be the only two.
In this case, the EEP has asked for new holders as they are breeding very succesfully nowadays. Flamingo Park in Yorkshire is on course to have them, though building work is slow. I think 'flavour of the month' should really rather be 'year' or 'decade'. But it is certainly a factor in our Zoos. Frequently caused by successful breeding of a hitherto unusual species creating a mushrooming population e.g. Warty Pigs. I'm sure Giant Otters would have been taken by more Zoos too as they make a good exhibit, but as JR said above, it hasn't really happened.
Babarusa became quite popular in UK collections but appear to have dwindled in numbers in recent years unfortunately, Chester, South Lakes still have them, anywhere else?
I think Dudley may still have their geriatric male - he's a bloody nice sight too, as his tusks are the most impressive of any babirusa I have seen. I believe the decline in Babirusa numbers is primarily due to the population in Europe having become extremely genetically bottlenecked, with a resulting drop in successful breeding - the recent successes of Chester, Antwerp and SLWAP are pretty much the only reason the species has not disappeared entirely.
One way that has been noted for animals to rise in popularity is through movies being made about them. The rise of meerkats came soon after the release of the lion king with the character Timone.
Not a bad group of species to have catching popularity Raccoon Dogs for whatever reason didn't really catch popularity in the U.S. so only two zoos have them afaik and mangabeys are also slowly disappearing from our zoos. Gelada is currently only held at Bronx but may be catching some more interest as I know San Diego wants them at least. The others are all fairly common over here. ~Thylo
Some of the 'flavour' species have been present in our UK zoos without a break for many decades, even if only in one or two collections. Examples; African Hunting Dog; Mangabeys. Some have been bred in UK Zoos in the past but disappeared for several decades when nowhere was keeping them. Examples; Gelada, Drill. Others have either never been kept in the UK until quite recently, or only as occassional specimens. Examples; Giant Otter; Visayan Pig; Aardvark, Giant Anteater, Raccoon Dog.
