How is captive breeding of Great Hornbill going? It used to be very common species in zoos, but seriously declining.
Visited Ouwehands Dierenpark - the Netherlands last weekend and they have a nice Hornbill-collection which is housed in a serrie of nice, large enclosures directly near the entrance. Species kept are : Rufous hornbill - 2 seen ( photo see : Rufous hornbill | ZooChat ) Rhinoceros hornbill - signed but none seen Great Indian hornbill - 1 seen ( photo see : Great Indian hornbill | ZooChat ) Wreathed hornbill - one female seen ( photo see : Wreathed hornbill-female | ZooChat ) Knobbed hornbill - one male seen ( photo see : Knobbed hornbill | ZooChat Wrinkeled hornbill - one pair with at least 2 young ( photo see : Young Wrinkled hornbill | ZooChat ) In an aviary at the Africa House another hornbill species is kept : Von der Decken's hornbill - at least one seen
Wisbroek Research and development centre now houses Great pied Hornbills(Buceros bicornis). Wisbroek I assume that the other birds pictured are also new pairs of the species they already held. Wreathed, Blyths, Oriental pied and Rhinocerous. Surley Wisbroek has to hold one of the largest asian hornbill collections in the world ??
Old publication but very intresting ! : http://www.coraciiformestag.com/Research/Hornbill/EAZA_Hornbill_Management.pdf
Found another old but intresting article : HORNBILLS IN ZOOS – A REVIEW BY HARRO STREHLOW http://www.izn.org.uk/Archive/307/Izn-307.html
@vogelcommando Very interesting article ! When was this article published? It also didn't mention Palawan Hornbills (Anthracoceros marchei), I know that Wroclaw zoo has bred these, do you know of any other breeders of Palawan? Is the aforementioned Walsrode breeding centre in Ornis Mallorca still functioning??
The article was published at International Zoo News no. 307, Vol. 48-2 March 2001. At that time there realy were no Palawans kept in Europe. Don't know any other breeders but know they are kept at the privat breeding station Wisbroek in the Netherlands. Walsrodes breeding centre on Mallorca doesn't exist anymore.
Article about the hand-raising of a Knobbed hornbill at Wisbroek - the Netherlands : https://www.wisbroek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/wisbroek-in-aviarylife-magazine-may-2018.pdf
Does anybody have species lists/counts for North America? The thread is mostly on European collections, though that was not specified. Hornbills seem to be pretty prevalent here, seen 14 species personally at a good number of zoos.
Zoo Zlín-Lešná has a chick now, its their first surviving one since 2010 when they first got this species. Article that reports on this breeding success also mentions: - it is the only surviving chick of this species within last 12 months in the world (I guess they mean zoos with records in ZIMS only) - it is the first breeding in the Czech republic (that means that even Czech private bird owners didn´t manage to breed it yet) - only very few birds were sucesfully bred in last 10 years, mentioned is Stuttgart and Walsrode - the current pair at Zlín had its first fertile eggs in 2014 and lays eggs regularly since then, but chicks die within few days when let in the box with female, so this time eggs were put into incubator after 20 days and the only hatched chick is hand-reared, but kept near parents separated only by mesh wall - the zoo mentions staff of Negara zoo in Malaysia who give them valuable advices and experience that help with breeding of this species
Hornbills at Ouwehands - Netherlands : Visited Ouwehands again last weekend and here an update about their Hornbill-collection : - Von der Decken's hornbills seemed to have young at the nest as I saw the female bringing food to the sealed nest ( photo see Female Von der Decken's hornbill at the nest | ZooChat ). -Wrinkled hornbill-pair shared their aviary with 2 fledged young. In an other aviary 2 more young birds were housed ( young from last year ? ). - At the aviary which had the sign of the Great Indian hornbill I wasn't able to see this species Instead the two above mentioned young Wrinkled hornbills are living in this aviary. - Only one Knobbed hornbill ( a female ) seen. Complete Hornbill-list seen on August 4 : 6 Wrinkled hornbills 1 Knobbed hornbill ( female ) 1-1 Wreathed hornbill 1 Philippine rufous hornbill 1-1 Von der Deckens hornbill ( prop. with young at the nest ) 1 or 2 Rhinoceros hornbills