How many mammal species could have self-sustaining populations in zoos in Britain, Europe, USA, and worldwide? In short: zoos have limited number of places for animals. This place can expand only moderately after years, because opening new zoos and exhibit goes slowly. Much of zoo space is "fixed" for certain species and groups eg. zoos which keeps lions can change to any lion subspecies, but certainly not to keep small nocturnal animals in this place. I think about 300 mammal species can be kept in zoos. And this means that either zoos will all keep the same species and be, frankly, boring, and most of endangered mammals will not have space in captivity. Or zoos need more cooperation and exchanging founders from other regions and from the wild.
I suppose it depends on whether we focus on large mammals (which most zoos do) or include small mammals. Obviously zoos could work with a lot more mammals if they had more small mammals. But the perception of zoo staff is that public is only interested in large mammals. I am not sure they are right on this, but that is the perception. The zoo I volunteer at is small, only 15 acres, but we have only large mammals. (Of course regulars on ZooChat know how I feel about cats and I have been trying for years to get a small cat here. Our new curator does like them and the founder of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation - Jim Sanderson - is moving to Tucson next week, so maybe I will finally get my dream.). It will always be a tough call deciding which animals can be in zoos, with a large enough population to maintain long-term. Obviously every endangered mammal (or bird or reptile) cannot be saved in a zoo. The real role of zoos is to support conservation efforts in the field and to display and maintain a small sample that is representative of nature as a whole. As to an exact number of how many mammal species, I have no idea. I would be interested to know how you came up with the number 300.
I prefer smaller species,,easier to feed, enclosure materials are less expensive, vet care is less pricey,etc...and I can have more variety than if I had larger species. Arizona Docent--I also love the smaller cat species as well...we have several at our zoo and are working on making their enclosures better, and eventually adding to our numbers. I find that the public really loves the small species just as much as the large. Interesting to see what others think.
5 species per acre For instance, a zoo covers an area of 30 acres, it can hold 150 mammal species, if the zoo has average composition collection.
I'm curious as to where you got these numbers from? Additionally, if one zoo can keep 5 species on one acre, doesn't that mean it takes several times that amount to keep even one self-sustaining population, rather than 5 self-sustaining populations for every acre of zoo land?
