What's the availability to be able to replace it? There aren't many giant salamanders in the US are there? I wonder if the exhibit is suited to anything else.
With giant salamanders, both the Japanese and the Chinese species, we need to address the issue of husbandry, housing and breeding them first. To my recollection, the Hiroshima Asa Zoo is the only establishment having succeeded in breeding the Japanese giant salamanders with any regularity (both in lab and under near natural exhibit conditions). In large part this is also due to the fact that Asa Zoo has engaged this issue by replicating conditions found in their natural habitat and copying their reproductive systems.
There are now 9.7 Japanese Giant Salamanders in the US at 6 institutions. Buffalo.......1.1 Cincinnati...2.1 Detroit.......2.2 Omaha.......1.0 San Antonio.2.3 Toledo........1.0
Cincinnati must have their specimens off display. I was there last month and didn't even see an exhibit with signage for them.
Japanese Giant Salamander... What's really weird is the record of one found in a reservoir on Jersey, sent initially to Jersey Zoo [as it then was] & on to London Zoo. This was several decades ago, and I never heard a satisfactory explanation.
