I've been browsing around American zoo collections and a few foreign ones and I've noticed a conspicuous lack of grebes in captivity. As far as I know, they aren't particularly hard to keep. Do they require loose grass or other special conditions to do well in an aviary or exhibit? Grebes inspired me to make a thread about kinds of birds not seen or rare in captivity. If you know anything about why these birds aren't kept, please let me know. PLEASE NOTE -This is not for species; it is for groups of birds or genuses; however, monotypic genuses are alright, like hoatzins or something similar Crotalus
There are some captive grebes in Japan, although without my photos I couldn't tell you what or where. I think Little Grebes at Tama?
Lake Biwa Aquarium: Lake Biwa Museum's aquarium - ZooChat Inokashira Park Zoo: Little grebe, October 2017 - ZooChat As far as I know, only little grebes are in captivity in Japan.
There were definitely grebes in two of the collections I visited last year - Walsrode & Lange Erlen in Basel. However I've never heard of Gaviiformes in any collections. Black-necked grebe at Walsrode Grebe by Goura posted 11 Jun 2019 at 1:22 PM
A facility or two hold Pied-billed Grebe here in the US. I haven't either... only longer term captive references to loons I've seen have been a couple research facilities. As far as other families go, shearwaters and petrels come to mind, as well as the storm-petrels. Albatrosses currently only represented by a pair of Laysan Albatrosses at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Hoatzin is another. Other notables would be tropicbirds, mesites, oilbird, finfoots, sheathbills, crab-plover, skuas, todies, jacamars, honeyguides, and a wide variety of passerine families. Nightjars, swifts, swallows, frigatebirds, ground-rollers are only very rarely kept for various reasons.
As the 2017 zoochat challenge show, Passerines are quite an underrated bird order, consider that it is everywhere.
Seen quite a few captive grebes: Black-eared at Walsrode and Augsburg. Little at Dresden, Koln, Frankfurt, Olching and Innsbruck. Never seen a captive loon/diver but they pop up occasionally in European collections, usually as short-lived rescue animals.
I've seen single, presumably rescued, skuas at Artis, Walsrode and Mablethorpe over the years - think these are all long gone now though. Black-necked (aka Eared), presumably, rather than Black-eared! Black-necked were at Zurich and Stuttgart on my last respective visits as well, but are certainly not common in captivity. Little Grebes are a bit more common, but still not very, very. Don't think I've seen any others (even Great Crested, which being widespread and conspicuous you'd think would turn up as a rescue from time to time).
On my visit to the Montreal Biodome in September 2017 there was a stunning summer plumage red-necked grebe in their beaver enclosure, but I don't think it has been seen since so it might not have been that long-lived. It was an absolutely fantastic bird to see up close and even from an underwater viewing window, though! The only other captive grebe I've seen is black-necked in Walsrode, as mentioned above.
That's a shame! I wanted to plan a visit to Canada in the nearish future and was hoping to see the grebe. Personally I have seen Black-Necked (Walsrode) and Pied-Billed (Aquarium of the Pacific) in captivity, though I'm unsure whether the latter is still present. I know skimmers, genus Rynchops, do very poorly in captivity. I've only seen one in a zoo ever, a Black Skimmer rescued by the Bronx Zoo. I saw it only once, and I actually wasn't sure if it was even still alive until I could confirm it was breathing. My understanding is it died after a very short span at the zoo. ~Thylo
Zoogiraffe pointed out a skua to me at Mablethorpe, and I was like, so what, there are gannets. I never photographed it.
London Zoo had Antarctic skuas during the 1970s and 1980s. (I remember them best housed in one of the old Birds-of-Prey Aviaries but they were also kept in the Eastern Aviary too.) Personally I would love to see both species of Picathartes again but, regrettably, I doubt I ever will.
I don't know I would say never, but birds that are rare (comparatively): swifts, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, albatrosses and petrels,
The aquarium posts photos/videos of them fairly frequently on social media. However, I'm unsure of the chances of seeing them. When I visited in March I couldn't find any reference to the albatross encounter they used to do or any way to see one of them... was quite disappointed. Any clue why they're short lived? That I didn't know, curious if anyone knows why they don't do well? I've wondered about that, very few collections seem to hold them. Surf scoter in particular seems like it would be a showy exhibit bird from the wild ones I've seen, but I've never heard of them being kept anywhere.
