Okay patrick, so you don't like white ones. How do you feel about violet mask lovebirds? lutino rainbow lorikeets? opaline redrump parrots? blue lacewing indian ringnecks? harlequin pied mallee ringnecks? All different to their wild ancestors, and all so breathtakingly beautiful that their colours can't be adequately captured by the camera. Isn't there room for these AS WELL AS the wild, normal colour type? (Actually, I'm not as passionate about them as I sound. I'm just trying to give you a good argument.)
eh.... does little for me. you want a blue parrot? then buy a blue species, not a green one. but obviously if some dude wants to inbreed his birds to make them blue i couldn't care much. but lets not call it conservation (to bring it back to the white lions) because your not conserving anything thats particuarly natural, and you colours or lack thereof, fails to impress me anyway!
yea mark! thats is something you dont here of, no real breeding of black to black. is it resessive or really random. i thought it was the evviroment that affected the phentotype of the jaguar, like dense jungles = black, deeper yellow =savannah
Zoo_Boy, I have seen a few in large main stream overseas zoos, from what I have read it seems to be resessive, but of interest is the large spots can still be seen close up so they are still there. I wondered about black Jags coming from the dense jungles many years ago but from the reports that I have read they can be found out on the open Savannah as often as in the forests. I have also read that black servels can be found in certain mountain regions in Africa and on the net there is a report that the Indian Goverment obtaining a black Tigers pelt a few years ago from a group of poachers so I guess it can crop up in most cat species.
Taronga's last jaguar was a big, black male named Ali. He arrived as a cub from Rotterdam in 1979 and died in 1996.
melanism in jaguars and leopards is very different to white lions and tigers. whilst the gene popping up in both cases is natural, only in one case (that of malanism) has it really been advantageous or benign for the species. thus black genes are dispersed amongst all leopard and jaguar populations, however tend to be at higher densities in the rainforests, since in that particular habitat type, being all black may have a slight advantage over being spotted. white lions only ever popped up in a few limited individuals, was never particuarly successful and was nurtured by humans to stop the lineage from the inevitable extinction. big difference if you ask me (but yes i think black jaguars are gorgeous cats!)
i think that 'having somethig different' is a poor and philosophically regressive reason for keeping white lions. particularly in a region where cooperation and target populations are incredibly important and should not be compromised. the fact that the white lions are big cats of which Australias zoos already have several endangered species, including snow leopards, cheetah and sumatran tiger to me highlights the fact that holding capacity for these species should be a priority. even though sumatran tigers and cheetah are considered to be stable hardly a year goes by without some importation of either species from another region. just in terms of cost, it would be so much better if we had more room for these species so we had to import less frequently. almost all of Australia's major zoos no longer keep mutations. WPZ has had, until quite recently white tigers but i, as im sure other purists would, be quite annoyed if they again got one when a sumatran tiger could be there instead.
What about Canberra's king cheetahs? Is Canberra wasting a space that could have been used to keep a "normal" cheetah?
i think that is a silly example for all sorts of reasons.... firstly, as rare as king cheetahs are in the wild in captivity, they do seem to crop up a little bit more commonly than white lions, who now require human intervention to ensure persistence. i think king cheetahs are kind of like black leopards and jaguars, and there is no reason why Canberra's king cheetah couldnt be intergrated into the mainstream breeding program for this species. if there was a breeding program for jaguars or leopards in this country i would have no problem integrating black animals into the program. i am not aware anyway that there is even a plan to do this. but either way it must be easier to pay for a single King cheetahs upkeep when people are paying through the nose to meet him than it would be to pay for a whole pride of rapidly multiplying lions. offloading surplus white lions onto the wider zoo community is something which cannot be done with the white lions, as the major zoos have policies to display only 'type' representatives. by definiton, white lions and tigers are not 'type'. if mogo is to have an ongoing commitment to the white lions it will require topping up stock with imported animals, or sourcing normal animals from other australian zoos. any offspring which resulted from this second option would carry the white lion gene and then could not be exchanged back within the broader zoo community because they would break policy. if another private zoo came on board with this species then perhaps the white lion could be managed a bit more effectively. but at what cost to other species? would you be happy if canberra zoo, one of only four instituions with snow leopards in this region, decided to downscale that program in order to maintain white lions. ive touched on the financial reasons against white lions before. through the birth of its white lions mogo has recieved widespread media coverage and secured funding from Peurgot. however, any lion birth in any zoo receives media attention. and lions are often amongst the most 'sponsored animal' in any zoo, big or small. there is no reason why a smart marketing campaign on Mogos behalf could not be just as succesful for type lions. or sumatran tigers, or any other species. certainly, their 'first in a decade' litter of snow leopards secured enduring levels of international PR. the final point is that as a small private zoo Mogo will always be needing to be a cost effective business. maintaining a diverse collection of animals which are relatively easy to source from within the region rather than expensive to import white lions makes more sense. besides colour what is the big difference between type and white lions? with the average zoo visitor finding it difficult to distinguish between gorillas or chimps, or red pandas and monkeys, or tree kangaroos, what difference does it really make if you have two different coloured lions? from bits and pieces mentioned on this site Mogo is not in the very best shape at the moment. better if it concentrated on widely available species and if it could get onto a more cash flow positive footing put that money into something like the much awaited chimpanzee exhibit, or white rhinos, or the acquisition of silvery gibbons (when youre trying to secure a hard to get species wouldnt it be best from a professional point of view if you followed policy?)...... when even big zoos like WPZ find it hard to establish a new species, against inevitable setbacks you think the sensible thing to do would be to follow guidelines.
There is about 300 white lions in captivity.( depends on which web site you look at.) Glyn, you are right about them being dependant on human intervention for their survival. But wouldn't the king cheetahs in the same position, or are you talking about wild animals? The total number of king cheetahs is 60 with about 10 in the wild. They are like black leopards,white tigers and black jags, with both parents needing to carry the recessive gene. Is this the same for the lions? What I don't understand about your comment is the part about the king cheetah being intergrated into the mainstream breeding progam. Wouldn't this "dirty the water" so to speak? Isn't that what you are against when it comes to the lions? I do understand you point about 1 cheetah costing a lot less to maintain then a pride of white lions, and Canberra would make a good dollar by letting the public in with it. By the way I'm not trying to defend Mogo's decision to display white lions. I was just asking for people's opinions about the King cheetah. I personally see it as no different to displaying the white lions. Both, in my opinion, are displayed by the smaller zoos as a "novelty" And Glyn you made some good points, most of them i hadn't thought of. Hope you don't find this post "silly"
ha ha - i like that nothing can be mentioned about white lions on this forum without a bunch of us shooting off about how much we disagree with mogo breeding them!! truth is - i don't much care if some private indivuals or zoos want to breed white lions and tigers so long as its done responsibly (ie, minimal inbreeding). but its in no way helpful to do it here. we all now the deal with australiasian zoos. firstly, there IS an argument that white colour morphs in lions and tigers is just as natural as melanisim in leopards and jaguars. however, melanism is actually a successful mutation. its beens so successful particuarly of individuals of certain habitat types that for hundreds of thousands of years it has spread throught the species to teh point where a melanistic individual could essentially pop-up and possibly survive anywhere. like the white gene IT IS natural, but more importantly its successful as well. and it needs no human interference to keep it around. its completely normal and of course melanistic animals should be fully integrated into any breeding program for the species with little regard for preserving particular colour morphs - they are all one and the same. white lions have never been the norm, white tigers even less so. i don't imagine a high likelihood of either type perservering in the wild without human interference. this is becuse the colouration is not at all advantageous and is in fact the opposite. king cheetah may or may not be the result of even more inbreeding in populations of south african cheetah populations. this is likely the result of human intervention also. like the white lions and tigers, i care little about the preservation of the so called "king cheetah" coat in cheetah. ethiopia might i add is actually a very green and luch country in parts. its certainly not all desert, in fact, much of it is high, lush montain woodland. it is here that many of the countries leopards are found. it has been suggested by some researchers that melanistic leopards seems to have more success hunting at night and thus many black animals switch (even more so that their spotted siblings) to this lifestyle when placed in a habitat type that makes them more conspicuous. this makes sense, but as far as i know this may be a little unsubstantiated....
As far as I know, there are no Sumatran tigers available right now, although there are a number of imminent imports, all of which will be paired for breeding, so potentially there will be spares in the not too distant future. I suspect though, that genetically valuable animals will be placed in institutions where they can also breed with genetically suitable animals. I'm not sure about snow leopards, but I do know that there are other institutions inthe region that are looking for additional snow leopards. I think I know where you are heading with your question, but using the argument that since there are no spare tigers or snow leopards at the moment, doesn't justify continual breeding of a non-recommended line of animals, that are now taking up spaces that could be available for other big cats in the future. It's all food for thought when the species coordinators are making their recommendations for who get's what, I'd say.
I think you are trying to hard be one step ahead of others , relax it was just a question. But now that you have mentioned it........
