durrell. Patrick- your right , Gerald Durrell started off as a gung-ho animal collector in West Africa. As you say, his methods were fairly primitive back then but admittedly so were everybody elses too. Then he wrote those funny books and started Jersey Zoo and everyone knows the rest of the story. Jersey have certainly contributed a lot to conservation since. Perhaps though Durrell's best innovation was the keeper-training facility he set up, training staff worldwide, in how to care for animals in captivity, particularly in poorer countries. I think this was very innovative and has probably helped the cause of conservation/ breeding animals in captivity as much, perhaps even more than Jersey's own captive breeding projects themselves.
Absolutely Grantsmb! There are quite a number of keepers and curators in this region who have been to the Jersey Summer School over the years, and each of them comes back much better off for the experience. It's a very rewarding experience for keepers who have only worked in Australian or New Zealand zoos to work in zoos in other regions, and doing the summer school adds even further to this. It's a valuable contribution to improving husbandry standards in zoos across the globe.
i love that he gave a damn about an obscure parrot from the indian ocean, or a small bat, a rat, a rabbit from mexico or a monkey from africa nobody had ever heard of. i could go on about durrell or dolphin all day, but in the case of the latter - i already started a thread for that.... so back to panda bears i guess, lucky for them everyone loves pandas....
Patrick- yes I've seen a bilby(or film of one- no, its both...) So bizarre that it looks as if it comes from outer space, so is instantly memorable. That didn't help it become almost exterminated by cats/foxes though before the conservationists stepped in. I think Yangtse River Dolphin's problem was where it lived(China). All countries have different levels and speeds at which they work, including in their approach, or lack of, to conservation issues. In Brazil, the Spix Macaw was exterminated in the wild by illegal/over collection for the Pet Trade, yet the several captive birds in the Sao Paolo zoo continued to languish, even after they started a 'Spix Macaw recovery programme'. Several YEARS later, and despite being the focus of international attention and vetinary/avicultural assistance, these macaws in the zoo still had not even been sexed! (They may have been by now...)
oh grant i know of the spix's macaw!!!! and theres a whole host of prick private owners around the globe who wont give their birds up either!! everyones pretty much "loan me your bird for breeding" and their like "no you loan me yours" and then "no you loan me yours" and then nobody breeds them for their own selfish little reasons. virtunally none left in the world and yet theres one in some fat canadians kitchen and another in some rich arabs private zoo.... gosh i'm positive tonight!!!
Spix Macaw. no no no Patrick- all the squabbling over Spix Macaws is now history- well supposed to be, but there are still some in Germany' in private ownership' where no-one knows anything about them.... The main lot that were in Switzerland (Messner's birds), and ALL those formerly belonging to and successfully bred by the bird dealer (Dios) in the Philippines are now in the hands of the Arabian sheik- he has about FIFTY now and as bred about TWELVE. At least at this breeding centre they have ABSOLUTELY top-quality care, vetinerary attention etc and I think he could single-handedly now save this species. The one found living in a cage in a suburban house in North America is called 'Elvis'- he was sent back to Brazil and provided with a female- though he is pretty ancient they still hope he might breed.(He was one of a pair originaly smuggled to England in the 1970's, and later they were sold to someone in USA). Population is now -I believe - pretty much as follows;(ALL captive) Arabian Sheik; 50 + birds including about 8-12 bred by there. Loro Parc, Tenerife- 4 (includes one bred by them) in 2 pairs. Germany-? unknown number(not many) Brazil/Sao Paolo Zoo- about 7 in total. Sheik has a website- el Adeebra(?) breeding centre which carries news of Spix hatchings etc. Loro Parc has one too.
no but i'll have a look later... pretty sure this is latest news though. There are pictures of several of the baby handraised Spix macaw chicks from hatching to fledging- unlike with the Pandas its obviously crucial they artificially icubate/hatch/rear as many chicks as possible while numbers so low(less than a hundred birds all told) Later they can afford to risk letting the parents rear their own young but its quite often accident-prone(trampled eggs, neglected chicks) so is very risky with such extremely low numbers.
Patrick. For news on Spix, look on the following;(just type in names) Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation - this is 'the Sheik's collection'(50+ Spix) Loro Parc Fudacion - Loro Parc's (Tenerife) Parrot collection & news. Blue Macaws Homepage. Has news and 'pix on Spix', also Hyacinth, Lears macaws etc. Much more difficult to get any updated news on the few(7/9) birds in Brazil unless its mentioned on these sites.
red tape. Just been re-reading Patrick's posts on the demise of the Yangtse Dolphin. His comments about 'internal bickerings' among the governments/scientists/conservationists ring extraordinarily true. There never seems any sense of urgency... This is exactly what happened with the Spix Macaws too- as well as the possessiveness of the private owners who wouldn't share their birds. They couldn't even produce a studbook because of the politics. Try and read the Spix Macaw book if you haven't done so already, some of the prevarication and lack of action (like failing to get the birds at Sao Paolo zoo sexed for years) is beyond belief. Even the official Recovery Programme was abandoned because of non-cooperation and disagreements and I'm not sure its been restarted to this day... Zoos have also been guilty of allowing this sort of red tape to prevent action.e.g transfers or breeding loans taking place etc in the past. Nowadays EEP's, SSP's and other comittees effectively oversee transfers/ breeding. Its also largely why John Aspinall was so successful with the animals in his two UK zoos- he had enough of each species for breeding on his own, only liased with other zoos on his own terms etc. so wasn't hindered by conventional practises or thinking of the time.
In the latest Australian Birdkeeper magazine there are several good articles about macaws, including an article that mentions the Arab breeding centre. I was unaware of this development. I read the book that you mention and so my latest update on it was that the program had been given up. I was unaware that the philopino guy no longer had his birds. This is indeed good news.
Spix Jay- the Filipino breeder transferred all his birds to the Arabian Centre but it was not widely publicised- I don't know the reason but I only discovered it by chance. Nothing much about Spix ever seems straigtforward... Actually, he, Dios, the Filipino breeder had already successfully produced a number of chicks from his birds and there was a plan to send five back to Brazil to be part of a release scheme. So he was cooperating for the birds' recovery. I guess this plan was cancelled after the last Wild bird died. A lot of transfers seem to have happened since the book- but they still keep pretty quiet about some of them. The Al Wabra station has superb facilities and I think they could save the species- in co-0peration with the Brazilians obviously.
talking of private breeding centres, ive tried to google two such places in our region, without success. in new zealand, keystone wildlife preserve, and in australia a pastoral company afiliated with arazpa. was wondering what level of involvement they had, if any, with exotic taxa.
Probably Dunkeld Pastoral Company, in Dunkeld, Victoria. They have plans of becoming involved in some of the native species breed for release programs. As far as I know, they don't have any exotic species, other than maybe some domestics. I've not heard of keystone wildlife preserve.
priam psittaculture centre (aka silver dawn parrot farm) is a memeber of ARAZPA and i would guess has possibly the largest collection of exotic parrots in australia. oddly, the parent company PRIAM also specialises in meats, native foods and the like....
Keystone is the place that two young male giraffes born at Orana were recently sent to. This suprised me as they don't appear to be members of ARAZPA. I couldn't find anything about them either.
Keystone Wildlife reserve I have never heard of this place either I have read that it is North of Auckland , so it gives me some geographical region to start hunting ..... I will try to hunt down more information about this place , and will inform you in due course if/when I have found anything
Whilst I'm not normally a huge fan or black and white bears, or the hype they create in zoos, I visited Atlanta Zoo yesterday, where they have a very yound panda on display. I have to say, seeing it curled up, asleep in the sun, with it's mother keeping a watchful eye on it from close by, does stir emotions in the vistors. (Yeah, ok..... I did think it was a bit cute!)
