Private Breeding Centers

Fossil Rim is public but has private areas which can be viewed on a behind the scenes tour so I would not necessarily consider it a private breeding center.

 

Its privately owned. Private does not mean not available to the public to see

 

I was under the impression we were only discussing facilities which were not visible to the public eye regularly and solely exist to breed certain animals, my mistake.

 

Either way they are noteworthy institutions

 

Most public zoos are privately owned... in the UK at any rate.

 

No but this thread is about institutions which are non-public. Additionally:

~Thylo

 

Its good to define the terms being used in any conversation.
Private in most cases does not mean public vs nonpublic.
Very few zoos (accredited) in the US are private.
Many non public (per se) breeding centers still have provisions to visit, by appointment
or on special days. Whereas almost all zoos have closed behind the scenes
breeding centers that are generally not available to the public unless you get some sort of special circumstance (big donor, you know somebody etc)

 

Most zoos in the US are privately owned - accredited zoos are the minority!

 

Would non-profit charitable entity (aka a private foundation) not be considered privately owned? This is what most AZA zoos are.

~Thylo

 

Most accredited zoos have a quasi government entity nature. IE government (usually city but
in some cases State or in one case Federal) owned but run by a Zoo foundation or board.
Few unaccredited zoos in the US have any notable breeding. Especially of endangered ones.
Hard pressed to think of any examples. But if I am incorrect let me know.

 

In the UK this could not be the case. For any institution to have 'charitable' status, it has the be removed from private control, and its organisation and legal control placed in the hands of a separate boards of trustees. Once this is done, it ceases to be private.

 

Neither of these statements are true of the UK, or many other countries I would suspect...

 

Absolutely true of the US

 

Must be why the #1 breeder of Snow Leopards in the US is a non-AZA zoo...

~Thylo

 

Few does not mean zero

 

How many counts as "few"?

For some other examples:
-Metro Richmond Zoo
-Duke Lemur Center
-Lemur Conservation Foundation
-Lubee Bat Conservancy
-Emerald Forest Bird Gardens
-Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy
-Cassowary Conservation Fund (the only place in the US breeding cassowaries atm)
-White Oak Conservation
-Micanopy Zoological Preserve
-Center for the Conservation of Tropical Ungulates
-Iron Mountain Ranch
-The dozens of other ungulate breeding facilities across the US
-The dozens of universities which maintain breeding programs for various species

My point is there are many, many, many non-AZA institutions which breed endangered species, and many programs rely on these places for long-term success. The entire Giant Eland program is even run by private individuals with the AZA population being loaned out to them.

~Thylo

 

Only one of the above is a zoo.. But Ok I never heard of a couple of the above which I will check out. thanks keep the list coming. I have thought of a few more private breeding centers
The International Crane Foundation -which most of us know about
The Peregrine Fund- pretty much single handedly brought back the peregrine falcon in North America, and have been instrumental for the California Condor (they have done the bulk of the
breeding although San Diego and LA zoos have received most of the credit- and rightly so
for the work they have done but the Peregrine Fund seems almost invisible).

 

Ignoring the incredibly subjective definition of what makes a 'zoo', at least two of them would still be counting as public zoos (Livingston is a public zoological institution similar to Sylvan Heights)

~Thylo

 

Duke, Lemur Conservation Foundation, Lubee, and White Oak are all AZA.

 

The Peregrine Fund was the main organisation that funded and provided the technical expertise for the restoration of the Mauritius Kestrel.