Is this correct? They will be exhibiting a guigna (formerly known as kodkod) and a pampas cat? Hmmm, I wonder how much flights are from Arizona to Chile???
Whaaaat??? Where is this marbled cat?!!! (You can send me a Private Conversation to avoid derailing the Santiago thread).
Both leopardus guigna and leopardus colocolo orphaned cubs were rescued from the 2017 january forest fires in Chile by Buin and Santiago zoos. It Was mentioned on CHilean press and TV that the juvenile felines had lost their habitats and could not be released back to the wild. AD there aré also pictures of mo re rescued felines on the Buin zoo forum. There is still no date for the juvenile felines to go public.
I would hope they will decide to start a captive-breeding project on both species with these non release-ables and support with these a future in situ recovery effort.
We can hope, but I doubt it. The animals were only taken into captivity due to be orphaned as cubs. Unless a similar situation happens (with orphans of opposite sex), there is little justification for taking cats from the wild.
@AD, I have never suggested that. It would only be when more Andean small felids would become available and turn out to be unreleasables. Hence, my … wish list.
Oh yes,AD. Buin zoo and Santiago zoo have various cats of each species. Over 200 animals were rescued from the forest fires and sent to the zoos for rehab. This massive work was ignored by the international press. Among the animals rescued were pudu,culpeo fox , colocolo, kodkod, tórtoises, tegus and juvenile birds of prey.
Carlos, how true! BTW: this also goes for real animal news from Chile (and I dare say from neighbouring countries like Argentina and Brasil ... Colombia, Peru ....even Venezuela, just to name some of the larger ones). For that ..., I do lay blame solely on a reluctant and lacklustre international press and one that is also yet seriously biased Anglo-Saxon and less so Francophone).
Zoológico Nacional de Chile vet exam for the kolokolos at santiago zoo, they are both females the note says. It seems that the kolokolos and kodkod cats can be seen by special request.
do you know more on which animals (species) can be rehabilitated and released, and which cannot be released? Are the kodkods and kolokolos definitely going to be on display? (And side-question, is it kolokolo or colocolo, or can it be either? - I have always spelled it with a C and this is usually how it is spelled in English-language sources)
Yes, it seems that the rescued felines can be seen by request at Santiago zoo and Buin zoo. In Chile kolokolo is used.Both kodkod and kolokolo are mapuche indian words,so how they are written in western languages may vary. Many rescued animals could not be returned because of the severe damage that the native forests suffered due to the fires.
I had forgotten about this thread, so thanks for the bump. I really may need to visit Chile (I have always wanted to see Torres del Paine as well). FYI the preferred name over kodkod (at least according to Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation) is guigna.
they are just alternative names. That's like saying "the preferred name over puma is cougar" or "the preferred name over Moluccan cockatoo is salmon-crested cockatoo". One is not better than the other.
Jim Sanderson (founder of Small Cat Conservation and arguably the world's leading authority) wrote at least one article and maybe more saying it is preferred because kodkod originally referred to a different small cat (I forget which). He suggest guigna to avoid confusion. I have no personal stake in the argument (other than he is a friend of mine) but I am just reporting what he wrote.
What the deal is with the name and Sanderson's point of view, is that the origin of the name "kodkod" is obscure and the suggestion is that it was originally corrupted (by Europeans) from the name "colocolo". But that is no more than a theory (in the colloquial sense, not the scientific sense) and it doesn't mean anything anyway, because no other cat has ever been called a Kodkod and so there is no confusion involved in using that name for the Kodkod. A more apt excuse for saying Guigna is "the preferred name" is that güiña is the more widely-used local name (supposedly Kodkod is not used by local peoples, although that may be more to play in with promoting Guigna). So one could argue that Guigna "should be" used over Kodkod for PC reasons - in a similar vein to the way that certain cat enthusiasts would argue that Puma shouldn't be used for North American animals because that name is South American. Although I don't buy into that reasoning either because the name is the English common name, so its ultimate origin is irrelevant. Bottom line, both Kodkod and Guigna are the common names for this species of cat and for no other species of cat. An individual person can prefer to use one over the other, but both are equally valid and a person cannot state that either name "is the preferred name" as an official position.