Several US zoos receive pangolins

Out of curiosity, is Leipzig then actively attempting to breed their pangolins?

@Giant Panda: I don't know if these zoos considered working with Taipei or not; if they did, I would be curious to know what their reasoning was for rejecting it (or, if they didn't, their reason for not considering it).

As to the "fund source vs. fund sink" discussion: I don't disagree with your points about getting the public to support ecosystems rather than on particular species, but again this is of limited use to species that are threatened in other ways. Animal trafficking affects the individual species being trafficked (and to some extent, the ecosystem is affected by them being removed). While I'm all for a general push against overexploitation of wild animals, I wouldn't consider that under the umbrella of protecting ecosystems. At the same time, protecting individual species *does* help ecosystems insofar as it prevents integral species from disappearing.

 

My view on species threatened by targeted exploitation is, all things being equal, that they're an unfortunate sacrifice. Landscape-level approaches will save more overall.

Your last sentence is only true if the species in question is a keystone. In this case, targeted conservation efforts can still be justified from a habitat perspective. Most species are not.

 

I would like to say a few things about this subject.

First of all, I can't really say anything on the unfortunate situation in which the receiving zoos find themselfs. I'm still quite on the fence myself regarding this particular subject. I do agree with a lot of things said by Giant Panda, jibster, Coelocanth18, as well as FunkyGibbon and TLD. I think we have a very good discussion here, where both "sides" have truly valid arguments.

One thing I want to say, is that I think the threads pangolins face are not that species specific. Wildlife trafficking does affect a lot of species and ecosystems, not just pangolins. Even a the more specific trade in animal parts for the Asian medicine market is not restricted to pangolins. Pangolins themselfs might not be keystone species, but given the sheer numbers of populations and species that are overexploited throughout tropical forests, I can't image that this doesn't have a detrimental effect on the ecosytems. Species affected might be pollinators and seed dispersers (birds, squirrels and primates), apex predators (tigers, leopards), large herbivores (elephants, rhinos, deer, antilope) or have any other maybe insignificant, or maybe unknown role (pangolins for example). Action to protect these animals saves a huge number of species, among which are several keystone species. Therefore I think it is benificial if not necessary to protect species from wildlife trafficking if we want to save ecosytems. The protection of pangolins however, as much as I hate so say it, will probably be a byproduct of reduction in wildlife trade and habitat loss in general, and will not be a major target on itself.

We could endlessly debate over whether or not the zoos should have received pangolins, but they have them now, so let's try to make the most of it. Even if the zoos don't succeed in creating a healthy captive population, we might learn a lot about pangolins, and gather knowlegde that could be usefull in the field.

 

...EXACTLY!!! ...amen We can all try to being super ethical about all of this, and live on that higher ground. As I mentioned before here, conservation best element: being able to buying time! We can discussion and debate this till the cows come home, but at the end of the day will nothing truly be accomplished because after all was said and done, more was said than done! We can debate this to the nth degree trying to split atoms to finding just that right solutions we feel good about. Human feelings aside, how about what about those animals caught in the cross fire that have no answer where they might end up. Isn't there hope that being able to land in a zoo a safe haven alternative to facing the frying pan! The Los Angeles Zoo has become a home to many confiscated reptiles. What ever state they maybe in if taken back to the wild would surely die, so isn't there best bet going to a accredited institution? Checking the records Brookfield Zoo, Pittsburgh Zoo, and Brownsville Zoo at least had previous experience with pangolins years ago.

 

Unfortunately, it does not work like that, just as Giant Panda et al. have pointed out, by buying them from the trade you create extra demand, so these individual pangolins will be saved, but others will die in their place.

I agree with this, though only up to a certain point.

1) Conservation is a field that involves both biological and socio-economical features and can thus be approached as a social-ecological problem and for such problems there is no one-size-fits-all solution (see e.g. research by Elinor Ostrom) as these problems are incredibly complex with a multitude of spatial and temporal scales at work + conflicting opinions among stakeholders. Protecting ecosystems and ecosystem functioning would be the best starting point, but this is not satisfactory per se and tailor-made solutions will have to be taken into account. Whether keeping pangolins in America is one such tailor-made solution, probably not. Captive breeding of the Baji would have been, as that ecosystem was beyond saving at that point, unfortunately that project failed miserably...

Another example could be the large antelopes of the Sahara region, which were hunted to extinction in the wild, though the habitats were still present. They were saved through ex situ breeding and are now used as the flagships in habitat restoration / conservation.

2) The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is well established and biodiversity does overall increase ecosystem functioning, it is however not a one-on-one relationship. For individual functions there are often only a few species that generate the bulk for this function. Which species those are depends on the function you look at and you will need high biodiversity to produce satisfactory levels for multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously. The problem with those diverse systems is that they are a "jack of all trades, master of none". So if you let's say want to save the Amazon rainforest as it is a carbon sink, you need only a subset of all species present to keep that function going, so saying "we need to conserve the Amazon rainforest and all it's biodiversity because it is a carbon sink" is not correct.

For me biodiversity conservation is mostly an ethical thing, humans could survive perfectly in a world where 50% of all biodiversity is extinct, as long as the available space is used wisely and sustainably, the question is more whether we want to live in such a world...

 

@lintworm: I wondered whether anyone would seriously challenge that point. Nice post.

Agreed.

Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not as dogmatic as my ZooChat persona. You may note, for instance, the wiggle room here:

Of course, all things are never equal. Whilst we’ve both identified exceptions to the rule, my underlying motivation is basically this: protecting ecosystems should be the rule. That doesn’t mean we never take a single-species approach; only that it shouldn’t be our default position. Unfortunately, as with this import, it very often is.

I alluded to the sociopolitical factors governing conservation a few posts back, but it absolutely bears repeating/expanding. Thanks for the tip on Elinor Ostrom.

Well, yes and no. Two decades of research has shown a strong link, but most of it studying simple systems and a single function. Linking biodiversity to complex, multi-functional ecosystems is still very much in its infancy.

I basically agree. Again, though, our understanding of which taxa are functionally redundant and the ramifications of a given action on a given ecosystem is usually poor to non-existent.

In theory, I’m an advocate of focusing conservation efforts on functional diversity. In practice, it’s not an approach we usually have the knowledge to rely on.

I’m the opposite. For me, the core purpose of conservation is to protect ecosystem functioning (and, by extension, services). We may be able to live in a world where 50% of biodiversity went extinct, but we can’t safely eliminate 50% of biodiversity without knowing which half we need. It’s therefore imperative to protect as much as we can, especially in the most diverse regions.

I consider biodiversity conservation per se a secondary consideration. Of course, it’s vital for maintaining ecosystem functioning, but beyond that? I don’t know; I struggle. The trouble with the “ethical argument” is that it’s not really an argument. The assumption that species have a right to exist is a predicate, but never really proven. That strikes me as bizarre, since it goes against everything we know about the history of life (I’m committing the is-ought fallacy here, but I think the point still stands). Anyway, from an aesthetic point-of-view, I can certainly see the value of conserving something as wonderful as a pangolin. Given the scale of the current environmental crisis, however, I find aesthetic or even animal welfare arguments trivial, compared to the necessity of maintaining/creating functioning and resilient ecosystems.


It’s late and I rushed this post a bit, but I hope it all made sense. Thanks for the reply.

 

It still makes sense, no worries and I think we agree on a lot of things, but not on all

Though it is still a young science indeed, there is a lot of interesting work being done by multiple groups, there are already enough interesting results for a fruitful discussion, see for starters: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11109 on biodiversity and multifunctionality in European forests, from whom I stole the "jack of all trades" .

I think we can predict relatively well which species we need if we want to conserve ecosystems to deliver particular ecosystem services, even though exact knowledge is not there.

Take for example the East Usambara mountains in Tanzania. Which is a small mountain range with an incredibly high biodiversity with lots of endemics. For Tanzanians it fulfills 4 major services, 1) it is the source of water for the large coastal city of Tanga, 2) the forests on the steep slopes act agains soil erosion, 3) it is an important area for spice production (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper), which are partly grown in an agro-forestry set-up and 4) the forests are used as a source for fire wood by the local people.

For services 1,2 and 4 it does not matter too much whether the trees growing there are of a rare endemic species or if they are Maesopsis eminii, an exotic tree. As long as there is forest there and Maesopsis does not need many additional species to keep it flourishing, as it's seeds are easily spread by sykes's monkeys and hornbills (trumpeter and silvery-cheeked), all species of no particular conservation interest. Such a degraded system may have a lower resilience to adapt to any change, but as we are talking about generalist species.

The 3rd services is a provisioning one, though it increases the overall landscape heterogeneity and landscape biodiversity might increase, for species of conservation interest it is not that interest, as they are mainly confined to the forests (see e.g. the land sparing vs. land sharing debate and research done by the group of Andrew Balmford, Cambridge).

There is however also a 5th important ecosystem service in the Usambara system, which is (eco-)tourism. Though most tourists will be happy enough with seeing the monkeys, hornbills and chameleons that are present in the Maesopsis dominated forests (which also holds palm civets, servaline genets & dwarf galago to keep mammalogists happy), there is however a smaller group, to which we both belong , that is more interested in olive ibises and tailorbirds and other rarities. This particular group is probably the only for which it is really important to conserve a high biodiversity system. But when we add all the services and compare them in monetary terms, they only have a very small contribution.

What may be more important is the pride Tanzanians (both local and national) get from having such biodiversity hotspots, which may lead to efforts to conserve such ecosystems, which is also something that looks good to the outside world, as conserving biodiversity is good for your image nowadays....

Apart from this you could off course still easily argue that an Amazon rainforest yields overall much more ecosystem services, than the cattle farm by which it is replaced, which is true, but do you need that insanely high biodiversity to deliver these services at an "acceptable" level, no probably not...

You can turn the argument around and say "what right do we have to let such high levels of biodiversity go extinct?". This indeed does not make sense in an purely evolutionary sense, as humans have become the best adapted species in different way, especially in transforming landscapes to our own (short-term) benefits.

Humans are however ethical beings, which is part of why we have become so successful. It is generally considered unethical to kill another human being, so why should it be ethical to kill a chimpanzee or an elephant for example, as they are only different by degrees and are fundamentally similar to us, they also know what death is, have emotions and their own ethics. Humans have come as far as they have come, not because they are killing machines without ethics, but because they are very social animals with ethics.

 

I just saw this article, which I think may be of interest. It details how the US captive pangolins are fed and how they were transported from Africa, among other things.

U.S. zoos learn how to keep captive pangolins alive, helping wild ones

 

It's been a about a year sense this import took place. Out of curiosity, do @Giant Panda and others still feel the same about this risky move? I think its working out in the long run. Brookfield and Gladys Porter seem to have been the most successful in breeding, while Columbus has not even made an official announcement that they have them.

Another question, does Memphis have them on exhibit yet?

 

Yes.

 

Yes I still think the way it was done was wrong and there have been no births that are fully captive, which is key for the sustainability of the program.

 

Miller claims that one fully captive birth has occurred at his facility. We of course have no way of knowing one way or another. I expect if fully captive births do occur in zoos, it’ll take a few years to get going.

 

Fact is that hundreds of animal species are wiped out by direct hunting or trapping, before ecosystems are destroyed. Which applies equally well to pangolins in Africa, wisents and wolves in Europe or macaws in Brazil. There is even a name: empty forest syndrome.

Very interesting!

The articles says rather little about the most obvious direct conservation benefit: knowledge will help hundreds of pangolins which are intercepted in a local trade in their home countries.Although showing it was not needed much, because no anti-zoo organization cares at all about pangolins. Evidently pangolins are not good enough for raising publicity for them.

I hope this new pangolin diet will be useful for other insect-eating animals, for example small birds.

 

*Sigh*

I never denied this. Again, it's basic politeness to read/comprehend someone's posts before disagreeing with them.

 

Does anyone here know how many pangolins were originally imported? I was told there have been significant losses but no one was willing to share how many got imported in total.

 

Where are the Brookfield specimens being housed?

 

Habitat Africa! The Forest. They are found in a nocturnal exhibit in the main building.

 

Here is another update article about the pangolin import to the States. 8 of the 45 pangolins were imported to the US pregnant and gave birth; 5 of those pups remain alive. Another 5 females have become pregnant since arriving in the US. However, of the 45 animals originally imported, only 29 remain alive today.

At a recent meeting between the Pangolin Consortium and pangolin conservation organisations, the US zoos committed to not importing any fresh animals from the wild.

The article is included below:
Pangolins on the brink as Africa-China trafficking persists unabated