Silvery Gibbons

Hello ZooChatters,

As has been done with some other species on this site, I was hoping to see if we can piece together the current captive population of silvery or Javan gibbons (Hylobates moloch) outside of Indonesia. The most recent studbook I have is from 2009, and obviously some things have changed in the last 7 years. Here is the information I have (sorry if it's an overload):


Howletts: This population started out with a wild-caught pair who in 2009 had four living offspring and one deceased offspring who reproduced (as of then, the wild-caught female was also still alive). Of their four living offspring, there were two males and two females, all still living at Howletts. Only the younger male had reproduced as of 2009. The deceased offspring, a female, mated with another wild-caught male at Howletts and produced a lone female, who was still living at Howletts then.

One of the female offspring at Winnipeg came in and paired with another wild-caught male: they produced 8 (!!) living offspring. They moved to Belfast in 2006 with their sixth and seventh offspring, and had their eighth while at Belfast. The eldest of their eight offspring had offspring of their own prior to 2009. The oldest, a female, had paired with a male from Perth. They had four living offspring. That pair and their three younger offspring moved to Port Lympne in 2007; their eldest, a male, stayed at Howletts.

The second oldest of the wild-caught/Winnipeg pair, another female, mated with a male at Howletts; this male is the one offspring from the original Howletts pair that mated, as mentioned before. They produced 3 offspring. The oldest of these (a female) moved to Mogo in 2008; the younger two were still at Howletts.

Of offspring 3-5 (who had not mated yet), one (the fourth, and a female) stayed at Howletts after her parents and younger siblings left. An older female (the third) moved to Munich; the fifth, a male, moved to Saint Martin la Plaine, but he went elsewhere as of 2011.

In 2008, five additional founders came to Howletts from Indonesia. In 2015, a male and female arrived from Perth; perhaps these were the two youngest offspring of the Perth pair?

Port Lympne: As mentioned, a pair from Howletts came here in 2007 along with their three youngest offspring.

Munich: A pair of wild-caught individuals (both deceased) produced two living offspring here, two males. One of the males stayed at Munich; the other moved to Port Lympne in 2007.

Belfast: As mentioned, the wild/Winnipeg pair and their three youngest offspring were at Belfast as of 2009. Another male and female pair arrived from Howletts and Munich respectively. A female died in 2015.

Prague: A male from Munich and a female from Howletts

Zlin-Lesna: A female from Munich and a male from Howletts

Chester: a male and female from Howletts

Curraughs: a male from the United States and a female from Howletts

Berlin: a wild-caught pair lived here and had one offspring, a male. This male (Jury) moved to Perth with a female from Winnipeg (Hecla); they have sired at least six offspring. The first went to the Gibbon Conservation Center in California; the second went to Taronga; the third went to Mogo with a female from Howletts; and two were still at Perth. At least one (Owa) but I believe a few more were born between 2009 and 2014.

Perth: A wild-caught pair (both deceased now) had one offspring: that offspring, a male, went to Howletts and then later to Port Lympne. Jury & Hecla came in 1992 as mentioned above.

Mogo: A male from Perth and a female from Howletts (this pair is related, as both are descended from the Winnipeg pair). They had an offspring in 2015.

Taronga: One of the offspring (a female) from Perth lives here; she arrived with a male from the Howletts pair, who died in 2009. I do not know the situation with her or Taronga now.

Gibbon Conservation Center: One of the Winnipeg girls was/is here, along with at least one wild-caught male; the two of them have had at least 2 offspring (M) who were still there as of 2009. There was also a third offspring (F) born to the female but with an unknown sire; there were still there at that time. There is at least one female with unknown ancestry that I believe arrived from Edmonton Valley Zoo but was born elsewhere; I do not know if there are other individuals.

Fort Wayne: Home to a mated pair, Lionel & Dieng, and at least two male offspring, Jaka and ? (as of 2013). Lionel is from the GCC and Dieng is from Belfast.

Greensboro: Home to a mated pair, Bella & Leon (from where?), and offspring, a male (Duke) and one of unknown sex born last year.

Winnipeg: As of 2009 a female (Willow) was still at Winnipeg; I don’t believe she is now, but I don’t know where she moved to.

Finally, does anyone know what happened to the animals that lived at Rushden or Paignton in the '90's?

 

For GCC, Fort Wayne, and Greensboro:
I have 8.2 down for GCC and 2.2 each for the other two. Sorry that I can't be much help with origins or names, though 1.1 were born on site at Greensboro.

Also, great thread!

 

@jayjds2 : Thanks for info and compliment. Those numbers sound right; both Fort Wayne and Greensboro should have an adult pair and two offspring each. If GCC has 8.2, I'm not sure where the extra males came from.

Also, since both zoos still have their offspring, it seems safe to assume that the male at Curraughs came from the GCC.

 

Taronga Zoo doesn't have silvery gibbons anymore (they sent the female to Howletts after the male died and replaced them with white-cheeked gibbons).

 

Thanks for the confirmation, Jabiru.

Some other notes to add:
- the pair in Munich (a male born there and a female born at Howletts) had offspring in 2010, 2012, and 2014. The female from Howletts is named Pam.
- the relatively new pair in Prague had a baby in 2015
- Belfast (according to ZTL) only had 1.1 at beginning of 2015; I assume this would be the original adult pair, and then the female that died later that year was of this pair? If that's the case, the offspring were all moved elsewhere; one is confirmed to now live in Fort Wayne (Dieng)
- The male born at Perth in the 90's who moved to GCC is named Shelby, and the Winnipeg female he's paired with is named Chloe. They had three male offspring: Isaac (moved to Howletts, now deceased), Reg, and Lionel (now living in Fort Wayne)
- The original male from Berlin (Ushko) now lives at the GCC, and is mated to the female offspring (Khusus) from Perth that moved there. Their first offspring was a female named Medina. The female who was at Taronga is named Regina. The male born to the Perth pair in 2000 is named Arjuna.
- The male at Howletts was named Imran, and the female was/is named Arlene. Their son who died at Taronga was named Halimun.
- Chester pair had a baby shortly before going on display.
- The pair at Mogo have apparently produced 3 offspring so far, all of whom still live there.

 

Great idea ! A few additions which might help .

The male at Curraghs is 11 year old Nakula who came from Perth , the female is Slamet who I assume was bred at either Howletts or Port Lympne .

The 3 offspring at Munich are all female , at the end of 2015 2 remained with their parents .

Howletts and Port Lympne house multiple breeding groups between them , unfortunatley I did not note how many when I visited last summer .

 

A pair bred at Jakarta Zoo arrived at Paignton in 1987 , the male died in 1988 and the female in 1990 .

Rushden were animal dealers .

A female arrived at Bristol in 1964 , she was paired with a male Mueller's ( not certain if they were recognised as separate species then ) and produced a number of hybrids . The original female died in 1988 .

 

I saw 3 individuals at Belfast zoo in August, 2 in their on-show exhibit and 1 in an enclosure behind the scenes, somewhat visible from the parking lot. This seems to work with their ZTL listing of 2,1,0 at the end of 2015.

 

I dont pay enough attention to names & individuals, but on a recent visit to Howletts there were 5 or 6 enclosures most with at least one youngster plus I think Port Lympne in August had 2 possibly 3 enclosures, so I would estimate between them they have at least 25-30 (on show).

 

Chester Currently have three having breed before they moved, They had a youngster early in the year though I'm unsure on the sex of the Juvenal so yes Chester now have three

 

Thanks for the information, everyone

- Another offspring of Jury and Hecla is a female named Sunda, who I believe still lives at Perth along with her parents and brother Owa. Any other offspring born there have likely moved elsewhere.
- The male and female pair at Mogo are named Arjuna (male from Perth) and Layar (female from Howletts). They have had 3 offspring: female Cinta, male Patoot, and a youngster of unknown sex and name born in 2015. An article I found stated that in 2016 Cinta was supposed to travel to Java and be released into the wild; I'm unsure if this happened.
- The pair in Prague are: female Alangalang (from Howletts), male Flip (from Munich), and a youngster of unknown sex and name.
- The female born at Greensboro in 2015 is named Lela.
- Balances
Perth: 2.2 (Jury, Hecla, Sunda, and Owa)
Mogo: 3.1 (possibly 3.2?) (Arjuna, Layar, Patoot, maybe Cinta, and a youngster)
Belfast: 2.1
GCC: 8.2 (Ushko, Khusus, Shelby, Chloe, Reg, Medina, others. If Jay is right about the 8.2, one of the females died or moved elsewhere.)
Curraughs: 1.1 (Nakula and Slamet)
Fort Wayne: 2.2 (Lionel, Dieng, Jaka, and ?)
Greensboro: 2.2 (Leon, Bella, Duke, and Lela)
Chester: 1.1.1
Prague: 1.1.1 (Flip, Alangalang, and a youngster)
Zlin-Lesna: 1.1
Munich: ?
Howletts: ?
Port Lympne: ?

 

No Chester had 1.1 arrive the youngster was born at Chester while they were still off-show but on-show in Monsoon Forest!

 

It seems that this species has been breeding extraordinarily well in zoos, and the population has really taken off even since 2009 when the prospects looked pretty good. Most breeding pairs seem to be having offspring every 2 years, and there are now so many that the task of identifying them all seems daunting.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the population in the future. Holdings are already expanding in Europe: Chester, Curraghs, Prague, and Zlin-Lesna have all added them since 2014, meaning that the number of European holding facilities has doubled from 4 to 8 in only two years (and two of those pairs have already produced offspring). I believe this is the beginning of a much larger expansion, that hopefully will also include North America in the near future. That being said, I wonder what impact it will have on other captive gibbon populations; I suspect that if they become well-established they might begin to replace lar gibbons, which are a lower conservation concern right now, and they could even lead to the phase-out of that species.

 

It'd be no bad thing if more collections switched to any other species from Lar, but given the longevity of gibbons that's unlikely to result in a phasing out. Plus Lars are SO common, at least in the UK, that there probably aren't that many places that would want to take on pairs from existing holder zoos.

The dream outcome would be for zoos simply to switch to holding two gibbon species, which does seem to be happening.

 

In America, the most common species are siamang and northern white cheeked gibbons. While many facilities have two species of gibbons, in several cases it is those two species. I'd actually rather lar gibbons be a tad more common- but it doesn't seem that will happen. Silvery, pileated, yellow-cheeked, eastern hoolock, and Bornean gibbons all subsist in the US in low numbers (around three holders each), and I'd really like to see some of them become more common. Sadly, the last is phase-out, as are agile gibbons, which I think may entirely be gone, and not all of them are breeding well.

That being said, silvery gibbons are expanding much more rapidly than I thought. I was delighted to finally see the species at Greensboro last month. It seems the US population will expand soon.

 

Lar gibbons are actually more common than white-cheeked at the moment, if you can believe it! They are more common at smaller zoos so they tend to fly under the radar. Their population is also older demographically, which means you are right that they probably won't become more common anytime soon, and white-cheeked gibs may outgrow them in the near future.

They used to hold out hope that one of the rarer gibbons (hoolock, yellow-cheeked, pileated, or silvery) would yield a viable North American population. So far, only the silvery shows much potential for that. If the silvery gibbon population expands, it will almost certainly grow by shifting space away from lars as they grow old and pass; they won't take space away from white-cheeked or siamangs. (In this context, "they" are the AZA Ape Tag and the facilities involved with it.)

 

I didn't think about the longevity issue, nor did I realize how common lar gibs are in Europe. I just checked ZTL and they are everywhere! I agree that continuing to hold both species is the ideal option and seems like a strong possibility, but in the event of space constraints I think that the more threatened species should be put first: in this case, silvery.

They are a visually striking species, and as they become more common I believe that demand for them will increase. This is partially why I think we are going to see an expansion in the coming years, along with their explosive population growth and the presence of many unrelated founders in Indonesia.