Species we have lost over the last quarter of a century

Doing a bit of random rooting-around in the galleries, I was pretty surprised to find that not only is there a photograph of the latter taxon in the gallery - mislabelled as the former taxon - but that I had already commented on the photograph some years ago!

As such, here is a photograph of Rufous Fishing-owl at ZSL London Zoo in 1990:



As I know several other Zoochatters photographed this individual, this post also serves as a reminder to those Zoochatters

By the by, elsewhere on the forum recently there was discussion of the various lemur species which were once held by Paris Vincennes - and seen there by @Tim May and @Dassie rat . As such, I would be interested to hear whether or not either of them photographed the Pel's Fishing-owl at Paris Menagerie of which I speak in the quoted post, and which was present from 1966 until 1999!

 

Thought I would do a little update to this thread regarding a few of the most notable species lost in the last year or two belonging to groups already discussed, and which I therefore failed to highlight previously; this will include taxa I mentioned in prior updates, for completion's sake, but to preserve my own sanity there are a few speciose groups which I won't be comprehensively checking right now, such as parrots and pigeons

After finishing this post, I will highlight any species already discussed which have returned to European collections - I am reasonably sure there are a few.

Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio) - last held in c.2015 at Vogelpark de Lorkeershoeve. The only photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery are of captive and wild individuals in North America.

Pallid Scops-owl (Otus brucei) - last held in 2016 at Scottish Owl Centre. There are a small number of images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following photograph of the last individual in Europe.



White-chinned Sapphire (Hylocharis cyanus) - last held in 2016 at Vogelpark Avifauna. There are several photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



Fork-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania furcata) - last held in 2016 at Vogelpark Avifauna. There are several photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



Indian Grey Mongoose (Herpestes edwardsii) - last held in 2016 at Zoo Heidelberg, one of a number of European collections to hold the species since 1990. There are several photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



Spotted Fanaloka (Fossa fossana) - last held in 2015 at RSCC. There are a handful of images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following photograph:



Little Grison (Galictis cuja) - last held in 2016 at Dierenpark de Paay. The only images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery are of captive individuals in South America.

Saharan Striped Weasel (Ictonyx libycus) - last held in 2016 at Plzen. There are numerous photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



White-eared Opposum (Didelphis albiventris) - although ostensibly still held at Olomouc, according to ZTL, given the short lifespan of the species and how seldom said collection is visited, it is likely the species ceased to be kept at the collection sometime in 2015 or 2016. The last individuals at Copenhagen passed away during roughly the same timespan; along with several photographs from the New World there is a single image of this taxon taken at the latter collection:



Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus) - last held in 2015 at Apenheul, one of a handful of collections to hold the taxon since 1990. There are numerous photographs of this species within the Zoochat gallery, including this photograph of one of the final individuals at the aforementioned collection:



Javan Surili (Presbytis comata) - last held in 2015 at Howletts. There are a handful of images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following photograph:



Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium cottoni) - last held in 2015 at Dvur Kralove. There are many images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following photograph of the final individual in Europe months before her death:



Arabian Mountain Gazelle (Gazella cora) - last held in 2015 at Blackpool. There are many images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image of the last individual in Europe:



Red-flanked Duiker (Cephalophus rufilatus) - last held in 2015 at Valencia Bioparc. There are many images of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image of the last individual in Europe:



Long-tailed Ground Roller (Uratelornis chimaera) - last held in 2015 at Walsrode. There are several photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



Wattled Brush-turkey (Aepypodius arfakianus) - last held in 2015 at Walsrode, with many other European collections holding one or both subspecies since 1990. There are several photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image of the last Misool Wattled Brush-turkey at Walsrode, which was also the last member of the species in Europe:



Brown Tinamou (Crypturellus obsoletus) - last held in 2016 at Walsrode. There are a small number of photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image:



Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) - last held in 2016 at Vogelpark Niendorf. There are many photographs of this taxon within the Zoochat gallery, including the following image of the last two individuals in Europe:

 

Indeed; rather a lot of the owl species I mentioned are still held in private collections in Europe - I know of one particularly speciose collection in Italy it goes without saying I would love to visit that one!

No apologies needed from my point of view quite apart from anything else, it is always interesting to hear which species are still knocking around in private hands and hence could potentially return to public collections if the interest and money (many private keepers liking to charge a pretty penny for their stock ) was present!

 

Indeed; I suspect that rather a lot of the species lost recently which either have no photographs in the European gallery, or very few, were once better represented before the Great Purge of the gallery about five or six years ago - for instance the Giant Mouse Lemur which was held at Marwell until 2009.

 

I am aware of this, given the fact I added that entry having been tipped off about the collection subsequent to writing the quoted post

That said, other than Moscow and one or two other major collections I haven't been counting Russian listings in this thread - much as I have been disregarding Middle Eastern listings - and as such this is a borderline case anyhow.

 

it is in Java (in Indonesia), in the middle of Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo.

 

Allegedly, anyway though I have my doubts. In any case, if they do this is a development subsequent to my quoted post.

 

Much like the owl, these are recent developments - although a lot of "Virginia Opossum" in the private trade are actually misidentified White-eared Opossum so it is quite possible the arrival at Vogelbush Eureka belongs to this taxon.

Conversely, this is one I deliberately omitted - as I have already told you, other than Moscow and one or two other major collections I haven't been counting Russian collections as European for the purposes of this thread.

Given the fact Vladivostok is on the border of North Korea, this applies doubly-so for said collection