Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens Sumatran rhino move.

thats right - there is a stuffed javan calf at the museum..

grant - i totally agree that it would be really benificial to secure another population of javan rhinos eleswhere. and your right. the vietnamese population is a perfect start, since without aid it is destined to die out anyway.

my biggest concern is that cat loc is. not a particuarly safe place. not for the rhino or anyone who wants to study them. landmines and i assume UXO
still litter parts of the park. i suspect landmines alone would be one of the major factors that have caused the extinction of the larger mammals like javan rhino and mayan tapir in places like veitnam and cambodia.

so if the plan is to introduce highly valuable captured rhino from java, in a bid to kick-start a second population, then i would be pretty reluctant to risk introducing them into the wilds of cat loc. though always risky, i would agree, as you said grant, that the species probably adapts reasonably well to captivity and a safer option might be to try that, instead removing ALL vietnamese rhino from the wild.

so my suggestion? a captive facility ("rhino sanctuary") is built within cat loc to aclimatise the animals captured within the park. the population is assessed and if need be, after care in captivity is assured, the potential of bringing in an additional animal from java can be explored.

of course this would be no easy task - but in my mind the most ideal and safest bet...

keeping in mind the javan rhino is likely to be a seperate, larger subspecies to the vietnamese animals - but hey, beggars can't be choosers can they?

 

What about keeping Javans in Far North QLD?

Ha Ha

 

Didn't they do that to another animal as well. something else in a zoo was actually something else. I can't remember

 

Patrick- I agree on all counts with your 'best scenario' for the Vietnamese rhinos- bring them into a secure reserve- where instead of being widely dispersed, there is also a better chance of them meeting each other too. It would clarify if a male is still living or not. If not, take the risk and add a male from Java. Better than letting the Vietnam ones simply die out.

I have seen a photocard of the Javan rhino at Adelaide. It is looks a mature animal(female?) and is standing placidly feeding on a handful of hay held by the keeper. You can clearly see that the skin fold on the neck passes right over the body, unlike the on Great Indian. But the mosaic pattern on the skin isn't very clear, maybe because of its hide being thicker in captivity.

I didn't know this was the only known zoo specimen...

 

pretty fascinating really! our humble little adelaide zoo had the only exapmle of the worlds rarest rhino - ever! melbourne zoo had javan tigers back in the day too. and a few years back some records were found that suggested the zoo may have actually bred thylacines. its would seem debatable given the period, but interesting nonetheless...

 

From what i know at the moment, i wouldn't support capturing and keeping the vietnam-rhino's in a sanctuary for a variety of reasons...

 

well expand on those jwer lol

i would support, depending on the circumstances in vietman- war, hard to get access to work - i mean funding for such a project would be supported, but the politics of going in and working in-situ

yea lest move all 15 to sunny northern QLD

 

Was lazy when i typed that reply, still am really but i'll give it a go...

As far as i know:

First, locating rhino's in a thick jungle is barely impossible, noone really knows how many exactly are there, let alone where they are. The population might even be viable with animals in Laos and Cambodja...

They need to be caught, which is going to be very hard without injuring them, and within a short time-span which is going to be needed for this idea to work. Then you would need to tranquilize them well, and afaik there ain't many vet's around with experience on tranquilizing javan rhino's. By that time you'll find yourself in the middle of one of the densest forest in the world with a sleeping animal of possibly over a ton, who is ever going to get it out?

Let's say that all worked, and you have some of the caught animals in a holding area. You have no clue about the animals still at large, perhaps there are animals left because the trapping methods didn't work for them.

Problems with husbandry might be coming up, since noone ever cared for one in the last 100 or so years. Noone has a clue how these animals reproduce, they might be as easy as one-horned rhino's (as far as they can be called "easy", because it took the zoo-community a hell of a lot of time to know how to breed them, another story on it's own...), they could be as hard to breed as Sumatrans.

Okay, say you got that far and the animals are still doing okay, but there's no male or one needs to be imported. You are faced with taking a male out of a population of 40-60 animals. Taking a breeding male, and thus it's genes out of such a population without extensive research on genetics could be very much disastrous to that population. You have the same problems catching it with the added bonus of transporting it...

In my opinion, learning how to keep animals succesfully in captivity has always been a trial and error routine with many death in the first years of taking it into captivity. Losses this population can't afford.

 

And all of that is under the assumption that the governments of those countries allow this to occur, and that both the range state, and intended destination countries are willing to provide CITES permits. There's every change that the governments would say no.

I'd like to see a bunch of non-Australians try to come over and take the last of our northern hairy-nosed wombats so they can attempt to breed them up in captivity elsewhere! Can you imagine how that would be received?

 

If they were moved to a zoo. what country would it be in? Do we go with climate or experience with the keepers working with them? If the second send them to San Diego Wild Animal Park or Dvur Kralorve zoo.

 

I won't rob Patrick of his joys of shouting "climate, climate"

Dvur ain't that good a choice, afaik the only one that was really into international cooperation was the white rhino studbookkeeper who allready left them, and they don't have the resources for this kind of operation. I would say Singapore, San Diego, ZSL, Berlin Zoo/Tierpark or Howlett's/Port Lympne...

 

valid points zoopro and jwer. but not points that i overlooked.

outside of java the only known rhino are in cat tien NP, vietnam. in numbers generally thought to be under 10, could be as little as 2 or 3.
that means extinction is inevitable without additional founders being sought from java or in other areas of southeast asia (and the idea of additional isolated populations existing in northern cambodia or laos are a possibility jwer like you suggested). i think its pretty safe to assume a protect them and they will flourish, policy is still pretty "iffy" when you are talking about such a small possibly aged population. i did suggest (in a bit of a backflip from what i usually argue) that capturing these remaining animals would be their best chance. but don't make the assumtion that i meant in a dodgy, not thought out way! now of course i'm not suggesting that a bunch of foreigners storm in, catch a few animals, declare that they have the lot and then take them to some foreign zoo, so zoopro's correlation with the hairy nosed wombat isn't really fair.

in fact i went out of my way to suggest THEY ARE NOT placed in a zoo and instead remain in a sanctuary within cat tien, IN vietnam. i think thats very important.

the logistics of moving the actual animals, and the even more difficult issue of political agreement to move animals between indonesia and vietnam - thats all stuff thats all stuff thats no doubt vey difficult but surely not impossible. i'm not pretending to be an expert but the idea is theortically possible.

the population size, age and sex ratio certainly needs to be properly established before any of this could even be considered. and you would think any planned capture would only be exectuted if felt necessary. but say the population does have no immediate reproductive hopes (and its highly likely to be the case) human intervention will be the only hope, guarenteed or not, to either save this unique population or at least preserve and consolodate some of its valuable genetics into the only other known group in java.

never said it was easy, lots of "if's" involved, lots of different factors and lots of questions that need to be answered before its even considered.

but lets be honest - evidence is suggesting they have little hope on their own..

do you think we could at least agree that the situation in cat tien (cat loc) is pretty bad and that it would be nice if further funding, reasearch into the statistics of the population was explored? i would be keen to see a more confirmed population assesment for starters..

 

That would be good. But what about the Northern White rhino, Does that deserve some help?

 

there is so little left, i mean 4 o5 in teh wild, and an absolutally useless zoo in europe wont do anything, when they recived a bckup popul.

if my facs aint striaght plz tell me lol

 

That useless zoo has bred them but is worried about inbreeding and Hybridizing.

 

Re Javan rhinos in Vietnam. Irrespective of all our hypothesising about what should be done to 'help' them,does anyone know if there are any actual 'official' plans to try and improve their situation- or are they simply being left alone, either to increase or die out. Since their discovery, there has been no further info. about these animals really- except the usual reports that numbers may be even fewer than previously thought'etc and a few photo portraits

 

Jwer, Why ZSL? They Have only got Whites and Indians? San Diego WAP Has Basically all of them Except Sumatrans.

 

Mostly because i would reckon they are among the richest Zoological society's in the world with a wealth of knowledge and expertise. For some reason or another i would trust them in doing such a thing.

And they are not American, which might help with getting some coöperation around the world

 

Well ZSL have just spent £5 million ($10million) on a New Gorrilla house.

 

jwer, zsl is only recently becoming cash flow positve. a numbe rof financial breakthroughs and windfalls have helped, but they need to get their 'house in order' first. nonetheless, their conservation programs span the globe and are amazing!!!
details if you want them later, but just remember, london wa son the very brink of closure less than 15 years ago