Old but intresting article about the captive breeding of the Sociable weaver : Sociable Weavers | Collias | AFA Watchbird
Old article about the prop. US-first breeding of the Grey-headed social weaver : Gray Headed Social Weavers-a first U.S. breeding? | Schulenburg | AFA Watchbird
Why did softbill care drop off? Last time I saw softbills in a pet shop it was waxwings: in the 70s mynas and Pekin robins were popular: in other countries birds like bulbuls are still the most popular. Insectivores do well enough on a shrimp based diet, as in Japan. No outright need for live foods. It's hard to believe messy droppings turned everyone off overnight, no?
For Europe the ban on wild imports pretty much put a stop on softbills in the pet trade. Comparatively few species were actually established in aviculture, and those in private hands tend to be traded hobbyist to hobbyist rather than being commercially traded. Actually, several European thrushes including Blackbird and Song Thrush among others are sufficiently well established that there are colour mutations available.
On a recent visit to Emerald Animal World, I spotted two Reichenow's weavers in a large aviary. As most zoochatters do, I immediately started looking about to see how many holders they have. According to information on Zoochat from 2018, San Diego has a single individual left in the Scripps Aviary, Does anybody know the status of this animal? They also seemed to have disappeared very suddenly from European Zoos, with zootierliste listing many places having kept them until the late 2010s with the latest being Viernheim who kept them until 2014, Is anybody aware of the cause of this sudden downfall? Other than in Public collections, are there any Reichenow's weavers in the private trade?
EU has baned import of wild-caught birds in 2005. Most species that have not bred regularly in captivity has since dissappeared from Europe
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Cleveland, Ohio, USA had two species of weaver in their African Elephant Crossing aviary from 2011-21- Taveta golden weaver and white-headed buffalo weaver.
According to ZTL, Marwell houses a subspecies of Village Weaver found at no other collection in Europe, the Abyssinian Village Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus abyssinicus). ZTL isn't always accurate, so can anybody confirm that this is or isn't the case?
