It's interesting and I would also love to find out more about that particular specimen. Zorro mentions that it was a young animal and I found references in the book I found online of young rhino being kept and tamed by Javanese and essentially wandering around villages and being hand fed. I imagine that it is not that different a situation from what often happens with indigenous tribes in the Amazon here in Brazil where a mother tapir is killed by hunters and the calf found and brought back to a village where it becomes a sort of pet.
I saved this image from online at least 5 years ago. If I remember correctly, it should be the Adelaide individual. The horn looks about right: Here's a better photo of it: Here's a view of it in Google Streetview in the South Australian Museum: Google Maps Given that now we are doing a great job at housing GOHR's in captivity and getting more successful with breeding them (both naturally and via AI) how long do you think it will be before we see Javans in captivity again? I'm guessing sometime within the next 30-50 years if their numbers keep rebounding.
Thanks for sharing this photo! Very interesting piece of history ! Regarding Javan rhino I would hope that they never have to come into captivity in zoos as they are much better conserved in-situ. That said I think there would be a much sounder rationale for having the Javan in captivity IMO than the Sumatran rhino which doesn't fare well in zoos or the ubiquitous white rhino or even the black or Indian rhinoceros which are not as close to the edge as the Javan. The Conservation in-situ of the Javan really needs to involve translocation of individuals to other protected areas because yes their population is growing but it is centered in one location. At present all it could take is a single stochastic event and they will be gone so I think it would be very prudent indeed to begin those translocations ASAP.
One thing I am curious about is whether the husbandry of the Javan would be hypothetically possible in zoos given the similarities to the Indian rhino ? Or does the feeding ecology of the Javan differ hugely from the Indian ? Would there be other issues in captivity that would be detrimental to them thriving as with the Sumatran ? Just a thought experiment
I'd say once the population hits 150 put a few in captive breeding situations like what happened to Indians over a century ago.
Could well be an option but I imagine it would be a little difficult to get a decent programme going.
From my understanding from what I have read over the years the Javan was more of an animal of the lowland regions while the Sumatran were more common in the hills and mountain regions. I believe the keeping of the Sumatran species was a bit of a mixed bag depending on which zoos were housing them, I recall the female at the Copenhagen zoo lived quite a long time. Also one male housed at London in the late 1800s lived from what I can recall 17 years.
Yes I think you are right about those differences. I know that the Sumatran represented a lot of challenges for zoos because of it's reproductive ecology too. But I tend to think that the Javan wouldn't be half as difficult to breed in captivity. I might reach out to the rhino resource site to find out what they think as I'm quite curious to know more.
In fact ZTL states that this rhino was transferred to Hamburg ('abgabe'). But maybe that's wrong given the presence of animal dealer Hagenbeck as a supplier of exotic animals.
There was also the female (Begum) that lived at London Zoo for twenty-eight years, dying in 1900 at the age of thirty-three.
It makes one wonder where some of the modern zoos went wrong keeping them when some had lived quite a long life in some zoos such a long time ago!
It is stated on Wikipedia (not the best source I know) that the Javan rhino never fared well in captivity. But what is referred to with "captivity" is zoos a century or more ago. Zoos have changed drastically since that time in terms of knowledge and practice of husbandry so I think it is quite an irrelevant statement really.
London Zoo had two long-lived Sumatran rhinoceroses "Begum" and "Jackson" both of which were of the hairy-eared sub-species lasiotis. "Begum" (female) was the type specimen of lasiotis and was at London Zoo from 15th February 1872 until 31st August 1900. "Jackson" (male) was at London Zoo from 27th April 1886 until 22nd November 1910. Incidentally, this animal is on show in the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
Thank you for posting these interesting Javan rhinoceros photos. I've never seen either the first or the third image previously. About forty years ago I purchased an old postcard (circa 1900?) depicting the second of your three images. (The one you describe " as a better photo of it") Frustratingly the postcard provided no information about the photograph and I've never been able to ascertain where the photo was taken. Rookmaaker reproduces this photo in his book on captive rhinos. He states it is from an unknown zoo, probably in India. It would be nice if this is the Adelaide specimen. What evidence do you have for this? Thanks for your help.
Both photos look very much like an Indian zoo in the setting and barrier (and the person in the back), and very unlike Adelaide Zoo.
I agree that both photographs look more like an Indian zoo than Adelaide Zoo. However, since "Sarus Crane" stated the rhino was the Adelaide specimen, I wondered if, maybe, they were taken in Asia before the rhino was shipped to Australia; hence my question about what evidence there was that it was the Adelaide animal.
The bottom photo I had seen before, I recall that was the pic where it stated was taken in a tea garden in Java!
It would be interesting to make a list of Javan rhinos kept in zoos. I think most individuals were already mentioned. I guess a similar list already exists for Sumatran rhinos. About Javan rhinos in zoos, all indication is they are very similar biologically to Indian and would breed well in zoos. Unlike the Sumatran rhino, which is a separate offshoot of the rhino family tree. A proposal to capture some Javan Rhinos to zoos existed for years in the 1980s/1990s, then was replaced by a project to translocate some to a national park in Sumatra, then nothing was realized.
