ZSL London Zoo ZSL London Zoo News 2012

I dunno when you have been reading lately ... but no tiger subspecies has been saved from extinction to date. Despite decades of good conservation effort most ssp. are still way on the brink. So, to not devote space to tigers ,,, which incidentally people come flock to see ... you creating your own bubble.

 

Kifaru Bwana - you have fallen into the trap of confusing extinction of a species in the wild with the extinction of a species. I agree that tigers are in danger of extinction in the wild, but there are so many captive tigers in widespread zoos and other institutions that the chances of tigers becoming extinct are practically non-existent.

I went to the presentation about London Zoo's new tiger exhibit: £3 million for a new enclosure and only £300,000 to try and create anti-poaching procedures and wildlife corridors in Sumatra. These figures are the wrong way round. If you want to save tigers in Sumatra, you've got to spend money in Sumatra. It's as simple as that. By the time the new tiger habitat is built, I suspect that a far greater area of tiger habitat will have been destroyed. Zoo Chatters should note that there is little chance of captive Sumatran tigers being introduced into the wild, even if there is any suitable habitat available.

Tiger exhibits are built because people want to see tigers in zoos. Shirukoma and Kifaru Bwana are right about that. They are not built to conserve tigers. Zoos are being dishonest by pretending this. About 80 captive tigers are needed to conserve the tiger in captivity. Only 2 subspecies have fewer than 80 individuals. Current ISIS figures for tigers are as follows:
485 tigers not allocated to subspecies
464 Amur tigers (plus 100,001?? in Seoul)
60 North Indochinese tigers
62 Malayan tigers
256 Sumatran tigers
377 Bengal tigers

I don't think there are 100,001 tigers in Seoul, but the figure of 1,704 tigers listed in ISIS doesn't include privately owned tigers, circus tigers and tigers in establishments not listed in ISIS. Zoos don't need to keep on breeding tigers and should be honest about their reason for devoting so much space and money to tigers. Nobody would claims that meerkats are kept for conservation reasons. I think zoos should be honest enough to admit that the same is true for tigers. They are kept to make money for zoos. There are thousands of charismatic, endangered species that zoos could save from extinction, but most zoos are no more bothered about them than they were bothered about thylacines, Carolina parakeets, pink-headed ducks or crescent nail-tailed wallabies. These species were allowed to become extinct and zoos will let many other species become extinct because they are more bothered about pretending to preach conservation, when they are really more interested in money.

 

Hear, hear!

 

Prehaps the reason for focusing on the Sumatran Tiger might have something to do with the fact that ZSL hold the studbook for this species...

But they themselves have had very little success (last cub was born and handreared in 1996 following the death of two previous and one later litter from the same pair) The current pair, Lumpar and Raika are compatiable in terms that they get on. But in the 12 years since they were put together not one single cub has been born (2010 Stubook records no stillbirths or failed litters for them either) It's been suggested before that the lack of seperate area's to split them up could be a factor in this. Naturally the Tiger would be a solitary individual and a pair living together 24/7 wouldn't be a common sight except for Mother and cub/s.

Many, Many years ago now there was a similar problem was Cheetah. Nobody could get captive Cheetah to breed. Changing females didn't work, Changing males didn't do the trick either. How did they eventually get Cheetah breeding to the success they have become today?? They split them up and only put them together when she came into season! Hey presto!

I think the new enclosure is mainly a case of ZSL trying to reverse it's fortunes with this species (Bit like Gorilla's and Gorilla Kingdom but lets not go there today..!). Fingers crossed that when the residents eventually move in they will do just that...

Tiger Territory is a rubbish name though

 

I think Nisha is probably right about the stud book, but why persevere with Sumatran tigers when there are enough Sumatran tigers in captivity? As is the case with lowland gorillas, Howletts and Port Lympne are far more successful with keeping and breeding tigers than is ZSL and ZSL should stop trying to compete with them. There are several alternative species that ZSL could keep and breed and which would need far less money and space than Tiger Territory (or Gorilla Kingdom for that matter). The fact that the Highland Wildlife Park could create a new Pallas's cat enclosure for £85 says a lot about what can be done on limited resources.

As regards cheetahs, this is another species that is overabundant in zoos. ISIS lists the following
No specific subspecies 273
A.j. hecki 2
A.j. jubatus 1618
A.j. raineyi 1
A.j. soemmeringii 128

Total 2022

This is incredibaly unbalanced. A.j. jubatus is greatly over-represented. A.j. sommeringii is about 50% up on what is needed to save it, while the other two subspecies are in a very parlous state, especially A.j. raineyi.

 

I would ask some chatters here to listen very carefully to dassierat - very few people on this site know more about London Zoo than he does.

He's dead right about the money that has been earmarked for an expensive new tiger exhibit at London. I don't pretend to know why tigers have failed so badly on the lion terraces; I would point out that most other cats that have been kept there have done very well.

I certainly don't buy the line that you need separate enclosures for male and female to breed your tigers. Howletts bred them like rabbits in essentially glorified giant tennis courts that had lock-ups, swimming pools and log platforms for the animals to climb up so that they could look over the surrounding area. Males and females were kept together all the time.

Personally, I'd build a new flamingo pool on Barclay Court, move the pelicans to Whipsnade and expand the existing tiger facility onto Three Island Pond; the existing flamingo house was built adjoining the current tiger dens. I can't see that this would end up costing £3million, nor would it involve tearing up a large chunk of the Main Garden.

 

Interesting development with the Sea lions. Does anyone know how long they'll be there for? I would love to see them there! (London is closer to me than Whipsnade too..)

I presumed that the reason that no sea lions are included in ZSL London anymore was because they are not endangered/under threat and that they are only at Whipsnade because they are the most suitable species for the Aquatic Mammal House. Maybe London could get round this by getting one of the more endangered pinnipeds, such as the Australian Sea lion or one of the more threatened Fur Seals? Would be nice to see one of the lesser known species.

 

Well I suspect that would be one comment ZSL would make on this matter. However, they display quite a few species that are "not endangered" so that falls a bit flat. I any case there is nothing wrong with displaying none endangered animals in zoos provide they are there for a reason such as education and so forth. There is also the case that keeping and breeding some animals of "common species" can assist in understanding the breeding of their endanger relations.

The sea lions are only at London until there new filter system has been installed. Which could mean a matter of weeks.

 

The only note of caution I would sound is - how many of those jubatus are of breeding age and in breeding situations? The effective (i.e. reproductively viable) population may be much less than the total number of individuals.

The rest of your point is good, though of course 'being saved' in captivity does requires zoos to keep breeding them - if everyone stops because they're 'saved' the situation will reverse itself pretty quickly!

 

The current tiger enclosure does not meet current zoo husbandry standards. Therefore it is London zoos responsibility to amend this even if cats have thrived or breed or been fine in the past in this enclosure. London zoo's is right to focus on current inhabitants in enclosures that are not up to modern husbandry practices when it comes to new developments hence penguin coasts replacing a substandard exhibit that was not fox proof. The current enclosure is small and does not allow the possibility of separating the pair when required, hence the Lion facilities being used in the passed when separating has been required in the past. Also there is the issue that the enclosure provides poor viewing to the public.

 

I think problem of the sorry London Zoo is treating the zoo as an appendix to ZSL.

Plus outdated thinking that zoos are about breeding endangered species for release, not for raising public interest in wildlife.

I talked before about lack of charismatic species and zoo's ignorance on how modern successful zoo looks in 2000s. "New" gorilla, Clore and bird house are build in a style of 1980s zoos. And zoo education is a unsuccesful mix of dumbly sensational with dusty academic. Which looks very strange in an international city.

I think you wouldn't make profit 10 times the investment per year even on a tiger circus, no matter zoo.

 

Unfortunately its rarely the enclosure's fault though, far more often the pairing of the animals or their management within said enclosure, that determines whether there is breeding or not. Gorilla Kingdom being a shining example, but as you said, we won't go there today.

Regarding the Tigers, I think a simpler large and spacious enclosure could be built for a lot less than what is being quoted, but then buildings at ZSL always seems to be of the most expensive type- 'monuments to architecture' and I couldn't ever see them building a Howletts-style tiger enclosure, however functional!

 

The trouble at London / ZSL IS the listed building status.
If it were not new exhibits would be far cheaper to build and run.

 

I wrote "I went to the presentation about London Zoo's new tiger exhibit: £3 million for a new enclosure and only £300,000 to try and create anti-poaching procedures and wildlife corridors in Sumatra. These figures are the wrong way round." I'm sorry for any confusion about the last sentence. I should have written, "I thought the figures were the wrong way round." To be honest, I still do. If London Zoo wants to continue keeping Sumatran tigers, it could always combine the current tiger enclosure with the enclosure currently occupied by Francois langurs (after moving the langurs elsewhere). The current estimate for Tiger Territory is £4 and I expect that to rise in the next year. Combining two enclosures would be much cheaper.

Several years ago, I heard an argument between Clinton Keeling and Doug Richardson, who was the Head Keeper of Cats. Clinton believed that the old Lion House was better than the Big Cat Terraces, giving better visibility and allowing the public to compare and contrast different cat species. Doug responded that the space in the Terraces was much better for the cats. While I can't support the, hopefully temporary, enclosure for Barbary lions in Plzen Zoo's small mammal house, which I saw last year, I wonder whether the idea of fewer animals in larger enclosures is done more for the benefit of the visitors, rather than the animals. I went to a talk about Tanzania and the speaker said that lions were really boring, spending a lot of time doing nothing. This can cause a problem with putting large cats in very large enclosures and expecting them to roam over large distances, when they don't need to hunt and can wait until they get fed with dead flesh. I know there are problems with keeping animals in cramped enclosures and I've seen several animals in bad conditions that amount to cruelty, but zoos need to be very careful about providing a reason for an animal to move around a new enclosure, a few times larger than its old enclosure. Also, if there are problems with seeing an animal in a small enclosure, it may be even harder to see it in a larger enclosure.

I agree with the Aspinall principle that zoo animals don't have to be on show to please the public and have the right to enter an indoor enclosure. When I visited Taronga, the Nocturnal House was closed and I didn't see some of its unusual species, but I didn't kick up a fuss as there was probably a good reason to close the house at that time. While it may be a shame for people not seeing the tigers at London Zoo, it's not a good reason for spending millions of pounds in a time when many people are facing financial hardship.

 

Dassie rat, I would not give a toss either (we agree on the Aspinall stances). First and foremost, exhibits need to be build to please its inhabitants and be conducive to their habitat/behavioral/social requirements. Visibility to the public itself is not one of them.

Having said that, the reality in most zoos is that without visibility large segments of visitors will not come through the gates at all. ZSL/London Zoo is not the richest of zoos in terms of financial clout, so they have to live by the day ...

As for status in the wild: I do agree that we could do a lot more from zoos' perspectives in terms of in situ conservation investment, whether that is realistic on the balance sheet I dare to ... disagree in the economics of it all. Far more important, I guess is the fundraising potential .. (I not hold WWF in high regard in terms of in situ conservation action ..).

 

Yeah, I have no objection to any pinnipeds of any species! Shame, I really want to go see them at London but I still have exams etc. I think it is something they are lacking at London, but aquatic species are quite expensive to maintain I would've thought, with pools and filter systems etc to maintain. I doubt that they would get any californians for London just because they already have some at Whipsnade, or do they have many "duplicates"? I'm not overly familiar with the species lists for both/either.

 

That would be a far more practical and inexpensive option. The enclosures there which now house Monkeys seem(IMO) very out of place near the Big Cats( I'm aware they are 'refugees' from when the Sobell Pavilions were largely knocked down and now serve as an example of the lack of any real collection planning). I think it would be better if these Monkeys were dispersed to other collections- if the Francois Langurs are still valued enough to keep, then they could build them a decent enclosure and use that whole space for the Tigers. Also renovate the existing Tiger enclosure perhaps so the two areas(old and new) match, and design the whole thing so it can be split into two enclosures when necessary, if that's what is deemed lacking in the current one.

Also I doubt whether Tigers will behave/show themselves any differently in a £ 3-4 million larger enclosure than they do in the existing one, so again I think this is very much a 'publicity' exercise similar to the previous building of Gorilla Kingdom.

 

I think publicity exercises are important. It will probably be accompanied by new banners along the route from Camden Town which haven't been changed since Gorilla Kingdom was launched and a campaign in the London media, posters on the tube and so on.

It will raise the profile of the zoo and remind people that it is an always developing site with new exhibits to attract people back on a regular basis.

I once heard someone outside the zoo complain that it was a rip off and nothing had changed since he was a kid. He was probably in his 40s so clearly there have been massive changes but it's important to remind people of the fact and making a big splash is vital in this day and age.

 

I am sure you have it exactly right regarding the publicity and the posters that will accompany it, same as Gorilla Kingdom, and before that I remember 'The Bears are Back' was another one. But I'm sure that is mainly what this expenditure is aimed at -'raising the profile'.

 

Shirokuma, with respect £3 million is a great deal of money. With someone like Doug Richardson in charge this would probably get a large chunk of the undeveloped 100 acres at Whipsnade brought into use.

There is a maxim in accountancy, "substance over form". Big, overblown exhibits on a crowded site such as London's caused it no end of trouble in the 1960s and 1970s, because ideas changed and the money wasn't there to change the buildings. Those of us like dassierat who remember the awful days of the closure crisis in 1991/2 know that we were PROMISED a different, lower key way forward at Regent's Park than the likes of Gorilla Kingdom and Tiger Territory.