Sun Bears In European Zoos?

Although JoJo and SreyYa have been housed together for ten years now with no success so far.

And there is also Toni and Milli at Chester, who are unrepresented as they too were confiscated by anti-poaching controls in Cambodia. Although I think they have only been housed together for four years so far.
 
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beccasunbear said:
Although JoJo and SreyYa have been housed together for ten years now with no success so far.

And there is also Toni and Milli at Chester, who are unrepresented as they too were confiscated by anti-poaching controls in Cambodia. Although I think they have only been housed together for four years so far..
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Are Sun Bears hard to breed in captivity?A quick (not in depth) Google search doesn't throw up much new stories about Sun Bear cubs. Apologies for going slightly off point of the thread but just interested
 
It depends.

In Europe, the current lack of fertile, eligible and utilised males is making it near on impossible.

There are apparently breeding pairs in only 5 zoos (Chester and Colchester included). But just one of these zoos has had success so far.

There are more fertile males, however, Somnang and Rotana at Edinburgh being two of them. Of the other fertile males, one is housed with his mother and has already produced offspring with her five times (Johannes at Berlin Tierpark) and one is very elderly although he has already produced offspring four times in his younger days (Chica at Cologne). There is also Teddy at Madrid Zoo who in the past produced one cub which did not survive, although both he and Anabell are getting older now (he is 22, unsure of Anabell’s age but she appears much older than him). And there is Indera at Belfast Zoo who is only 7 years old, although Bora again is much older than him (again unsure of Bora’s age but she is much older than him, she is mid to late 20s for sure).

In Asia, I’ve seen a lot of success, in Japan especially (four times at Higashiyama Zoo recently, twice at Ueno Zoo recently just off the top of my head).

In Oceania, there has been relative success too, I would say proportionate to the small number of collections that house them.
 
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Romanèche-Thorins (Touroparc) have now also confirmed that they no longer hold sun bears as I had suspected.
 
Now confirmed that Bassin D’Arcachon do in fact still hold the two sisters from Berlin Tierpark, Dara and Lailani. Looks like I’ve finally been able to confirm every zoo in Europe that holds this species, so now I just need to visit them all!
 
beccasunbear said:
In Oceania, there has been relative success too, I would say proportionate to the small number of collections that house them.
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How are you basing that?

There have been only three cubs (from two litters) reared in New Zealand over two decades - they are only kept at Wellington Zoo but it is still only three cubs in twenty-plus years.

There have been only two cubs in the whole of Australia over the same sort of time-frame.
 
Reared, yes. But there was also another litter in New Zealand, two cubs which did not survive as Chomel ate them. So from the one zoo in New Zealand that holds sun bears, there have been in total five births.

Yes, there have only been two cubs born in Australia, but out of only four zoos that hold sun bears, I don’t think this is too bad going really.

Seven births from five zoos for me is relative success and proportionate to the small number of collections that hold them.

Note that I only say relative success - real success would have been seven (or more) surviving births.

When you compare it to the UK which has four zoos that hold sun bears and not a single birth, it’s pretty enviable in fact. Sheesh, just one cub would do me!
 
beccasunbear said:
Reared, yes. But there was also another litter in New Zealand, two cubs which did not survive as Chomel ate them. So from the one zoo in New Zealand that holds sun bears, there have been in total five births.

Yes, there have only been two cubs born in Australia, but out of only four zoos that hold sun bears, I don’t think this is too bad going really.

Seven births from five zoos for me is relative success and proportionate to the small number of collections that hold them.

Note that I only say relative success - real success would have been seven (or more) surviving births.

When you compare it to the UK which has four zoos that hold sun bears and not a single birth, it’s pretty enviable in fact. Sheesh, just one cub would do me!
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I wouldn't argue that the UK is doing poorly ( Colchester pair have been together nearly 10 years) but you can't count Edinburgh as a potential breeder!!!
 
Oh, I definitely count Edinburgh as a potential breeder! As I said earlier, they have been talking about developing the enclosure for years now to add breeding facilities to allow them to house a female, but yet it never happens as other things are evidently higher up their list of priorities. So it’s all down to their choice not to make it possible to breed there, they have every opportunity to make it happen if they really wanted to.
 
beccasunbear said:
Oh, I definitely count Edinburgh as a potential breeder! As I said earlier, they have been talking about developing the enclosure for years now to add breeding facilities to allow them to house a female, but yet it never happens as other things are evidently higher up their list of priorities. So it’s all down to their choice not to make it possible to breed there, they have every opportunity to make it happen if they really wanted to.
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But you can't judge their breeding achievements when they have 2 males - surely? You could argue about potential to breed about lots of zoos across Europe who have the potential to breed(even those who currently don't hold them at all but could !).
 
The whole point of Edinburgh bringing Somnang and Rotana in from Cambodia was to add their completely unrepresented genes to the breeding programme, however - so they have undoubtedly failed on that front.
 
beccasunbear said:
The whole point of Edinburgh bringing Somnang and Rotana in from Cambodia was to add their completely unrepresented genes to the breeding programme, however - so they have undoubtedly failed on that front.
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Surely the EEP should move on at least one of these 'fertile' males? Sun Bears shouldn't really be discussed at this length on the HWP thread though!
 
You’re right on both counts! I would personally move on both of these males if it were my own choice, but this is probably not the place to discuss it. I hope that with the studbook due to change hands this year there will be massive changes reaching all the way across Europe.
 
beccasunbear said:
Reared, yes. But there was also another litter in New Zealand, two cubs which did not survive as Chomel ate them. So from the one zoo in New Zealand that holds sun bears, there have been in total five births.

Yes, there have only been two cubs born in Australia, but out of only four zoos that hold sun bears, I don’t think this is too bad going really.

Seven births from five zoos for me is relative success and proportionate to the small number of collections that hold them.

Note that I only say relative success - real success would have been seven (or more) surviving births.

When you compare it to the UK which has four zoos that hold sun bears and not a single birth, it’s pretty enviable in fact. Sheesh, just one cub would do me!
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You cannot count dead cubs as a proportion of breeding successes.

Only having three reared cubs at Wellington Zoo over a span of twenty years is an appalling success rate, especially given that they were all from one proven breeding female.

Only having two reared cubs over several zoos (in Australia) is even more appalling.
 
pipaluk said:
Sun Bears shouldn't really be discussed at this length on the HWP thread though!
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I've moved the Sun Bear posts to this thread from the Highland Wildlife Park thread. (This thread is perhaps not the best fit since it also includes Australasia, but it's close enough).
 
beccasunbear said:
The whole point of Edinburgh bringing Somnang and Rotana in from Cambodia was to add their completely unrepresented genes to the breeding programme, however - so they have undoubtedly failed on that front.
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That is about to change......
 
Chlidonias said:
You cannot count dead cubs as a proportion of breeding successes.

Only having three reared cubs at Wellington Zoo over a span of twenty years is an appalling success rate, especially given that they were all from one proven breeding female.

Only having two reared cubs over several zoos (in Australia) is even more appalling.
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I do count this, because for me it at least shows that both bears are fertile, have mated and can produce young, even if the young don’t survive. It is much more than any zoos in the UK have achieved so far.

Considering that Wellington Zoo have been without a breeding pair for almost nine years now, if you are looking back over the last twenty years as a whole, it is actually five births that have occurred in eleven years of active breeding, as for almost half of the last twenty years breeding has not even been a possibility in New Zealand.

I also don’t think that two cubs from four zoos in Australia is appalling, considering that only three of those zoos actually have breeding pairs in the first place. Again, it is much more than any zoos in the UK have achieved so far.
 
This is exactly what I want in part.

In full, I would love to see both males from Edinburgh move on to form viable breeding pairs elsewhere.

Arnhem is an ideal place for one of them to go so this pleases me greatly. Bassin D’Arcachon, Cologne or even Rhenen would for me also be ideal places for the other to go.

I wonder why they want to move the male from Arnhem to Münster in particular. I would actually like to see him move to Edinburgh personally.

Looking forward to seeing the other future moves that this may trigger.
 
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