Tasmanian Devil Ambassador Program in Europe

Antoine

Antoine

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
I didn't find a thread on tassie devils in Europe but maybe I am wrong. My appologies if so !

Currently, european zoos holding tassie-devils are :
- Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark,
- Pairi Daizi in Belgium (2.1),
- Plankendael in Belgium (2.1),
- Duisburg Zoo in Germany,
- Beauval Zoo in France (2.0),
- Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic (off-show until march) (1.3).

I had a look at the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program internet page on the Tasmanian Government internet site and saw that three new zoos will receive tasmanian devils for Ambassador Program :
- Paris Menagarie du Jardin de Plantes in France (the exhibit is already done but I forgot to speak about before :D) ,
- Budapest Zoo in Hungary,
- Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland.

Tasmanian Devil Ambassador Program | Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmania
 
Antoine said:
I didn't find a thread on tassie devils in Europe but maybe I am wrong. My appologies if so !

Currently, european zoos holding tassie-devils are :
- Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark,
- Pairi Daizi in Belgium (2.1),
- Plankendael in Belgium (2.1),
- Duisburg Zoo in Germany,
- Beauval Zoo in France (2.0),
- Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic (off-show until march) (1.3).

I had a look at the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program internet page on the Tasmanian Government internet site and saw that three new zoos will receive tasmanian devils for Ambassador Program :
- Paris Menagarie du Jardin de Plantes in France (the exhibit is already done but I forgot to speak about before :D) ,
- Budapest Zoo in Hungary,
- Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland.

Tasmanian Devil Ambassador Program | Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmania
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Seems to becoming rather substantial outreach population!

Any chance(s) more zoos in Europe would be given go ahead to breed Tassie devils?
 
On the internet page you can read :
"These ambassador devils are provided for display purposes, rather than breeding, and play an important conservation role in raising awareness of the plight of the species on the world stage."
They don't write the devils can't breed so... this could be a possibility.
 
Antoine said:
On the internet page you can read :
"These ambassador devils are provided for display purposes, rather than breeding, and play an important conservation role in raising awareness of the plight of the species on the world stage."
They don't write the devils can't breed so... this could be a possibility.
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At the moment Koebenhavn Zoo is the only breeding facility. But technically, it might well be feasible to expand this to other zoos in Europe (certainly with more zoos committed on board now ..., which might change the dynamics vis a vis the Australian regional ZAA program).
 
The arrival of the tasmanian devils in Paris has been delayed because of Covid-19.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
At the moment Koebenhavn Zoo is the only breeding facility. But technically, it might well be feasible to expand this to other zoos in Europe (certainly with more zoos committed on board now ..., which might change the dynamics vis a vis the Australian regional ZAA program).
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I hope not!
The ambassador program uses animals surplus to the conservation breeding program so if Europeans start breeding this will clog up the Australian breeding institutions with unwanted animals.
 
MRJ said:
I hope not!
The ambassador program uses animals surplus to the conservation breeding program so if Europeans start breeding this will clog up the Australian breeding institutions with unwanted animals.
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We know that but if european zoos start to breed it will be with Australian government's agreement.
 
MRJ said:
so if Europeans start breeding this will clog up the Australian breeding institutions with unwanted animals.
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Which says a lot about Australia's attitude towards overseas breeding programs...
 
MRJ said:
I hope not!
The ambassador program uses animals surplus to the conservation breeding program so if Europeans start breeding this will clog up the Australian breeding institutions with unwanted animals.
Click to expand...

I believe the European population is being run somewhat differently to the North American ambassador programme, otherwise Copenhagen would not have been permitted to a) breed their animals in the first place or b) send them to other European collections and thus "clogging up" spaces which could have been filled with further Australian stock.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
I believe the European population is being run somewhat differently to the North American ambassador programme, otherwise Copenhagen would not have been permitted to a) breed their animals in the first place or b) send them to other European collections and thus "clogging up" spaces which could have been filled with further Australian stock.
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I am not sure of this. I thought the Copenhagen animals were a gift in relation with the Princess of Denmark who is coming from... Australia.
The gift was before the creation of the Devils Ambassador Program and there was a discussion about the inclusion of Copenhagen in the program, as the zoo want to continue to breed its devils. Finally, Copenhagen was include in the program with the authorization to continue to breed. I don't remember who told me the story but someone here could confirm (or not).

We can think that, maybe, in the future, Copenhagen will stop breeding and receive non breeding animals, like the other zoos.
 
Antoine said:
I am not sure of this. I thought the Copenhagen animals were a gift in relation with the Princess of Denmark who is coming from... Australia.
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They were, but my point is that even if they had been given special permission to breed them, they would not have been allowed to disperse their stock to further collections if taking up spaces which could have been filled by surplus Australian stock was a concern, given the fact that the dispersal of Danish stock started *after* surplus non-breeding stock started being sent to the USA.

Moreover, Copenhagen has received fresh stock to boost their genepool in recent years, and as the first batch of Danish stock at other collections has aged and died off at collections such as Duisburg and Pairi Daiza, they have been sent further Danish stock - therefore maintaining the "clogged-up spaces" which they are suggested to comprise by MRJ :P
 
HOMIN96 said:
Which says a lot about Australia's attitude towards overseas breeding programs...
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This is just a silly statement. I don't know the specifics of the European issue (re Copenhagen's breeding) - and no-one else here seems to either - but the entire point of sending older surplus devils out of Australia is to free up space in Australia's virus-free breeding programme for saving the species from extinction. Having overseas zoos filling available spaces with home-bred devils detracts from the conservation effort in Australia because then there would be nowhere for the older devils to be placed and they would then be using valuable spaces which should be being used by breeders.
 
@TeaLovingDave I think the Copenhagen breeding is not a problem for the Program as there will be more european holders than in the US. The arrival (from Australia) in Prague and the future arrival in Paris go in this way. Will see for Budapest and Edinburgh what happen.

HOMIN96 said:
Which says a lot about Australia's attitude towards overseas breeding programs...
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What's the problem. Australia want to controle what is done with this species. I think it's a good thing.
US do the same with sea otters and no one can argue with that.
 
Chlidonias said:
the entire point of sending older surplus devils out of Australia is to free up space in Australia's virus-free breeding programme for saving the species from extinction. Having overseas zoos filling available spaces with home-bred devils detracts from the conservation effort in Australia because then there would be nowhere for the older devils to be placed and they would then be using valuable spaces which should be being used by breeders.
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Is there a good reason for not running it as an international program with breeders in Australia and abroad alike?
 
FunkyGibbon said:
Is there a good reason for not running it as an international program with breeders in Australia and abroad alike?
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Zoofan15 said:
Like @Chlidonias mentioned, the overseas zoos provide a service to the Australian breeding programme by taking in devils retired from the breeding programme. If these zoos overseas bred their own, they wouldn’t need (or want) to import from Australia and Australia’s breeding programmes would stagnate.
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Without wishing to be rude (I appreciate this seems to be accepted wisdom amongst the Australian forum users) this doesn't make sense. The number of zoos outside Australia holding devils is continually increasing; there is obviously demand to be a holder that is as yet unfilled. So even if we stick within this paradigm there would sufficient capacity to keep exporting old animals.

But why operate within this paradigm? There are probably two orders of magnitude more zoos outside Australia than inside. Why only allow one percent of the world's zoos to breed devils because you are worried that there won't be sufficient capacity for elderly animals if you extend 'breeding rights' to the other ninety nine percent? Mathematically it makes no sense at all, unless devils are only fertile for the first year of their lives but then live to be a hundred.

I appreciate there may well be other reasons, but this argument literally doesn't add up.

Zoofan15 said:
That said, the main goal of the captive breeding programme in Australia is to build an insurance population, isolated from the wild population in case they are wiped out by the highly contagious facial tumour disease. What could be more isolated than a breeding colony in another country?
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Quite.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
Is there a good reason for not running it as an international program with breeders in Australia and abroad alike?
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The two main ones (I'm not saying these are good or bad reasons, or that I agree or disagree with them) are that there simply doesn't need to be an overseas programme for them because it is viable to do so within Australia; and that the only point in having an overseas programme would be for importing animals back to Australia, which is difficult (marsupials can currently be imported but they have to remain in a quarantine situation for two years after importation, which is a large percentage of a devil's breeding lifespan - and it is entirely possible in the future that importation of marsupials could be stopped entirely).

Establishing an overseas part to the breeding programme was actually amongst possibilities at the outset of the devil programme, but it would only happen if spaces could not be reached within Australian facilities - which apparently they can be, so long as the older devils are continually being removed. The lifespan of a devil goes roughly like so: mature at two years, breed once a year for the next two or three years, and then that's generally it for breeding but in captivity they can continue living for another two or three years; it's a very high turnover of individuals so you can imagine how the programme could grind to a halt if there wasn't anywhere for the older animals to go (although granted there are still very few holders outside Australia, so this may still not be the greatest point).

Having an overseas breeding programme would certainly make for a much larger overall population, and one presumably isolated from the devil virus, but that isn't what the approach is because they (presumably) have deemed that it is unnecessary.
 
Some information for our Northern hemisphere friends.

- Devils, as is typical for dasyurids, must be bred in their first year, and only reliably breed for three years. In captivity most live 6 to 8 years.
- There are around 300 animals (150 pairs) in the breeding program at any one time, spread between 5 breeding institutions. In addition there are between 150 and 200 non-breeding animals in other Australian zoos and up to 250 animals in semi wild and managed populations in Tasmania. So that is over 700 animals in the program in Australia.
- Analysis of breeding results in captive populations when the program was established showed that best breeding results were obtained when large numbers of animals were kept.
- If you think it is difficult getting animals out of Australia you should try to get them in. I can't imagine devils from Europe ever being imported into Australia.

The only way European zoos can assist the program is to take post-reproductive animals and use them to educate people about the plight of the devils. Frankly breeding them is simply an ego-trip for the management of the zoo concerned. Running an international breeding program would be a waste of time and money for everybody concerned.
 
@MRJ, what is the long term goal or vision for the ZAA/ARAZPA (old) devil program?
Is there in back to in situ / reintroduction component at all (viz your reference to 250 animals in Tasmania and Tassie having few zoos ...?
 
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