Trust me, I'm not missing the point - I simply don't agree with it:
As I've said numerous times on this thread, I think that it is great to have a few small obscure species in zoos alongside the high profile species. I think this makes for a great point of difference in any zoo. A great case in point are the dusky leaf langurs at Adelaide Zoo or the silvery gibbons at Mogo.
However,
If a zoo simply keeps importing new obscure species constantly then they are either going to die out (if they are bachelor groups), get inbred (if they are the only group in the country), or breed - and then every single zoo in the country is going to have them and then ZooChatters will start viewing them the same way they view meerkats - ie they get sick of them....
The point I am making is that it is not as simple as a lot of people seem to think that it is. I have spoken to the powers that be at various zoos about these things and they are not as simple as many people present them - as you yourself clearly know.
You are entitled to your opinion and others are entitled to theirs. But I do feel you are moving away from the main discourse you started out on with the argument that MZ/WORZ already have "the" species. Perhaps we have taken that as far as it can go.
What you are talking about right here (and in the other reply above it) about species already being on site at MZ /WORZ is all well and good for the megafauna animal collection, but does nothing to shy away from the facts and figures that overall there has been a trend in declining total number of animal species exhibited at both zoos. That lack of diversity (and I am now only considering the mammals here) and the large areas given over to where visitors have nothing much to keep the average punter "occupied" between these is not a zoo grounded for the future.
I really am very much convinced - and can testify by personal experience evidenced from many exchanges with visitors and the general zoo visiting public - that most visitors - and not just the Zoochat "hordes" - do love to see lots of animals and many different animal species, meaning mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates et cetera, when trodding along leisurely through a zoo. In the end, the job of a good zoo is to have a representative animal collection and that surely is not an mammal A-B-C laced variety - for lack of a better description - as some commercial managers, marketing and PR people would like us to believe. It is that sense of wonder that makes us and them tick!
Now the argument of financial clout and that by having a good collection of A-B-C species big zoos are able to make a significant contribution to wildlife conservation and also for the little brown jobs. Any zoo can have some of the A-B-C species, not hold any they cannot maintain on their premises and still manage to have a diverse animal collection with both big, large and tiny or less sexy yet fascinating animal species within their collections and holding the full compliment (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians et cetera) without being heavily uneven towards one fylum over any of the others) and still run good financial figures and make a significant contribution to wildlife conservation or recovery programs in situ for endangered and threatened species (like the ones you mentioned that primarily Healesville is involved with).
The other point you are bringing in really has very much to do with overall animal and genetic management of the Australian zoo populations of various species and also those in conservation breeding programs. Now, it may be that bureaucracy or politics are preventing from any IRA's coming through fast and furious as many on here have complained about the laborious and decades consuming nature almost of any IRA coming full circle to actual imports. But to keep its populations of individual exotic species healthy all Australian and New Zealand zoos will and do need to import animal species they hold in their collections in order to maintain some level of genetic health and diversity in their exotic animal species under management.
Admittedly, this subject really has been discussed at length before when new species were taken on by one or other zoo. Many times in stead of the entire ZAA zoo community coming on board to manage a new to be established population effectively and welcome the changes and interest this will generate, it almost seems an inexplicable lacklustre attitude prevails with some others to not following through with providing adequate space and facilities. The almost inevitable net end result be that populations have been withering away and at long last when the population is too old or long in the tooth they are simply denoted as phase out - which might be interpreted effectively as a failure to do proper animal population management in the first place -.
This pertains not only to what most of us Zoochatters would call the diversity range of species like Malayan tapir, pygmy hippo, leaf monkeys of various species (dusky, silvered ..), mandrill and even snow leopards (even though in my view they are less suited to the Australian arid environment / not so Kiwi New Zealand though). It equally applies to A-B-C species like common hippo, giraffe of purebred origins, various larger hoof stock like f.i. sable antelope and some of the rhino species (just to restrict myself to herbivores for now).
