Best enclosure / exhibit design in zoos for species extinct in wild.

Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
So guys, we have covered some amphibians, fish and bird species but how about any mammal species ?
Click to expand...
Here are a few for Scimitar Oryxes.

This photo is from the Cape May County Park & Zoo. If you look closely, there's a small ditch and a fence cutting horizontally through the middle of the paddock. Behind this is where the oryxes are and they are mixed with Ankole-Watusis. It's one thing to mix an extinct in the wild species with another wild animal, but a domestic is even worse. I also don't like how you can't get very close to them. Their yard is behind the zebra/bongo and giraffe/ostrich paddock. In the past, though, they've bred and released a few.
full

Photo credit to @jusko88

Here's the one at the Lehigh Valley Zoo. They, too bred them and there's currently a calf there now.
full

Photo credit to @zoo_enthusiast

Both of these were large, but not the greatest.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
So guys, we have covered some amphibians, fish and bird species but how about any mammal species ?
Click to expand...

Well, Scimitar-horned oryxes and Pere David's deer being huge ungulates, I'm not sure there is anything better than a huge green enclosure, like the ones in Haute Touche or Whipsnade.

Leipzig exhibits the oryxes with Thomson's gazelles, Giraffes, Grévy's zebras, Nile lechwes and Guineafowls. The enclosure is great but what makes it attractive is the mixed species. It's not near as good as some of the bigger safari exhibits in Europe I believe.
 
As far as I know there are at least four mammals that are extinct in the wild and kept in zoos. Barbary lion, south-china tiger, scimitar-horned oryx (though there has been a reintroduction right?) and pere davids deer (also reintroduced, so wether we should consider it EiW is questionable). I've only seen three of these, but nothing special when it comes to exhibits. The best would be a large drive-through enclosure for the deer together with other asian species (don't remember which ones as I was just a child in elementary school). Based on photo's I do find the barbary lion enclosure in Doué-la-fontaine very special. It looks weird but it seems quite functional.
 
Jarne said:
As far as I know there are at least four mammals that are extinct in the wild and kept in zoos. Barbary lion, south-china tiger, scimitar-horned oryx (though there has been a reintroduction right?) and pere davids deer (also reintroduced, so wether we should consider it EiW is questionable). I've only seen three of these, but nothing special when it comes to exhibits. The best would be a large drive-through enclosure for the deer together with other asian species (don't remember which ones as I was just a child in elementary school). Based on photo's I do find the barbary lion enclosure in Doué-la-fontaine very special. It looks weird but it seems quite functional.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is any actual Barbary lion left, so in my opinion, they're out of discussion. There is a place in South-Africa that keeps and breads South China tiger, I think. But I've never seen any pictures of the facility.
 
Rayane said:
I don't think there is any actual Barbary lion left, so in my opinion, they're out of discussion. There is a place in South-Africa that keeps and breads South China tiger, I think. But I've never seen any pictures of the facility.
Click to expand...

I agree about the Barbary lions and have also heard about that place in South Africa (in a radio programe I think) but never seen any pictures either.
 
Rayane said:
I don't think there is any actual Barbary lion left, so in my opinion, they're out of discussion. There is a place in South-Africa that keeps and breads South China tiger, I think. But I've never seen any pictures of the facility.
Click to expand...
The purity of barbary lions is still under discussion. Though when using the new taxonomy of two subspecies it'd also no longer be eligible for this threat.

Weren't those South-China tigers in South-Africa in reality hybrid tigers?

Edit: apparently they are semi-pure, I must be confused with another place that actually kept hybrids for rewilding.
South China tigers lost in the African wilderness - Africa-China Reporting Project
 
Jarne said:
The purity of barbary lions is still under discussion. Though when using the new taxonomy of two subspecies it'd also no longer be eligible for this threat.

Weren't those South-China tigers in South-Africa in reality hybrid tigers?

Edit: apparently they are semi-pure, I must be confused with another place that actually kept hybrids for rewilding.
South China tigers lost in the African wilderness - Africa-China Reporting Project
Click to expand...

Not sure about the barbary lion but from what I've read it seems that it is very doubtful about the genetic integrity in respects as to whether there are any lions with substantial barbary lion genes.

No idea about the tigers though as have barely read up on it.
 
Last edited:
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Not sure about the barbary lion but from what I've read it seems that it is very doubtful about the genetic integrity in respects as to whether there are any lions with substantial barbary lion genes.
Click to expand...
I do remember some study stating the opposite for at least some of them, though I haven't looked in dept into it. Depends also what you'd call substantial when it comes to hybrids and pureness. Is 70% pure substantial? 80? 90? 99? 99,9? Something that's in some other cases like the European bison also quite interesting.
 
Jarne said:
I do remember some study stating the opposite for at least some of them, though I haven't looked in dept into it. Depends also what you'd call substantial when it comes to hybrids and pureness. Is 70% pure substantial? 80? 90? 99? 99,9? Something that's in some other cases like the European bison also quite interesting.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there is a bit of controversy about it for sure but I haven't looked into it at any depth either (have to admit big cats just don't really interest me so much).

I believe there are some academics in the UK who would argue the case that the Barbary lion is still extant genetically.

Definitely the case with a lot of species held out there and on that note I should probably try to get those papers Damian was talking about and have a read of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top