felis silvestris
Well-Known Member
Couldn’t find a similar thread. I know of London zoo, but does anyone know of any more zoos that held them?
Zoos that have once held Javan rhinos
- Thread starter felis silvestris
- Start date
I believe the last Javan rhino in held in a zoo was the Adelaide zoo in the early 1900s and died in 1907.
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Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I think they may have been held at Berlin and Paris and presumably Amsterdam and other Dutch zoos too.
London Zoo had one Javan rhino that was at the zoo from 7th March 1874 until 23rd January 1885.
Indeed the Adelaide Zoo specimen was the last to be held in a zoo.
It was in Adelaide from 12th April 1886 until it died on 4th February 1907.
It is interesting that it was exhibited at the zoo as an Indian rhino; it wasn't identified as a Javan rhino until long after its death when its remains were examined in the Adelaide Museum.
In his book "The Rhinoceros in Captivity" (1998) Rookmaaker does not list any Javan rhinos in Amsterdam, Berlin or Paris.
Regarding European cities, other than London, he mentions that one was sent to Vienna in 1799 but died during transit. He also mentions that the animal dealer Carl Hagenbeck had a specimen circa 1877 - 1879
I recall seeing a pic some time ago of a young Javan rhino living in a tea garden in Java in the 1930s or 40s?
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Thanks for sharing @Tim May that's really interesting !
Also it's quite odd when you think about it too and especially the absence of Javan rhino in Dutch zoos.
Considering that Indonesia was then under Dutch colonial control you would expect for there to have been many opportunities to capture this species and to transport one back to Holland.
I wonder why this never happened as it would have been far easier from a bureaucratic perspective than an animal being sent to London (though in terms of shipping obviously considerably more challenging than Australia).
Moreover it's not like there wouldn't have been an incentive to have one on display in the Netherlands as this was a time when European Colonial powers did display exotic animals from countries under their rule within zoos.
I imagine that there would have probably also have been maybe some kind of reputational rivalry between Zoos of the major capitals of the continent in terms of which zoo had a more complete collection of wildlife on display.
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Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Where did you see that photo out of curiosity ?
On the subject of tea the Javan rhino was apparently considered to be a pest species for important crops like tea which led to it's persecution.
You would think given this status as a plantation pest that this could have lead to capture attempts and money to have been made by selling these onto animal dealers or directly to zoos.
ZTL lists Vienna (1846 from Hamburg), Amsterdam (1867-73) and London (7/3/1874-23/1/85). Javan rhinoceros - Wikipedia says that captives were also kept in Adelaide (where the last captive died in 1907) and Calcutta. It suggests that 22 were kept in captivity, possibly more as the species was often confused with the Indian rhinoceros.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Haliaeetus
Well-Known Member
But probably no known individual in Paris/France even if Indochina was under French rule for several decades.
felis silvestris
Well-Known Member
I think i knew of that one, looking back
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Perhaps not Paris but maybe in Hanoi ?
Were Javan rhino ever found in population densities higher in IndoChina than in Indonesia ?
I suspect they were never as common in Indochina and were hunted as big game by colonials and their bones and hides sent to natural history museums in France.
Seems unlikely that Javan rhino mistaken as Indian rhino would be sent to French Zoos as the provenance in Indochina would have been known.
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It's interesting that, in the book by Rookmaaker, he lists the Amsterdam animal that "Dassie Rat" mentions. However Rookmaaker lists it as an Indian rhino. He comments that Nieuwendijk suggested it was possibly a Javan rhino but Rookmaaker is not convinced and adds "additional evidence is needed"
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Interesting it seems like this was a common confusion.
The only way to find out would be through the bones if they are still around in some archive.
It was a long time ago though and these sorts of things do tend to go missing.
From what I can recall in a book or magazine!
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I tried a Google search but couldn't find anything but unsurprising really as there must be lots of photos from old books or magazines which never get digitised.
Frustratingly, according to Rookmaaker, Amsterdam Zoo's controversial Indian / Javan rhinoceros was not preserved.
I do agree, though, with a comment you made in an earlier post: one would have expected that, for political reasons, Amsterdam Zoo would have acquired a Javan rhinoceros.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I'll do a bit of research on it as I find this sort of history interesting.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
This is what I gather from a quick scan read of an online book:
The Javan rhino was seen as an agricultural pest by both Javanese who often killed it for raiding of rice crops and the Dutch colonizers who thought it a pest of economically important plantations of quinine and tea and teak.
Javan rhinoceros were kept relatively frequently in captivity in Java in the 18th century by native peoples but this began to decline in the 19th century.
Nevertheless there are still reports of villagers keeping tame rhino in the 19th century and into the early twentieth century (were some of the zoo rhino sourced this way ?) which could explain the photo that Zorro mentioned.
The Dutch seemed to prefer to shoot rhino rather than keep them in captivity (the spirit of the age was collecting specimens for natural history museums rather than zoos) by all accounts were very good at it which accelerated the decline of the species.
There doesn't really appear to have been much interest in the 19th century in acquiring specimens for Dutch Zoos though there is interest by natural history museums to acquire dead specimens.
Legal protection was granted by the colonial government first in 1909 but this was not enough and trophy hunting by Europeans and hunting by Javanese to sell the horns and bones to Chinese merchants continued to decimate the population until stricter laws were brought into effect in 1931.
Presumably the legal protection ordinance of 1931 didn't just prohibit hunting but also capture to supply zoos with live specimens (but it's unclear to me what the policy on this was before that date).
The Javan rhino was seen as an agricultural pest by both Javanese who often killed it for raiding of rice crops and the Dutch colonizers who thought it a pest of economically important plantations of quinine and tea and teak.
Javan rhinoceros were kept relatively frequently in captivity in Java in the 18th century by native peoples but this began to decline in the 19th century.
Nevertheless there are still reports of villagers keeping tame rhino in the 19th century and into the early twentieth century (were some of the zoo rhino sourced this way ?) which could explain the photo that Zorro mentioned.
The Dutch seemed to prefer to shoot rhino rather than keep them in captivity (the spirit of the age was collecting specimens for natural history museums rather than zoos) by all accounts were very good at it which accelerated the decline of the species.
There doesn't really appear to have been much interest in the 19th century in acquiring specimens for Dutch Zoos though there is interest by natural history museums to acquire dead specimens.
Legal protection was granted by the colonial government first in 1909 but this was not enough and trophy hunting by Europeans and hunting by Javanese to sell the horns and bones to Chinese merchants continued to decimate the population until stricter laws were brought into effect in 1931.
Presumably the legal protection ordinance of 1931 didn't just prohibit hunting but also capture to supply zoos with live specimens (but it's unclear to me what the policy on this was before that date).
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So do I
London Zoo's Javan rhinoceros had been kept in a tea garden before being shipped to London. It would be interesting to learn more about the specimen Zorro mentions as this was decades after the last zoo specimen died.