ZOO Plzeň Plzen zoo news

How many Panay cloudrunners are at the zoo and is the zoo breeding them. It is my understanding that the cloudrunners at this zoo could very well be the last of their kind in the world.
 
I saw 1 (old) individual behind the scenes last month. I believe there are others (1,2).
 
wild boar said:
How many Panay cloudrunners are at the zoo and is the zoo breeding them. It is my understanding that the cloudrunners at this zoo could very well be the last of their kind in the world.
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At the end of 2021 they held 1,2 individuals, but I believe they've subsequently lost one - the male I think. They were not breeding prior to this point, as the females were too old or otherwise infertile.

A deceased animal was found by the side of the road on Panay in February 2020, the first evidence they were still present in the wild for five years.
 
European zoos have failed to set up an exsitu captive population of this endangered specie. Would you say it was due to breeding difficulties of this particular specie or rather a lack of interest/dedication of appropriate facilities by zoological institutions?

Anyone know if the captive breeding program at Mariit Conservation Center had results? (UICN website mention 45 individuals in 2005).
 
According to ZTL, Prague had some Panay cloudrunners from 2013-19 and received some from Los Angeles in 2016. Does Los Angeles Zoo still have the species?
 
Therabu said:
European zoos have failed to set up an exsitu captive population of this endangered specie. Would you say it was due to breeding difficulties of this particular specie or rather a lack of interest/dedication of appropriate facilities by zoological institutions?

Anyone know if the captive breeding program at Mariit Conservation Center had results? (UICN website mention 45 individuals in 2005).
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The collapse of the species in captivity can be put down to hubris, bad luck and a lack of interest; it was breeding very well at both London Zoo and Mariit Conservation Centre, and more sporadically at Plzen, until about ten years ago... at which point I'm informed two things happened.

1) ZSL made the decision to cease all breeding of the species on the grounds that the in-situ breeding programme at Mariit was doing well enough that continued ex-situ breeding was unnecessary and that nowhere else in Europe outside Czechia seemed interested in keeping the species anyway.
2) Around 2017, some form of virulent contagion wiped out the entire captive population at Mariit, at which point the London population was too old for continued breeding and Plzen's stock had ceased breeding due to (at the time) unknown reasons a few years prior. I believe the latter turned out to be due to a combination of some females ageing, and other younger individuals having health issues.

From what I've been told, very thorough searches for new stock proved fruitless and as such the species has not been seen alive in the wild since 2016, with only one heavily rotten dead animal located in February 2020. As such, the fear is that the wild population is extinct or nearly so.

Dassie rat said:
According to ZTL, Prague had some Panay cloudrunners from 2013-19 and received some from Los Angeles in 2016. Does Los Angeles Zoo still have the species?
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Prague received the last of the North American stock - as previously noted, the animals at Plzen are the very last in captivity and possibly the world.
 
Oooft, that is a terrible turn of bad luck. Fingers crossed the wild population remains marginally healthier than anticipated.

The lack of wider interest in the species perplexes me, given the relative popularity of their distant albeit least concern North Luzon cousins these days.
 
Thank you very much TeaLovingDave !
That is indeed a tremendous failure. ZSL seem to bear a big responsability but the whole community of European zoological institutions is also responsible for it. Dedicating one heated cage is not so much...
South Luzon cloud rat seemalso to suffer lack of interest.
 
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
ZSL have a great many conservation projects on their radar at any one time, especially with their EDGE program, and I can completely understand them phasing out a species with apparently little wider interest or hopes for longer term population sustainability, if there was an (at the time) healthy captive population on Panay.

Just deeply unfortunate what happened next, and shows the risks involved with having too many eggs in one basket.
 
Therabu said:
South Luzon cloud rat seemalso to suffer lack of interest.
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As I understand it, the issue with Southern Luzon is not one of lack of interest; despite their close kinship to the fairly easy-to-keep Northern, they seem to have much more specialised needs and survival rates have been low until Ostrava and Plzen recently cracked the issue.
 
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