Ting Ting (from Oakland Zoo) passed away on October 24th due to a major decline in health.
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North American Sun Bear Population
- Thread starter Valentinoamor
- Start date
Corangurilla
Well-Known Member
Corangurilla
Well-Known Member
Virginia Zoo no longer holds Sun Bears. 15-year old Palu passed away after his gallbladder cancer spread…
Ironically ZooTampa changed their sloth bear exhibit (which bred them at least once) into a sun bear exhibit. Only time will tell what it becomes in the future when Kacey passes.
Corangurilla
Well-Known Member
Back to Sloth Bears, I'm guessing.
Sad news. He was one of the two youngest bears in the population.Virginia Zoo no longer holds Sun Bears. 15-year old Palu passed away after his gallbladder cancer spread…
What was the point of this move; it would've been much better if he moved into a breeding situation somewhere. Big waste on his genetics.
I understand the only possible females are all elderly, but there's no harm in trying imo. Much better than letting him sit out his life at Honolulu with another male (who's equally valuable).
Scruffy is a female, and also quite elderly herself in her 30's. She was moved out because Cleveland is currently rebuilding their bear habitats. I spoke to zoo staff recently and they were unsure if there are plans to bring her back to CMZ once the habitat is done.
Thanks for the correction. This thread listed her as a male, so that's where the confusion began!
At least she'll be paired with Honolulu's resident male, Blackie, although I doubt successful breeding due to their ages, at least it's a pairing nonetheless.
Blackie actually used to live at Cleveland, fun fact. He left in I think 2007
Placing the bears in breeding situations would've been completely contrary to the idea of phasing the species out, which the AZA Bear TAG is in the process of doing. There is not enough room in the AZA to manage all eight bear species, so asiatic black and sun bears are both being phased out to make more room for sloth and andean bears. A necessary step, really, as these other two programs are struggling tp get enough holders to maintain a sustainable population, and can hopefully gain a few holders as sun and asiatic black bears pass away.
There’s no doubt about it. 30 years is geriatric for this species.
The zoo have publicly stated they won’t be a breeding pair:
https://www.khon2.com/hawaii-travel/honolulu-zoo-welcomes-new-female-sun-bear/
They lived together in 2008, prior to Blackie’s transfer to Honolulu in November of that year. Hopefully they can be successfully reintroduced to each other.
I was today days old when I realized that Scruffy was a female!
Haha.It'll be updated when I post the list in December/January!
While it is a shame that it won't be long until all of the sun bears are gone, I'm glad that I was able to see them several times! Andean bears and sloth bears are both equally as awesome, so I won't mind seeing an increase of them!
It is indeed a great shame. They such a charismatic species and I’ll be similarly sad to see them disappear from Australasia’s zoos (we’re also phasing out this species).
I saw there was a discussion on North American facilities that have bred sun bears and thought you’d be interested to know Miami Metro Zoo (now Zoo Miami) successfully bred twins 02/08/1988. The female cub (Chomel) was exported to Wellington Zoo (along with a male born 1989 at San Diego Zoo) and became Australasia’s most successful breeding female - producing six litters of cubs.
Corangurilla
Well-Known Member
Jeez, who isn’t phasing out sun bears these days? I thought Australasia wasn’t phasing them out because they looked like the most available bear species (geographically anyways).
Maybe some day, in the far flung future, sun bears will be phased back in because they’ll be the hot new thing on the endangered list, but that’s no guarantee.
Haha, It almost sounds like you hope the species becomes threatened just so we have an excuse to phase them back into zoos.
