Giant Eland Left in North America
- Thread starter MonkeyBat
- Start date
OkapiJohn
Well-Known Member
According to information I got from the Okapi EEP coordinator (who is also the international studbook keeper), the exchange of okapis between Europe and Al Bustan is undergoing. It was hard to initiate cooperation with them, but it can be done.
They might be in conversation, and that’s great; however, I just know that the North American SSP has tried to keep those animals apart of the program previously and all attempts have failed. The selling of those animals to Al Bustan in the first place caused quite the commotion because other facilities knew those animals were going to be lost from the program. In my experience, it is always best to not be too optimistic. When dealing with people, you’re more often than not going to end up disappointed.
OkapiJohn
Well-Known Member
For me, it is more surprising, ethically condemnable and questionable who took the decision to sell okapis to an "outsider" in the first place. Even more when we are talking about the selling of an endangered species (and rare in captivity ~180 animals globally only). It's sad to see big AZA facilities going with the flow of money instead of the higher good of the animals or the breeding programmes. Fortunately, the ethical lines of EAZA strictly forbid any monetary exchange for animals participating in EEPs. They are not breeding animals for money.
Oh, absolutely — and I think you would find most other zoo professionals and AZA facilities would agree with us on that. Al Bustan approached several other facilities for their okapi first, and all of them declined over the ethics of the deal.
White Oak is an interesting case. It is only AZA certified, not AZA accredited, due to not being own to the public, and as such the regulations and restrictions are different (although as discussed elsewhere, in general, the AZA does not have the same sort control over its members that EAZA does). White Oak is also privately owned by a multi-billionaire. It exists because of money. All of the species it houses are houses because they are of special interest to the owners. Money is still at the root of a lot of the decisions that are made.
White Oak has sent animals to both Costa Rica and South Africa in the past.
They sent three bulls to Africa Mia, a safari Park in Costa Rica in 2007. These are no longer alive.
This website also mentions that White Oak had sent animals to South Africa. Does anybody know when White Oak first started keeping Giant Eland? I wonder if these are the animals Pretoria received in the 80s, though I doubt it.
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So is White Oak a similar case to Dallas World Aquarium in that regard? I know DWA has had some interesting acquisitions in particular over the years due to the interests of their extremely well-off owner.
Leucisim is not caused by inbreeding.
Well I mean, it technically *can*, and this this case, most likely is, caused by inbreeding. It's obviously a recessive gene that one of their founding animals carried, and over time it managed to proliferate and finally become visible due to the breeding of related animals who both carry the gene allowing a homozygous animal to be born.
Alternately, it *could* be a spontaneous mutation that suddenly appeared without any of their prior animals carrying for it, which can happen regardless of how inbred an individual is, but this second option seems...unlikely at best, to me.
If this is true, then why are there only two generations of okapi at this park and how did Singapore Zoo come by two Indian rhinos born at this location. Your statements seem quite exaggerated.
Im just going to call this entire situation the “Giant Eland Tragedy”, if such a name hasn’t been coined already.
Were they completely unrelated okapi, though?
It has been established in ZC many times that USDA inspections aren’t the most reliable documents out there when seeking rarities.
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Thanks for the correction.
Was not aware of the unreliability.
Well- all except the ones at African Wildlife Safari Park!
Forgot to remove it from the quote.Well- all except the ones at African Wildlife Safari Park!
It's a matter of learning them, really. Someone who occasionally looks at a few isn't going to know which animals are consistently wrong (giant eland is one of the main ones) or other nuances that you start to pick up on when you frequently look at them.