It's questionable if they do or not, as some of the photos on their website are incorrectly labeled.
Zoos That Have Had All Species of a Type of Animal
- Thread starter MonkeyBat
- Start date
It's questionable if they do or not, as some of the photos on their website are incorrectly labeled.
biggest_dreamer
Well-Known Member
Which ones are inaccurate or in question? I don’t exactly have much familiarity with swans, but on past visits I’ve at least eyeballed what I presumed to be each species based on their own signage before.
Batu Secret Zoo is the only collection in the world with all 7 Big Cats / Panterinae species:
South-east African Lion
Sumatran Tiger
Snow Leopard
Jaguar
Javan Leopard
Indonesian Clouded Leopard
Sumatran Clouded Leopard
South-east African Lion
Sumatran Tiger
Snow Leopard
Jaguar
Javan Leopard
Indonesian Clouded Leopard
Sumatran Clouded Leopard
Indochinese?
Of course
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
In the past, Christopher Marler's zoo in England, the Flamingo Gardens, held every swan, every goose, every flamingo, every crane and every pelican - IF, my memory serves me right...
Marler definitely had the full set of swans, flamingo, crane and pelicans - I'm slightly less confident on the geese, as I can't recall whether he had both species of bean goose (or indeed either species), but he certainly got damn close to the full set if not. He even had Kelp Goose, which I believe is now no longer held by *anyone* outside the native range, privately or not.
I'm fairly sure I've seen a list of the species he held in one of the Avicultural Magazine back issues contained within the Bartlett Society archive material I am now taking care of, so I will see if I can find an answer to this one either way.
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
I am sure Christopher had Bean of some species, as they were commonly kept then and of little value. He wouldn't have risked a clean sweep by not having them! I dont know any detail about the two spp, but he did tell me personally that he had kept all 'species' of goose.
I did see the Kelps for myself several times, in a mixed enclosure at the back right of the walled garden, as you entered it from the wallabies.
For the record, he also loved mutations and kept all sorts from ring-necked parakeets which were new in those days, dozens of 'blonde' waterfowl before they became fashionable, including some ugly blonde Red-breasted Geese - even a blonde (albino?) Cassowary... and of course the first albino Bennett's Wallabies which he managed to get presented to the Queen during a state visit to Australia; deposited them at Whipsnade and the subsequent young being sent to FG, where he made a great deal of money as the sole supplier of stock all over the World. The rest as they say, is history.
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Did he really have the full set of cranes - I was under the impression that the last whooping crane in a European collection died at Lilford in the 1930s?
He did indeed; a single young individual which, after it died, he added to the museum within his private collection (as he did with many/most species he kept):
I believe a number of Zoochatters saw it whilst it lived, too
USZOOfan42
Well-Known Member
Belle Isle aquarium has all of the gar species.
When was that, and how Earth was that ever imported?He did indeed; a single young individual which, after it died, he added to the museum within his private collection (as he did with many/most species he kept):
I believe a number of Zoochatters saw it whilst it lived, too
ZooNews2024
Well-Known Member
The bird collection ran down as he aged, but do you know what happened to his taxidermy?
I dont remember any of his direct family having any particular interest in animals, live or stuffed!
A list of the spp he kept should be collated, as much of this information will be lost as the generations pass - if we are not very careful.
The albino Bennett's wallabies (a pair plus a youngster in the female's pouch) were part of an enormous collection of Australian animals, assembled by Sir Edward Hallstrom, that was presented to the ZSL in 1963, to mark Queen Elizabeth's visit to Australia.
He did indeed; a single young individual which, after it died, he added to the museum within his private collection (as he did with many/most species he kept):
I believe a number of Zoochatters saw it whilst it lived, too
I'd be interested in when and how as well. In the photo comments @Maguari says that Marler said it was sold as a Grey Heron - although I'm not clear on whether that is a reference to it as a live bird or as a taxidermy mount.
I wish I could remember what I meant as well.
Though if @TeaLovingDave is correct it came from his collection, it would have to be the former I suppose.
Yes, but it does seem unlikely that a dealer who had a live Whooping Crane (in presumably the 1970s) would think they had a Grey Heron, whereas a taxidermy bird in a glass case could have been owned and sold by anyone who didn't know one bird from another.
Timespan-wise, Marler's private collection started in the early 1960s and opened to the public in 1968 - so it could have been as early as then.
As for the circumstances, rooting through my messenger history, I've found the following comment from the former zoochatter @zoogiraffe regarding his discussions with Marler at the 2013 Bartlett meeting after I asked about the photo uploaded by @bongorob :
"Christopher said he bought it as a sickly bird that only lived a couple of months and he had the bird stuffed and mounted in the display as seen in the picture"
Seems highly unlikely.
The last non-migratory population in Louisiana was decimated by a hurricane in 1940 and the wild survivors had died out within a decade without breeding. The last of that population was a female taken into captivity in 1940 which produced only a handful of surviving chicks with a male from the migratory population, and she died in 1965.
Of the migratory population (the one which survives today), the total wild population
in 1960 was only 33 birds, rising to 56 in 1970 and 76 in 1980. Egg collecting was done between 1967-1996 to obtain chicks for captive breeding at a facility in Maryland. The number of individual captive birds was 6 in 1960, through to 18 in 1970 and 24 in 1980.
So if Marler had a living bird in the 1960s or 70s it would have to have come from the Maryland facility with the co-operation of the US government which means it would have been on record, and they would have hardly been sparing any of the few birds they had anyway. Or have been a bird illegally collected as an egg or chick from the breeding grounds. Or it's not a Whooping Crane.
Looking at the photo of the taxidermy specimen again I don't think it's a Whooping Crane. Juvenile Whooping Cranes tend to already show the facial markings they have as adults (see this photo, for example), and have grayer bills, not that brown. Although I suppose those both could be artifacts of the time and/or taxidermy methods.