Zoo Losses of Tragic Proportion

[HOMIN96]

New I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the death of the last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle

Well you know, last female, never bred, I mean from symbolic point of view maybe, but compared to some other things in the thread. It is more of a "well, that is it then" rather than "Oh my god, that is horrible"

 

[CMP]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the death of the last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) at the Suzhou forest zoo. None of the eggs she laid ever developed or hatched. She underwent an artificial insemination procedure and survived but later died the next day. Currently no known females of the species exist, and if none are found they will likely go extinct.

Is the remaining male the only known one left in the world?

 

[splendens]

Is the remaining male the only known one left in the world?

One to two males are thought to exist in Vietnam and the last remaining captive male is still at the same zoo. Though I worded my original statement wrong slightly, the female was the only one known at the time, another turtle was discovered in Vietnam in 2020 and when it died in 2023 it also turned out to be a female.

 

[splendens]

Well you know, last female, never bred, I mean from symbolic point of view maybe, but compared to some other things in the thread. It is more of a "well, that is it then" rather than "Oh my god, that is horrible"

Yeah, now that I think about it this seems like a different scope than the other examples, though the not breeding part could've potentially been prevented as the zoo which kept the female before her move to Suzhou fed her an unsuitable diet which likely caused her infertility.

 

[ThylacineAlive]

The real tragedy is that, should a female be found in Vietnam, there's a close to 0% chance the Vietnamese and Chinese governments are going to work together to pair up animals from what I've heard.

~Thylo