Collecting trips.

[Babirusa]

Just a general thread for thoughts, opinions, ideas on zoo collecting trips. I know that they don't occur anymore but often wonder what fantastic species zoos around the world may have if they did, I also think that they would have much higher sucess rates now with advances in technology, faster travel and availability of a variety of food around the world.

If they were to still occur or even start happening again which species would you like to see and would there be clashing politics with collecting, importing and exporting of the animals?

 

[Stefka]

Wait, you mean like expeditions to the jungle, collecting wild animals and bringing them to zoos?

I think we´re past that, aren´t we? The only acceptable case would be, if there´s an animal in danger of extinction in a particular area and there´s a need for captive breeding program. (Which would most probably be done at the location (?), not by transporting them across the continents, at least at the beginning of the program.)

In any other cases, this wouldn´t be acceptable by various law, CITES etc., and I believe that the majority of public wouldn´t agree with such practices.

Anyway, this is just my opinion, I believe that other ZooChatters are more familiar with these laws and will explain it much better.

 

[Jurek7]

Wild animals still enter zoos, but they are bought from wildlife farms, orphaned and injured animals etc.

Some of the last what might be collecting trips were Zdenek Veselnovsky trips to Africa, where animals were bartered for Czech machinery and formed the original stock of Dvur Kralove zoo. Czech Northern White Rhinos descend from that trips. They are described in two quite interesting books - maybe Czech members know more.

 

[chizlit]

Wait, you mean like expeditions to the jungle, collecting wild animals and bringing them to zoos?

I think we´re past that, aren´t we? The only acceptable case would be, if there´s an animal in danger of extinction in a particular area and there´s a need for captive breeding program. (Which would most probably be done at the location (?), not by transporting them across the continents, at least at the beginning of the program.)

In any other cases, this wouldn´t be acceptable by various law, CITES etc., and I believe that the majority of public wouldn´t agree with such practices.

Anyway, this is just my opinion, I believe that other ZooChatters are more familiar with these laws and will explain it much better.

I agree with your points, but may I throw this one in, what if the animals were orphaned in the wild and would not survive as they were, I think it would then be acceptable to do something to help, a case in point are the puma's at Philadelphia Zoo (although I realise they have not been moved to another continent, but their mother was shot and the 3 cubs were taken to Phily Zoo).

 

[Stefka]

Certainly, injured and orphaned animals can go to zoos from sanctuaries or rescue stations. It can hardly be called "collecting", but it´s another valid point and acceptable exception.
And it can also serve very well to improve zoo´s reputation, people love to hear rescue stories. (I´m no exception, I would love if Dublin Zoo had a native species collection, consisting of rescued foxes, badgers etc. But they do have Fire-Bellied Toads which were ceased on Dublin Airport as an illegal pet-trade - another great example and great way of educating public about this issue.)

 

[Pacarana]

Many zoos also buy from importers. Most animals would be wild caught if they came from an importer.

 

[Stefka]

Many zoos also buy from importers. Most animals would be wild caught if they came from an importer.

Do you have any examples? (Which zoos and what species?) This would be mostly for reptiles and amphibians, am I right?

 

[Stefka]

Additional question for experienced ZooChatters - is there a SIMPLE way to explain CITES regulations?

 

[DDcorvus]

Do you have any examples? (Which zoos and what species?) This would be mostly for reptiles and amphibians, am I right?

And fish and still quite some small mammals. B.e. There were some tenrec imports lately. In contrast to that the Paca's entering European Zoos currently are mostly farmbred.

 

[Hix]

Do you have any examples? (Which zoos and what species?) This would be mostly for reptiles and amphibians, am I right?

And birds.

is there a SIMPLE way to explain CITES regulations?

Simply - CITES is a list of animals and plants in which trade in those species is believed to threaten the wild populations, and so international trade in those species - and their parts or products - is restricted. This means that to move CITES listed species across international borders of CITES countries you first need a CITES Export Permit from one country and CITES Import Permit from the other.

A little less simply - species with a CITES listing are placed on one of three appendices, depending on the level of threat to the wild population/rarity etc. Extremely rare or endangered species are placed on Appendix I and there is almost no trade, except usually of captive born animals between zoos. Appendix III animals may be traded, but are recorded and monitored. Subspecies and geographically or politically distinct populations are sometimes included, often on a different appendix to the main population.

And sometimes species that are not threatened at all are listed because they look similar to a threatened species (and unscrupulous traders might try shipping a endangered species and passing it off as the commoner variety).

That is a very simplified explanation Stefka - is that what you were after?



Hix

 

[Stefka]

I kinda understand the theory, but...

How does this work in reality?
I don´t even know, what to ask, because this thread is slowly destroying my naive view on origin of animals in zoos

But I´ll try.


Question 1:
Talking only about *-AZA accredited zoos now - would it be a common practice to buy wild caught animals from private importers? Simply just "to have them", not because there´s a need for a captive breeding program?

Question 2:
Theoretical question: Let´s say you are a zoo owner (or private collector), that wants to do things right. An importer offers you an animal, let´s say an amphibian. You don´t know whether it´s legal or not, you don´t know how credible he is - what do you do? Who do you contact, how do they verify, whether it is captive bred or wild caught? And you also have to check the laws in the country of origin, some of them don´t allow trade of wild caught animals outside the country at all, am I right?

(Sorry if the questions are confusing, I´m just curious how it works. I know that buying wild caught animals was a common practice in the past, but I really thought it´s over now, at least in accredited zoos.)

 

[Stefka]

Hold on, Wikipedia has just answered the first question for me:

At the beginning of the twentieth century, zoos acquired many animals that were caught in the wild. Today however zoos acquire animals much more frequently through their ex-situ breeding programs, trade or exchange (or loans and gifts) among zoos (often following the advice of the appropriate Species Co-ordinators). Zoos make sure that institutions receiving their animals have appropriate facilities to hold them and skilled staff that are capable of maintaining the same high standard of husbandry and welfare as they themselves. However it is recognized that, from time to time, there is a legitimate need for conservation breeding programs, education programs or basic biological studies, to obtain animals from the wild. The collection, trade, and transport of wild animals is strictly regulated today by national and international legislation (in particular CITES, IATA and OIE) and is controlled by government agencies. In particular the CITES provisions make sure that such acquisitions will not have a deleterious effect upon the wild population. Various surveys have shown however that the acquisition of wild caught animals (in particular mammals, birds and reptiles) by zoos has decreased significantly in the last years and that zoos increasingly manage to maintain their collections without introduction of animals caught in the wild. Indeed many species are bred in zoos using sophisticated, and expensive, scientific procedures.

The situation is somewhat different for aquaria, where – although an increasing number of fish and invertebrates can be bred in human care – still newly acquired animals are predominantly wild-caught. One of the reasons is that reproduction in aquaria just has not been possible yet or is – still – too expensive.

In fact the World Zoo Conservation Strategy published in 1993 states "that the commercial wild animal trade as a source of zoo animals should cease as soon as possible. Such animals as must be collected from the wild must be collected for specific educational and conservation purposes. They should not be chosen from dealers’ lists of animals randomly collected for commercial purposes." These goals, while more pertinent in 1993, are still valid and show up again in the World Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Strategy published in 2005. This of course means that zoos today disapprove of selling their “surplus” animals to animal dealers, auctions and game farms, unaccredited zoos and individuals without the necessary knowledge and expertise, respectively without the keeping-license required by national legislation.

 

[DDcorvus]

I kinda understand the theory, but...

How does this work in reality?
I don´t even know, what to ask, because this thread is slowly destroying my naive view on origin of animals in zoos

But I´ll try.


Question 1:
Talking only about *-AZA accredited zoos now - would it be a common practice to buy wild caught animals from private importers? Simply just "to have them", not because there´s a need for a captive breeding program?

Most fish are still wild-caught and a lot of the ones you see in zoos are not endangered. The same for a lot of amphibians, reptiles and birds. To give a concrete example the klipspringer population in Europe is hanging on a threat and to maintain this species in European Zoos more animals are needed. The only way to get them is getting wild-caught ones. And this species is not endangered at all. Zoos have been looking into importing them, for several reasons this did not happen yet, but zoos without question would import specimens of this species without any problems while there is no need for an ex-situ breeding programme. And if done properly there is also no problem with this.

Question 2:
Theoretical question: Let´s say you are a zoo owner (or private collector), that wants to do things right. An importer offers you an animal, let´s say an amphibian. You don´t know whether it´s legal or not, you don´t know how credible he is - what do you do? Who do you contact, how do they verify, whether it is captive bred or wild caught? And you also have to check the laws in the country of origin, some of them don´t allow trade of wild caught animals outside the country at all, am I right?

(Sorry if the questions are confusing, I´m just curious how it works. I know that buying wild caught animals was a common practice in the past, but I really thought it´s over now, at least in accredited zoos.)

Getting wild-caught animals is legal if right legislation including CITES is taken into account. So obtaining wild-caught animals does not have to conflict with doing this right. Secondly as a serous zoo owner (or private breeder (sorry i hate the name collector)) you should be aware of the proper legislation of the species you want to acquire. Secondly for most (read all) it is known if the animals are being kept and bred in captivity or not. So if you do your homework you can easily predict if an animal has been wild-caught, farmbred or captive bred. Secondly when dealing with a knowledgable counterpart most dealers and importers are quite open about the source of their animals.

To give you an example of my own specialty parrots: if someone offers me purple-crowned lorikeets (which is a quite common lovely lorikeet species from Australia), they are almost certainly captive-bred as there is a descent captive population in Australia, but they would almost certainly also being smuggled outside the country as Australia doesn't allow native species to be exported. Giving an export licence for Australian species would be such a major event I would know this within a couple of hours of it happening. If not I would ask for an export licence and check it myself.

If someone would offer me Pyrrhura albipectus they would be almost certainly also be wild-caught and illigal as no one has bred this species in captivity yet. Would someone offer me Pyrrhura griseipectus or Swift parrots both critically endangered species I would buy them without question as both species are bred in captivity in sufficient amounts to make smuggling very unlikelyl.

I hope this gives a bit of a picture.

 

[Parrotsandrew]

A big part of me likes to think of the days of collecting trips as the great days, and the late Clinton Keeling used to say that wild-caught animals were more interesting than those bred in confinement as they truly represented their natural haunts, having once lived there. When I kept African and Asian finches they were nearly all wild-caught and I never thought anything about it, but when I purchased two wild-caught Timneh Grey Parrots (being a disciple of Mr Keeling I had been determined to buy wild-caught specimens) and saw just how afraid of humans they were I started to have doubts at least in the case of Parrots where so many species breed so well in confinement. The late Sean Drayton of Flamingo Park/Land also once told me of having to force feed many of the Penguins from one of the Scotia collecting trips (chiefly for Penguins and Elephant Seals) of the early 1970s. But then without wild-caught animals in the past there would be no zoos or aviculture today. What is striking is the change in public attitudes to the "bring 'em back alive" days. Speaking of the Small Mammal House, my Paignton Zoo guide of 1959 says "the exhibits in this house will be greatly augmented upon the return of our Guiana Expedition in June", and the early safari park guides had photographs of animals being caught in Africa and an article on the process. Zoological collections were proud of their collecting exploits in those days, whereas now they like to emphasise how so many animals have been bred in confinement. Of course many of Gerald Durrell's popular books were about his collecting expeditions and the other week Bubbles sent me a newspaper article from 1965 on wild-caught Elephant Seals bound for Flamingo Park. Newspapers would say something very different these days. This has become a bit of a ramble - just thinking about changing times!

 

[Stefka]

Wow, this is turning out to be a very interesting thread!

Thank you, Hix, DDcorvus and Parrotsandrew, for very informative answers!

I think it´s easy to understand, why things has changed. People are now more aware about animal welfare and also know more about animal behaviour, empathize with them. Therefore, it´s important to deal with each case individually.

From the public point of view, I believe there are many factors which determine, whether it´s acceptable in each situation.

I´ll try to summarize some points here, feel free to correct me or add more.

1) Need of a breeding program for endangered species (that´s a no-brainer)

2) Rescued and orphaned animals (no-brainer as well)

3) Species is not endangered at the moment, but there are no specimens in captivity. Therefore, number of specimens is collected from the wild, and if captive breeding proves to be successful, there will be no need to catch any wild ones again. This could be done for various research or educational purposes, and also serve as a kind of "fail-safe" - what´s not endangered today, can be threatened tomorrow - we´ve seen it happen many times.

4) Taking an animal living solitary would be viewed as more "ok" than removing an animal from its social group.

5) Animals, that are commonly hunted in the area would also be perceived as "acceptable to remove." ("they could be killed anyway") Also non-native invasive species can be taken into captivity without a problem.

6) There are ways of removing an animal from its natural habitat without causing any harm to the individual, its social group and the population. E.g. removing one chick from a nest of a bird, which lays more eggs than he can take care of and at least one chick from the nest always dies anyway.

7) Zoos prefer captive bred animals over wild-caught ones, unless there is no other way.

Would you agree with these points?

Gosh, I love ZooChat!

 

[Shorts]

Would you agree with these points?

The only points I'd add are:

1. Different organisations can have significantly different sourcing policies with some (usually larger/highly regarded establishments) holding themselves to what they consider higher moral/ethical values when doing so. This includes, but is not restricted to, putting significant more emphasis on considering the ultimate provenance of animals received (i.e. where did it come from before it arrived at that European zoo);

2. The waters are often a little muddied regarding the sourcing of animals. One person's "rescued/orphaned/rescue centre" animal might be regarded as wild caught by another person. I have heard some who believe/imply that some of the animals claimed to be rescued are actually wild caught (and accordingly will not source from them). This is very far from endemic and I believe it is generally considerably more of an issue with non-mammals than mammals.

 

[Javan Rhino]

One I've always wondered is game reserves in places like Africa. Is it acceptable for zoos to import species from game reserves as technically these are 'captive animals' - though I believe the term is 'semi-wild' as it's more putting a fence around an entire area of an ecosystem, as opposed to around one or two different compatible species?

 

[khakibob]

One I've always wondered is game reserves in places like Africa. Is it acceptable for zoos to import species from game reserves as technically these are 'captive animals' - though I believe the term is 'semi-wild' as it's more putting a fence around an entire area of an ecosystem, as opposed to around one or two different compatible species?

Good question. Is it acceptable to acquire animals from game reserves

Game reserves come in many forms,private,public,open,enclosed,etc.
If it is a privately owned reserve the owners will have at least some tenure over the animals.They may even be considered livestock.

On a privately owned reserve with a good management plan surplus would no doubt be avaliable for zoos,hunters,meat & other consumers.

Game reserves do work,there is conservation outcomes & colateral benefits for all the wildlife,not just the flagship species.
The success or failure of these conservation industries comes down to good monitoring & management.Policies surrounding animals are usually driven by public opinion,not conservation.The discussions are always muddied by animal liberation groups,to the detriment of wildlife.
Look no further than the success of Oryx in Texas & the recent farce in the devaluing of this species which will see the herd reduced by 90% in the next decade,farmers will now need to seek other incomes.Will they be as sustainable? Conservation v animal liberation?

Supplying animals to zoo's should be a legitimate function/priority of game reserves.
Acceptable?? How good are the policy makers?

Cheers Khakibob

 

[gentle lemur]

For CITES see Welcome to CITES

I think most of the freshwater fishes imported into the UK are farm bred, often in Singapore but in their native countries too. For many species wild-caught specimens command premium prices (and should make a significant contribution to the local in their native habitats, provided that the trade is sustainable). Some marine species are farm bred too, particularly clown fishes, some cardinals, grammas and seahorses.

The best examples of new species imported into the UK from the wild in recent years have been rescued species under severe pressure in their natural habitats. For example the spoon-billed sandpipers now at Slimbridge were hatched from eggs collected in the wild (the WWT has had a policy of only importing eggs or hatchlings for many years now). Likewise the projects for reintroduction of red kites, sea eagles and cranes to the UK have used imported eggs or nestlings from healthy populations in Europe. If the in situ work with the Madagascar pochard continues to go well, but no suitable habitat for the reintroduction of the captive bred birds can be found, it is possible that Durrell and the WWT might decide to bring some birds ex situ. The biggest number of new introductions in recent years has been in amphibian species and it looks as if these efforts will need to continue to expand. They rely on scientists and local people to monitor populations and collect specimens if necessary. The old "bring 'em back alive days" are well past now.

Alan

 

[Pacarana]

Do you have any examples? (Which zoos and what species?) This would be mostly for reptiles and amphibians, am I right?

Like most people said smaller animals are frequently captured. Though I can't support this but I herd that the Fanaloka at Rare animal conservatory, which is now in exmoor, was wild caught.