Giant otter-shrews in zoos

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
One of the side-effects with spending time on the site is that I find myself getting obsessed with certain species and wanting to know more about their natural history, conservation, and history in zoos. Does this happen to anybody else?

Now it has happened with tenrecs, and particularly the giant otter-shrew (Potamogale velox), which I recently learned is actually a tenrec that has evolved a convergent body form and lifestyle with otters as part of an evolutionary radiation of tenrecs.

This is the best picture that I could find of one: http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/tanzania/species.asp?ID=2

Does anybody know anything specific about the history of this species in captivity? Have they been displayed in any zoos, and if so have they been kept alive for any appreciable length of time?

The only zoo-related information that I have found so far is Gerald Durrell's account of capturing some in Cameroon in his book "The Overloaded Ark". He describes how he kept an adult male otter-shrew that had been accidentally captured and tried to get it to accept a diet of dried shrimp so that he could take it back to England. It seemed to be working, and then it suddenly dropped dead. The same thing happened with a young female.

Has giant otter-shrew husbandry in the zoo world ever advanced beyond this?

Are there any natural history museums that have mounted ones on view?
 
The only reference to captive specimens I can find in my library (apart from Durrell) is a few words in Walkers Mammals of the World, which may be based upon the entry in Happold's book "The Mammals of Nigeria", 1987.
 
Thanks for the photo links Chlidonias, and for the research Hix.

From the photo search that Chlidonias posted it looks like someone named Julie Dewilde has done an otter-shrew survey in the Congo as of 2010: [ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliedewilde/5148911933/"]A la recherche d'indice de presence de loutre ou potamogale / Looking for otters or potamogale tracks | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

They seem like quite magical creatures and we know almost nothing about them, although I suppose this is the case with the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity.
 
DavidBrown said:
The only zoo-related information that I have found so far is Gerald Durrell's account of capturing some in Cameroon in his book "The Overloaded Ark". He describes how he kept an adult male otter-shrew that had been accidentally captured and tried to get it to accept a diet of dried shrimp so that he could take it back to England. It seemed to be working, and then it suddenly dropped dead. The same thing happened with a young female.
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By coincidence I re-read Gerald Durrell’s “The Overloaded Ark” very recently. (Although I’d read it several times previously, this was the first time I’d opened the book for years.)

Incidentally, Durrell also wrote an article about the giant otter shrew for the winter 1953 edition of the “Zoo Life” journal (a Zoological Society of London publication).

According to this article he actually acquired three specimens of this species. The additional specimen was another adult male that sadly only lived for two days.
 
I was reading through the Sacramento Zoo's 1988 master plan (now long revised), because I had a very hazy memory of the African river themed exhibit that they wanted to build. In the species list for the proposed exhibit (never built) they have otter-shrews, 2 pairs! I guess that they were being very ambitious.
 
the Micropotamogale species on the ARKive site include photos of captive ones. I don't know the details of that though.
 
Hello everybody

I have no information about potamogale in captivity but I looked for it during 6 weeks in the deep rainforest of Congo (ye I am the one above :-) ) for a rapid assessment program and a vulnerability analysis . I tried live capture traps, camera photo trap and walking survey by night. But I failed unfortunately to get a picture of it. I saw it only once, in the light of my torch but it hide in a burrow as soon as it saw us. I also found many presence signs (tracks, burrows in the river bank...) but it is a very secretive species, very hard to find and to capture (even local hunter barely see it), and also very sensitive to any perturbation in its environment especially the quality of water and pollution. It prefers small and shallow-water
 
unegawaya said:
Hello everybody

I have no information about potamogale in captivity but I looked for it during 6 weeks in the deep rainforest of Congo (ye I am the one above :-) ) for a rapid assessment program and a vulnerability analysis . I tried live capture traps, camera photo trap and walking survey by night. But I failed unfortunately to get a picture of it. I saw it only once, in the light of my torch but it hide in a burrow as soon as it saw us. I also found many presence signs (tracks, burrows in the river bank...) but it is a very secretive species, very hard to find and to capture (even local hunter barely see it), and also very sensitive to any perturbation in its environment especially the quality of water and pollution. It prefers small and shallow-water
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Thank you very much for the information unegawaya, and welcome to Zoochat. You are likely the world's expert on this species. It sounds like it is a species that one could definitely not count on seeing on a trip to Africa, at least not without several weeks of intensive work as you put in.

From your description of wild otter-shrew behavior and ecology it sounds like the species is very fragile and likely would not do well in captivity, and probably not be a very good exhibit animal even if it could be kept happy and alive.

I really enjoyed your photos of your otter-shrew work and your other travels, especially your forest elephant photos. Thanks for posting them.
 
Its ecology does sound though rather like that of the Platypus; if host range countries could acclimatise the animal it might be done.

Whether anyone would consider this a worthwhile venture is another matter..
 
IanRRobinson said:
Its ecology does sound though rather like that of the Platypus; if host range countries could acclimatise the animal it might be done.

Whether anyone would consider this a worthwhile venture is another matter..
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You raise an interesting point Ian. As you brought up in another thread, there are many species like giant pandas, platypus, and probably many others that had a husbandry learning curve that resulted in the loss of several individuals before people figured out how to properly meet their basic needs in captivity.

This raises the interesting question of whether there is any zoo or captive wildlife institution that does the kind of work that has historically been done to bring new, fragile species into captivity and figure out their husbandry.

I think that aquarists do it regularly (e.g., Monterey Bay Aquarium figuring out how to keep tuna, jellies, and great white sharks), but is it happening with terrestrial animals and zoos anymore? Unless there is a desperate need to rescue a species from extinction (e.g., California condor, black-footed ferret), it seems unlikely to me that an ethics review committee would sign off on a venture to bring a species like the otter-shrew into captivity just for the sake of bringing a cool new species into a zoo.

Does anybody have any knowledge or opinion about whether there are any zoos, institutions, or individuals that are still bringing species like otter-shrews into the zoo world?
 
DavidBrown said:
You raise an interesting point Ian. As you brought up in another thread, there are many species like giant pandas, platypus, and probably many others that had a husbandry learning curve that resulted in the loss of several individuals before people figured out how to properly meet their basic needs in captivity.

This raises the interesting question of whether there is any zoo or captive wildlife institution that does the kind of work that has historically been done to bring new, fragile species into captivity and figure out their husbandry.

I think that aquarists do it regularly (e.g., Monterey Bay Aquarium figuring out how to keep tuna, jellies, and great white sharks), but is it happening with terrestrial animals and zoos anymore? Unless there is a desperate need to rescue a species from extinction (e.g., California condor, black-footed ferret), it seems unlikely to me that an ethics review committee would sign off on a venture to bring a species like the otter-shrew into captivity just for the sake of bringing a cool new species into a zoo.

Does anybody have any knowledge or opinion about whether there are any zoos, institutions, or individuals that are still bringing species like otter-shrews into the zoo world?
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While not quite on the same level as great white sharks and platypuses, the Pilzen Zoo in the Czech Republic has a remarkable and enormous collection of esoteric small mammals (various bizarre mole rats among them), some of which are no doubt "fragile." They seem to have had some success propagating many of them. It is a zoo clearly focused on trying to assemble a comprehensive collection, many of which are novel. I am quite certain they would love to try otter shrews if they could obtain them.
 
DavidBrown said:
it seems unlikely to me that an ethics review committee would sign off on a venture to bring a species like the otter-shrew into captivity just for the sake of bringing a cool new species into a zoo.
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Otter-shrews might be a "cool new species" to someone like you or me, but most of the world has never heard of the species. And I suspect, before this thread, most ZooChatters had never heard of it either. To the general public (and a lot of zoo boards) an otter-shrew would be no different to a Water Rat.

I read about the otter-shrew in Durrell's book back in the '70s, and apart from brief listings in field guides to the mammals of Africa or mammal books like Walker's, I've never seen any mention of the species.

:p

Hix
 
Hix said:
Otter-shrews might be a "cool new species" to someone like you or me, but most of the world has never heard of the species. And I suspect, before this thread, most ZooChatters had never heard of it either. To the general public (and a lot of zoo boards) an otter-shrew would be no different to a Water Rat.
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I agree that the species is obscure. What I'm wondering ultimately I guess is whether someone like Gerald Durrell could exist today and decide that he wanted to go collect a bunch of weird species and "bring 'em back alive" to try and establish them in captivity. I can't see that happening with 21st century zoos.

There are obviously private collectors, especially of herps and birds, who do all kinds of illegal things to bring rare animals into their collections. When they get busted and their animals get confiscated and sent to zoos I guess this could be a way to establish captive populations. The LA Zoo got a major collection of reptile species this way, including their original Komodo dragons. I can't imagine smugglers wanting to collect a species like otter-shrews, but it's a weird world.
 
DavidBrown said:
What I'm wondering ultimately I guess is whether someone like Gerald Durrell could exist today and decide that he wanted to go collect a bunch of weird species and "bring 'em back alive" to try and establish them in captivity. I can't see that happening with 21st century zoos.
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that sounds much like what the owner of the RSCC in the UK did (albeit not going and actually collecting stuff himself)
 
Chlidonias said:
that sounds much like what the owner of the RSCC in the UK did (albeit not going and actually collecting stuff himself)
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I'm not familiar with this person or institution. Can you fill me in on what the RSCC is and what kind of animals that they are working with? Maybe the Gerald Durrell model is still with us in some form?
 
DavidBrown said:
Thanks for the link. It looks like it was a controversial place. Their website isn't working and their are references to it closing in the gallery comments, so I assume it is gone? I guess that the "bring em' back alive" model didn't work out in this case?
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A bigger problem was that the site they had was simply too small for what they were trying to do. Most of the species they tried to establish are still around in the UK/Europe, albeit in very low numbers (Exmoor, Colchester, Belfast, Tayto Park and Wingham being the main beneficiaries).

EDIT: Another beneficiary that occurs to me is Tierpark Berlin, who owe their complete collection of hyaenas to the RSCC's aardwolf imports.
 
There are still hobbyists who develop a passion for particular species and build up a collection of legally held specimens (perhaps it would be better to call it the Aspinall model rather the Durrel one). This is quite possible with reptiles, amphibians and fishes in the UK today: it is harder, but far from impossible with birds and mammals. Of course some people have cut corners and smuggled specimens too, but thankfully this is getting harder and harder. RSCC never really became a regular zoo, and if I understand the situation correctly, it has reverted to a private collection.
As far as otter shrews are concerned, I can only imagine a couple of circumstances in which they might be kept in captivity: either a researcher like our new friend unegawa, carrying out a long-term study, might acquire live specimens from local hunters - either saved from the pot or young animals from a nest (or should it be a holt for otter shrews?) or research might find that the species is in such grave danger of extinction that a model program for in situ captive breeding could be set up. Neither of these could happen without funding on a fairly generous scale. I think any export of live specimens is most unlikely.

Alan
 
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