This appears to be an average lion exhibits, but I get sick of zoos having subspecies that don't belong in certain zoo exhibit area. This zoo has African lions in an Asian exhibit, and the only other example I can think of at the moment is the brown bears at Minnesota Zoo. I am sure this happens all the time, probably with Amur and African leopards alot, as well as different subspecies of tigers.
Yes we have, because the linked thread just says that you call in the US all brown bears grizzlys.
U. a. beringianus is a subspicies of it's own and thats why there are breeding programms for that subspicies.
No, because the ones they thought were asian lions turned out to be asian african crossbreeds, so they were allowed to die out. Even the ones that were definitely african were ceased from breeding (within the AZA) due to unkown heritage. The AZA decided to import all new founders, which is what they have done very recently. I am not positive, but I think all of the new founders are from South Africa.
There is a section on this topic in the book Sailing With Noah by st louis zoo director Jeffrey Bonner. He was director of Indianapolis Zoo at the time and said if they were going to bring in founders to start an SSP, they should import asian lions. But he was overruled and african it is. Thankfully, there appears to be a good asian lion program in Europe.
