I have found an article dated January 2015 in which it is mentioned that “16 were born but only 8 survived”. Maybe they have had more births and some deaths since then, but I guess a part of the 10 originals have also died too.
As far as I know, the Volcano rabbits (Romerolagus diazi) at Nagoya (Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens) came from the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City on August, 21, 2013.
The first Japanese facility to keep captive Volcano rabbits was a Laboratory (I don't remember the name of this place or the city that it is located) in the 1980s, after that the first zoo in Japan to import them was Ueno Zoo which got 6.6 specimens from Chapultepec Zoo in April of 2003. Ueno Zoo no longer keeps this taxon and they never bred there.
Correct, the volcano rabbits at Nagoya are from Chapultepec zoo, and the exhibit is somewhat similar to the Chapultepec zoo exhibit. Jersey is the zoo outside of Mexico with the best breeding record of teporingos, but the little animals do seem to have some problems adapting to lower altitudes. At the Mexico City zoos there are over 300 teporingos, because they breed here like, well, rabbits.
Correct, the volcano rabbits at Nagoya are from Chapultepec zoo, and the exhibit is somewhat similar to the Chapultepec zoo exhibit. Jersey is the zoo outside of Mexico with the best breeding record of teporingos, but the little animals do seem to have some problems adapting to lower altitudes. At the Mexico City zoos there are over 300 teporingos, because they breed here like, well, rabbits.
Hi Carlos, I see a lot of similarities to the Chapultepec Zoo in the design of this exhibit, so that may be why some breeding has occurred, I wonder if any keepers or curators from Chapultepec were involved in the process of exhibit design or husbandry planning for the animals at Nagoya. Besides Jersey Zoo, another zoo outside of Mexico that kept and bred this species was Antwerp Zoo in Belgium which kept them from 1977 until sometime in the 1980s, however as far as I know, the animals at Antwerp were never on exhibit, I also don't know how they were sourced. I don't even know where Jersey sourced their Volcano rabbits, do you happen to know ?
I am glad to see that Chapultepec Zoo is having successful breeding with them, I wish more zoos would take interest in keeping this unique lagomorph!
Yes, chapultepec did send a zoo curator to nagoya zoo not only to give techical assistance but also to pick the animals which chapultepec recieved in exchange for the teporingos which were raccoon dogs and red kangaroos. Durrell wrote in one of his books how he personally collected the teporingos on Mt. Popocatepetl. Maybe vogelcommando knows more about the volcano rabbits at Antwerp. I do not know about them.
