Such an amazing species. Wish more zoos held the species. Going to the Bronx Zoo often I have always wished I could just sit in front of the exhibit (rather than pass them on the monorail) and watch the huge herd of animals for a while.
Very sad to hear that. In the US its holding on mainly at a trio of the top zoos (SD Safari Park, Bronx, Omaha (off exhibit)). These zoos seem very committed to the species, yet their are obviously few holders and thats a problem that hopefully can be resolved.
Yet big issues with the cattle tag will not help with that. As their are so many spaces for bison, and all other species have an extremely low number of spaces available. Plus now that cape buffalo have been reversed from a phase out their are to many large cattle species competing for too little space. We will see what the future holds but it would be sad to see this imperiled species disappear from both continents.
@nczoofan Zoo Miami has Gaur as of 2016 when I last visited. Also your explanation is why visiting Bronx has never been high on my "zoos to visit list" because all the cool species (Gaur, Sambar, Barasingha & Hog Deer) are pretty much behind the scenes. This is also the case with Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom where you never get enough time to properly see anything.
As far as I know, EAZA stil has plans to keep gaur and the EEP was actually even rated sufficiënt. It's even one of their 6 new style EEP's for the TAG group.