BioParque Zoo Pomerode is the oldest privately-owned zoo in Brazil. It is rather small, which means there are exhibits everywhere, but none are awful, besides the Asian elephant pen. However, they (literally) have a lot of room for improvement, as a new African savanna and an elephant exhibit are on the works! I was told Indian rhinos would replace their Asian elephants as soon as their elderly cows passed away, but African elephants have not been completely discarded as a replacement.
@Enzo oh really? that's amazing, so it looks like that the animalia park might not be the only to hold indian rhinos, i wish more zoos in brazil kept rhinos, especially the white and indian ones, since those are the ones who are easier to keep. about the elephants, i'd prefer that the zoo invest in younger asian elephants, since pratically most of our elephants in our zoos are asians and only brasilia and belo horizonte zoo have african elephants.
@BetoYoung I understand that it'd be nice to have younger Asian elephants in our country, since most of the ones in our zoos are elderly individuals, but don't you think that it would be better for Pomerode to invest on African ones instead? We currently only have 2.2.0 in the country, and two of those individuals are related (Axé and Chocolate are brothers), which means that the genetic variability is currently low, so it would be much better if we got a new African lineage in order to obtain a larger genetic pool for our zoos.
@Velas yeah i agree, but it happens that the african elephants are way bigger than the asian elephants, therefore they require more space and care, in contrast with the smaller asian elephants and easier to care, and also because asian elephants are often described as more docile, easier to care and train, and many people describe african elephants as unpredictable and more wary of humans, the asian elephants are different because they live with us(humanity) since over 4000 years ago, so they are more accustomed with human care and presence. but yeah, it would be nice to have more african elephants in our zoos.
@BetoYoung
No, african elephants are not "way" bigger than asian elephants, and the space requirements for both are, at the present moment, are basically the same (both equally large). Regarding domestication, it's not actually a criterion we should take into consideration.
@David Matos Mendes oh really? i always heard that african elephants were bigger than asian elephnants, and why shouldn't we take domestication as a criterion, i think history is very important.
@BetoYoung, Notice that I quoted the adjective "way" that you used. African elephants are, indeed, larger than asian elephants as a species, but not "way" larger, and not in a way that affects the size of the exhibits. Both species need equally large enclosures, so no, you can't consider asian elephants need less space to live than africans.
And if my point on domestication wasn't clear, here's what I meant: If an institution uses the criterion of only acquiring animals that are domesticated or easily domesticable, than we're not actually talking about a zoo, but rather a farm, aren't we? If we thought that way, we'd only keep ostrich, llamas, budgies and ponys in our institutions. We are talking about wild animals and conservation; of course it is important to have the possibility to examine and handle animals from up close, but a good training routine and technique can make the handling of african elephants pretty decent and dinamic, and I say that by experience here at the BH zoo. A zoo can be totally free to choose between species they intend to obtain, but domestication should not be a decisive requirement at all.
