@David Matos Mendes Yes, I think that the individuals that SP zoo (I think there are currently two of them but not 100 % sure ) have are males. If I'm right in that assumption these would definitely benefit from females and breeding, yes.
Muriquis are very hard for zoos here to obtain though and the majority of these in captivity have been animals either found injured / abandoned in the wild or rescued from the illegal pet trade so they tend to arrive very sporadically in zoos.
Having said that, the Sorocaba zoo have done brilliantly with breeding the individuals that have arrived there over the years and I hear that Curitiba zoo are also having some success with breeding theirs too.
@Onychorhynchus coronatus Yeah, they are definitely diffiult to obtain, cause as you said, they only arrive from rescues... Hope either Curitiba or Sorocaba send a female to SP one day, so we would have three reproductive groups in the country (and consequently, in the world).
@David Matos Mendes It would be very good to have ex-situ breeding groups of the Southern muriqui in all of the major zoos here in Brazil I totally agree (including BH zoo).
@David Matos Mendes I think it is important that these species are kept in decent exhibits that are on view to the public as the muriqui really suffers from a low profile in the media. Quite honestly muriquis are not very well known by the public within Brazil.
I think it is impossible not to observe a decently sized breeding group of muriquis like those kept at Sorocaba and not to feel an instinctive empathy or affection for them. They are such large and active primates and a very charismatic species too in my opinion.
@Onychorhynchus coronatus Yes, It would be pretty usefull to keep them in public to increase the env. education. Although, I've been realizing lately that educating zoo visitors is getting each day more chalenging, specially after I've been to São Paulo zoo, wich is the most crowded zoo I've ever been to, and I saw many disrespectfull situations, coming from kids and adults, that left me quite sad... Our society still goes to the zoo only for leisure, and the big majority is far away from understanding that animals are not supposed to be visible the entire time...
@David Matos Mendes Yes, I totally agree regarding the challenges of environmental education in zoos though not just in Brazil but also globally.
Some of the visitors to SP Zoo can be ...difficult... I remember seeing one situation there that made me very angry in which a visitor (a grown man) used a water bottle to squirt water at a sleeping crab eating fox.
I told him not to do it and quite assertively and got a very ugly look in response but insisted and he did stop doing it and moved on.
@Onychorhynchus coronatus
Yes, it is surelly a global problem... What a bad situation... At least the guy stopped doing crap...
I saw some idiots screeaming very loud trying to imitate the harpy there in SP.
In BH people used to blow air inside PET bottles and throw them in the big cat pits. This used to make loud noises, once the exhibits are really deep. People are being more polite here, once now there are guards in almost all the main exhibits, after the chimps threw rocks in a baby girl (people were screaming out loud, but after the accident, everyone blamed the animal) Hopefully, no serious damages affected the girl, nor anything happened to the chimp.
In a lot of zoos in Latin America there are guards posted at various points around the zoo to stop this kind of behaviour.
For example, in Chapultepec zoo in Mexico city this is pretty much the rule and any visitors who are caught doing these kind of behaviours are immediately asked to leave the zoo and escorted out.
