thanks boof. unfortunately so far i am yet to spot a wild cat. first the tiger alluded me in india, then the leopard in sri lanka followed by the jaguar in the amazon and the puma in the pantanal.
in the ridiculously unlikely event i saw a bornean clouded leopard however, it would all be made up for, for that, is probably the most elusive of all cats.
NZ - austrlalian and new zealand zoos are starting to take a greater role in frog conservation. i belive auckland has only just started breeding NZ's native species. melbourne has for a long time had a specially built frog house, though admittedly whilst great its already far too small for the amount of frog species they hold and thus only a few species ar ekept on display. fortunately one of those is the souther corroboree frog, a critically endangered australian alpine species that taronga, melbourne and the amphibian research centre (also here in melbourne) are developing a captive breeding program for. they have to be kept in refridgerated tanks, but they are as coulourful as dart frogs.
australia has so many frog species (second in the world only to south america) that we certainly have our fair share of critcally endangered frogs that need a captive back-up population. zoos stil tend to select their frog species based on attractiveness - melbourne recently imported another two species of dart frogs, plus they put in an aplication for another handful of unusual exotic species such as horned frogs and madagascan tomato frogs.
all beautiful and i'll enjoy seeing them but i very much hope we managed to save our native species first and foremost.