Animals Which 20 Years Ago Were Rarely Kept In UK Zoos But Are Common These Days

[zebedee101]

Nyala at one time were only kept by Marwell now can be seen in 5 collections

Bongo were only kept at Woburn, now kept in at least 15 collections

Scimitar horned oryx, only kept at London and Marwell again commonly seen.

Back then there were no koala, wolverine, Japanese serow, Somali wild ass, kiang, red river hog, Visayan warty pig, Bornean bearded pig, lesser Malayan chevrotain, mishmi takin, Owston's palm civet, cusimanse, purple faced langur, red titi, giant otter, and i could go on and on and on..............

And who would have thought we would see a pair of Sumatran rhino?

Where are the sumatran pair?

 

[Bele]

Where are the sumatran pair?

Sorry , you missed them , they were at Port Lympne . The male Torgamba is now back in Indonesia . I think they had 2 females at separate times , but both died .

I believe the first bongo to be imported in modern times were on show initially at Southampton zoo before transferring to Woburn where they bred well .

 

[Cat-Man]

Marwell does not keep all the oryx species', they miss out on the Beisan Oryx. They do however keep the three species' of zebra.

besian oryx and fringe eared oryx are a sub-species of the gemsbok, you should know, it mentions it in Marwell the story so far

 

[CZJimmy]

besian oryx and fringe eared oryx are a sub-species of the gemsbok, you should know, it mentions it in Marwell the story so far

Beisan Oryx = Oryx beisa (this has 2 subspecies: Oryx beisa beisa and Oryx beisa calliotis, which is the Fringe-eared)

Gemsbok = Oryx gazella

However, as it was pointed out, the Marwell book is quite old now, so some reclassification may have occurred in the subsequent years

 

[Cat-Man]

Beisan Oryx = Oryx beisa (this has 2 subspecies of Oryx beisa beisa and Oryx calliotis, which is the Fringe eared)

Gemsbok = Oryx gazella

However, as it was pointed out, the Marwell book is quite old now, so some reclassification may have occurred in the subsequent years

thanks mate, sorry if i offended you marwell dalek

dudley and the cotswold wild animal park have been added to the list

 

[Pertinax]

can i just say that marwells nyala were not the only place in the uk to house them, london had some to the late 80s/early 90s
marwelll were and i think still are the only place in the uk the keep arabian oryx,

Asiatic lions used to be rare when marwell got there pair from abroud many years ago, they were then the only place in the uk to house asiatic lions.

1. In the early 1970's Marwell imported 2.6(approx) Nyala and for several years at that time they were the only ones in UK. I believe that despite breeding, that group later died out. Admittedly that period is longer ago than the 20 years in the title of this thread..

2. In the past, London, Whipsnade, Blackpool and Suffolk Wildlife Park(and possibly one or two others) have all kept Arabian Oryx. Whipsnade still have some.

3. Marwell was the only place with asian Lions although they were found not to be pure.

 

[gentle lemur]

I've been thinking about this question: there have been a lot changes over these years.
I agree that we now have more lemurs and more marmosets and tamarins too - that's more species and more individuals as well. In general we now have bigger groups of monkeys, but fewer species in each zoo - which is probably a very good thing. Celebes black apes/Sulawesi crested macaques and lion-tailed macaques have certainly increased in numbers, so have Javan langurs, white-faced sakis, red titis and black howlers. On the other hand we don't see many other macaques (except Barbary apes) or sooty mangabeys or talapoins or capuchins except for the tufted capuchin subspecies and there aren't many galagos around either.
The other main group that we have largely lost are some of the smaller carnivores - kinkajou, civets, genets, tayra, grison, the other badgers (ZSL used to have hog badgers and Chinese ferret badgers) and martens. Not the easiest species to display or manage, but they are fascinating animals. We don't have any smooth or spot-necked otters left, and not many American otters either. I think the cat situation is pretty much unchanged, but we have gained a few more dogs and foxes. I remember when the only bush dog in the country was a very old male at Regents Park, which also had a maned wolf behind the sea lions.
I think the biggest changes have been in the birds. Many zoos used to have species we never see now like c**k of the rock and even birds of paradise (at Chester and Birdland, at least), I even remember giant coots at Chester. Many places kept hummingbirds (Slimbridge even bred sparkling violet-ears in their tropical house) and Regents Park bred manakins in their hummingbird house. I also remember the bellbird in the Bird House - deafening!
Export controls and CITES have changed all that, thank goodness. Zoos now have to work to breed their birds and I think many have reduced their bird collections, for example I don't think there are many eagles of any species in mainstream zoos now. On the other hand, I think we now have more amazon parrots around and perhaps more turacos, conures and currassows too. Plus more hammerkop and small hornbills. There has also been proper emphasis on some endangered species such as pink pigeons, Bali starlings, Palawan peacock pheasants and waldrapp (all species in which Jersey has played a leading role).
I'm sure that I have missed many species, but that will do for the moment.

Alan

 

[Pertinax]

I Am I correct in thinking that the second herd of Pere David deer in the world was established in the mid 1950s at Whipsnade, I think the herd was about 50+ at this time at Woburn so they decided to split the risk. ... They were certainly the only two places that had them at the time and all came from the 19 animals that were left after flooding and starving peasants and troops eating the remainder form the royal park.

Yes. There's a book by Philip Street on 'Zoos' which describes the early days of Pere David at Whipsnade. They used handraised calves for the reason you stated, I think starting with about 2.2. Durrell would have been there at that period I think. The handraised stag(s) created a problem at maturity,charging the fences of the paddock etc during the rut. Breeding was slow at first but got going later. I think Whipsnade had about 30 at one time- however nowadays there is only a very small herd- one stag and about 10 females, in a paddock near the Indian rhinos.

I've heard various reports of how many Pere David came to Woburn initially from Europe- 14, 16, 18 or 19, take your pick. I think one zoo(may have been Berlin), would not let theirs go. The sex ratio of the pioneer group was about equal so there were probably no more than half a dozen breeding females at Woburn to start with..

I still rate the Pere David herd at Woburn as a major wildlife spectacle in the UK.

 

[Chlidonias]

So the male red ruffed lemur and the female black and white ruffed lemur produced young capable of successfully breeding themselves. Seems to be one species that has been split for no obvious reason.

AFAIK they are different colour forms of the same species which occupy seperate areas in Madagascar and don't occur together. Hence the desire not to 'hybridise' the colours in captivity.

the red ruffed lemur (rubra) was always treated as a subspecies of the black-and-white ruffed lemur (variegata) when I was younger, and various authors still do so, but it is more commonly now considered a distinct species. They are obviously very visually distinctive but, perhaps more importantly, historically their distributions used to overlap to some degree (so I have read). The ability to interbreed and produce viable offspring doesn't necessarily preclude them from being separate species (just look at, eg, ducks, parrots, pheasants, wolf/coyote, polar/brown bear, etc etc). I would tend to call these lemurs two separate species myself, rather than subspecies, but that's just my personal viewpoint on them.
However, as I have said before and will no doubt say again, taxonomists today do delight in splitting every species they can....

 

[Cat-Man]

Ive found out what zoos keep nyala, Marwell, Newquey, Suffolk wildlife park (i won't call it africa alive), edinburgh and longlete.

 

[Pertinax]

. They are obviously very visually distinctive but, perhaps more importantly, historically their distributions used to overlap to some degree (so I have read). .

In the days when there were hybrids between the two colours about in captivity, they always seemed to be of a 'tricoloured form' with white/buff and black markings. I wonder if there were hybrid zones in Madagascar too with similar marked animals?