Are there any subspecies stand ins you've see that didn't "fit?"

lintworm said:
Asian leopards in an African area really seems an American problem
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It would be interesting to know how many Asian complexes here lack Amur leopards compared to how many African complexes hold them, and whether it would balance out if more Asian areas added them. I think leopards are just frequently seen as a quintessential African animal, and Amurs are the only subspecies we have a sizable population here.

Again, I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's a problem. Chacoan peccaries are increasingly used as stand-ins for the native collared peccary here, which makes perfect sense to me since Chacoans are endangered and the two are similar enough that one can replace the other.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
It would be interesting to know how many Asian complexes here lack Amur leopards compared to how many African complexes hold them, and whether it would balance out if more Asian areas added them. I think leopards are just frequently seen as a quintessential African animal, and Amurs are the only subspecies we have a sizable population here.

Again, I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's a problem. Chacoan peccaries are increasingly used as stand-ins for the native collared peccary here, which makes perfect sense to me since Chacoans are endangered and the two are similar enough that one can replace the other.
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Let’s see:
  • San Diego (although they also keep them in an Asian section)
  • Fort Wayne
  • Maryland (formerly held pure African, I think)
  • Jacksonville (formerly)
  • Staten Island (formerly, now they have their own area)
  • Living Desert
  • Columbus (are their Leopards Amur or generic?)
  • Phoenix (by next year)
Honorable mention to Bronx, who keeps them in a tropical Asian exhibit. Right continent, wrong biome.
 
Corangurilla said:
Let’s see:
  • San Diego (although they also keep them in an Asian section)
  • Fort Wayne
  • Maryland (formerly held pure African, I think)
  • Jacksonville (formerly)
  • Staten Island (formerly, now they have their own area)
  • Living Desert
  • Columbus (are their Leopards Amur or generic?)
  • Phoenix (by next year)
Honorable mention to Bronx, who keeps them in a tropical Asian exhibit. Right continent, wrong biome.
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Columbus keeps a generic Leopard in their African area and has no Leopards in their Asian section.
 
The original leopards in Maryland's current exhibit were African, yes. It's also true that both of those cats were wild born animals from Africa that the zoo had to import at considerable expense and effort, after waiting some time for available animals. They came, they bred, and there were no other animals of that subspecies for their offspring to breed with, so the line fizzled out. How the case often goes with the import of rarely-seen species and subspecies.
 
Aardwolf said:
The original leopards in Maryland's current exhibit were African, yes. It's also true that both of those cats were wild born animals from Africa that the zoo had to import at considerable expense and effort, after waiting some time for available animals. They came, they bred, and there were no other animals of that subspecies for their offspring to breed with, so the line fizzled out. How the case often goes with the import of rarely-seen species and subspecies.
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That's a sad story. Was it a matter that they tried to acquire more leopards and it was too difficult or had they lost interest by that point?

I have not been to any of the zoos listed with leopards that don't fit their habitat... but San Diego's example sounds downright bizarre. Isn't their leopard habitat a very new one? You'd think they knew what subspecies they would have and plan for it.
 
By the time the original Africans had passed away, the Felid TAG had firmly settled on its focus on Amur leopards (TAGs and RCPs weren't as much of a factor in consideration in the mid 1990s, when the Africans were imported), and Baltimore made the decision to switch over to that subspecies, as basically all other zoos have done. The realization had settled in that, if zoos were going to maintain sustainable populations of some species/subspecies, that meant they couldn't keep everything, and when it came down to Amur vs African leopards, the decision ended up not being a difficult one. A critically endangered subspecies already established in AZA, vs a much more common one that was not, and would require large scale imports and a reduction in the amount of holding spaces available for Amurs.

I will say that, within the zoo community, this leopard subspecies issue is not something that keepers, curators, etc really spend anytime agonizing or worrying about, or have doubts about. You need a leopard, you use an Amur, and if it's for an African area, than you use an Amur as a stand-in. The alternative is either to go through a lot of expense to import Africans, and to what end, really (a lot of money and effort spent for an animal that will have no positive impact on the AZA leopard population), or not have leopards in African areas, which will greatly reduce the numbers of one of the TAGs flagship species.

So from that viewpoint, it's not bizarre that San Diego (or Kansas City... or Baltimore... or Nashville, in their upcoming exhibit) decided to go with Amurs. I doubt that there was any internal debate or controversy over it.
 
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I apologize for how ill-advised and ignorant my question came off. I was expecting more of a story about the Maryland Zoo as a facility than a (very well-written!) explanation of why zoos do not keep a particular subspecies. I did not intend to look like another ignorant zoochatter trying to waste time and money on a repetitious subspecies.

I should definitely not have commented about San Diego especially, that was ignorant of me.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
It would be interesting to know how many Asian complexes here lack Amur leopards compared to how many African complexes hold them, and whether it would balance out if more Asian areas added them. I think leopards are just frequently seen as a quintessential African animal, and Amurs are the only subspecies we have a sizable population here.

Again, I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's a problem. Chacoan peccaries are increasingly used as stand-ins for the native collared peccary here, which makes perfect sense to me since Chacoans are endangered and the two are similar enough that one can replace the other.
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I didn't know Chacoan peccaries were that common.

Has anyone ever seen African lions standing in for Asiatic anywhere?
 
elefante said:
I didn't know Chacoan peccaries were that common.

Has anyone ever seen African lions standing in for Asiatic anywhere?
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In the US at least, African savanna areas with lions as one of the stars are a proven hit with visitors, and since only African lions are available in the US, that’s the only geographically-themed area you’ll find them in.

One of our zoos doing an Indian-themed area with African lions as a proxy for Asiatics would be a really cool way of breaking the mold, though. I feel as though it would be less immersion breaking than having Amur leopards in African areas, since African and Asiatic lions look more similar.
 
Aardwolf said:
On the other hand, if an Asian lion SSP had taken off and all of the lions in AZA were of that subspecies, I guarantee that all of the zoos would be using Asian lions as substitutes for Africans for African savannah exhibits
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Yes they would. I'd love to see an India display with lions. I'm sure quite a few people are unaware there are lions in India.
 
Aardwolf said:
On the other hand, if an Asian lion SSP had taken off and all of the lions in AZA were of that subspecies, I guarantee that all of the zoos would be using Asian lions as substitutes for Africans for African savannah exhibits
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Such a thing already happens in Europe where Asiatic Lions are (reasonably) common. Even at major zoos such as Diergaarde Blijdorp in Rotterdam it is sadly happening. Having said that, Asiatic Lions are, for the most part, used correctly, with extensive India- themed zones such as London's exhibit housing the subspecies.
 
Aardwolf said:
On the other hand, if an Asian lion SSP had taken off and all of the lions in AZA were of that subspecies, I guarantee that all of the zoos would be using Asian lions as substitutes for Africans for African savannah exhibits
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I didn't know the AZA originally wanted only Asiatic lions. I guess I assumed they originally wanted both Asiatic and African lions, and then decided to go with only African lions once the Asiatic population became unsustainable / was phased out. I guess prioritizing an Asiatic lion SSP over an African lion SSP would've been a good idea from a conservation perspective, since Asiatic lions are endangered while African lions are vulnerable.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
I didn't know the AZA originally wanted only Asiatic lions. I guess I assumed they originally wanted both Asiatic and African lions, and then decided to go with only African lions once the Asiatic population became unsustainable / was phased out. I guess prioritizing an Asiatic lion SSP over an African lion SSP would've been a good idea from a conservation perspective, since Asiatic lions are endangered while African lions are vulnerable.
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It's probably good to have some African lions too. They're vulnerable but that status could definitely change given the way things are.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
I didn't know the AZA originally wanted only Asiatic lions. I guess I assumed they originally wanted both Asiatic and African lions, and then decided to go with only African lions once the Asiatic population became unsustainable / was phased out. I guess prioritizing an Asiatic lion SSP over an African lion SSP would've been a good idea from a conservation perspective, since Asiatic lions are endangered while African lions are vulnerable.
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Lions - like tigers, leopards, orangutans, giraffes, chimpanzees and ostriches - were bred pretty freely without regard for subspecies for many years. The AZA intended to phase out generic/hybrid lions and imported founder lions from Indian zoos to kickstart an Asiatic lion ssp that at first seemed to be rather successful, with headlines promoting the births of such rare animals; it was then discovered in the nineties that some of the founder animals included African-Asiatic hybrids and so the ssp bloodline was impure, and the AZA decided to manage African lions instead.
 
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo kind of does this with flamingos as well... they have Chilean flamingos near the entrance (kind of in the zoo's African Savanna area). I consider the flamingo exhibit kind of separate from African Savanna, but I guess it is toward African Savanna from the entrance and the zoo itself considers it a part of African Savanna... they formerly had greater flamingos there. And there are also bar-headed geese (from Asia) with the Chileans
 
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