Indeed I stand corrected. He was sent to Alma Park in 2012 and then on to DDZ in 2014 (with Tique from Taronga).
Australasian Tapir Population
- Thread starter Patrick Keegan
- Start date
-
- Tags
- population tapir
Your most welcome Jambo
I'm thinking Tupi may have been the other breeding female. Perhaps she was a daughter of Dubbo's initial pair (born in the mid 80's). That would make her Branco's full sister and if she mothered Mrs Branco (Mrs Branco would have been his niece).
It would be nice to know when Dubbo acquired their Brazilian Tapirs. Memory tells me Melbourne's pair only arrived in the late 80's from the UK maybe? Take that with a grain of salt lol.
Talara could have had three or four offspring over a decade so she seemed to have bred well in the limited time she had.
I don't know when Alf was sent to Dubbo. As a young individual would be a reasonable assumption. I can't tell you whether the other female was related to the others but I do recall the mother and son being very close.
That would align with them being related. I don't see how Hamilton's pair were related otherwise unless it was through the breeding male being Dubbo born. Either way the only possibility is Branco being an uncle of Mrs Branco as I don't think the Tapir population at the time was that extensive. The first breeding pairs were only acquired in the 80's from what I've put together.
Also would make sense if Melbourne's came from the UK too. They seemed to have a lot of European connections at the time and received a lot of animals from there at that time.
It wouldn't make sense if the other female was another daughter of Melbourne's breeding pair. She would presumably be the younger sibling of Mendeze so it wouldn't make sense why she was separated from her parents and older brother. Maybe she was another female born at Adelaide or Dubbo? Or, maybe Dubbo's former breeding female?
If we assume Tupi was another 'breeding female' Talara *could* have mothered;
Alf (1991) or Mrs Branco (1991)
Tiapo (maybe 1994/5 ish?)
Tique (1998)
Chiquita (2002)
Marwell Zoo (who supplied Adelaide Zoo with Talara) may well have been the source of other founders like Melbourne’s imports. They were a prolific breeder and exporter of ungulates, with Australian zoos importing a number of species from here.
Adelaide Zoo didn’t name Mrs Branco. She arrived at Hamilton Zoo unnamed and later acquired the name Mrs Branco in relation to her mate. With this in mind, the sharing of initials doesn’t necessarily indicate a direct relationship between Adelaide bred tapir that shared an initial (e.g. Talara being the mother of Tupi/Tiapo over the other Adelaide female - which may have been Tupi in any case); though that’s not to say the original imports weren’t related e.g. through the Marwell line.
Another possibility is the imports were all (mainly) from Marwell. This would support Branco and Mrs Branco being potentially distantly related, ie. one of their parents each was a half sibling.
Melbourne did acquire a fair amount of animals from Marwell; Przewalksi Horse come to mind. Which were quarantined at Melbourne prior to their transfer to Werribee. It's possible Melbourne also acquired their Brazilian Tapir pair around this time too. It appears based on past maps they were acquired sometime between the early to mid 1980's.
I could well imagine all the Brazilian tapir imports being from Marwell. Inbreeding was less of a concern back then and cousins, half-siblings and even parents/offspring were readily bred together across the main zoos of the region - hippos, lions, tigers and giraffes all providing countless examples of this.
Marwell had a thriving Przewalski’s horse herd. They also supplied Pearl Coast Zoo with Grevy’s zebra and Scimitar-horned oryx to Orana etc. Wellington Zoo’s breeding male Siberian tiger even came from Marwell!
It would make sense as to why breeding was ceased rather quickly; even when breeding was only beginning to kick off in the late 90's and early 00's.
If the imports were all from Marwell and therefore already related they wouldn't have wanted further inbreeding by the time new perspectives dawned on inbreeding and the concerns it raised. Otherwise I don't see much of a reason why the likes of Melbourne decided to send their successful pair to Mogo where they wouldn't breed there and why the offspring of the founders were never paired up with one another after the founders subsequently passed away.
I have heard it suggested that female tapir’s fertility is impaired following long periods of non-breeding (as is the case for a number of ungulates). This is something that may not have been known to zoos holding them in the earlier decades, who willingly separated pairs with the intention to take a pause from breeding - unaware of the long term implications.
The upcoming imports should be well managed, hopefully will with more frequent breeding to a smaller number of pairs, which in turn supply non-breeding holders.
Thanks for finding out and sharing this piece of information Steve. It represents a valuable piece of the puzzle in our quest to find out more regarding the history of our region’s tapir.
The first surviving Brazilian tapir born at Adelaide Zoo was born April 1978, so this would have been Toby (initially mis-sexed as a female in the annual report). His parents were a male imported from San Diego Zoo in 1969; and a female transferred in in 1977 from Melbourne Zoo.
From your information, I would deduce Toby was a non-breeding tapir as he moved out of Dubbo in October 1988, two years ahead of the birth of Branco in October 1990. Gestation is 13 months, so it appears a new male was brought in within that timeframe (perhaps because Toby was a close relative of Branco’s mother). Additionally, Toby went to Taronga Zoo which to my knowledge never bred the species. He was likely a display animal due to being from a well represented line within the region.
Adelaide had two breeding females in 1991 (two calves were born). The non-Talara female may have been a close relative of Toby (mother or sister) rather than being imported. If she was Toby’s mother, she would have been at least mid-teens by 1991, explaining the decision to import a new breeding female (Talara) in 1990 and why there is scant info on said female (who may have died as far back as the mid-90’s).
Last edited:
@Patrick Keegan
Hey Patrick. Got a helpful reply from Adelaide Zoo about the Brazilian tapirs who were born there between 1987 and 1996:
Hey Patrick. Got a helpful reply from Adelaide Zoo about the Brazilian tapirs who were born there between 1987 and 1996:
Great work @steveroberts
The female born May 1991 was the female sent to Hamilton Zoo in 1992, where she was named ‘Mrs Branco’.
The fact two tapir were born at Adelaide Zoo in 1991 had us all wondering if they were born to separate mothers or whether they were twins (unlikely considering the mortality rate of twins). It’s great to have confirmation they were born to separate mothers - just 14 days apart!
Some impressively short birth intervals of 13-15 months.
Interesting, while neither Alf or Tiquie were brought to Darling Downs Zoo with the intention of breeding one of the keepers did say they had hopes for a miracle to happen when I visited for the first time in 2017. It also says her year of Birth was 1996 which contrasts with her supposed year of birth being 1998 unless all of this is a completely different Tiquie who just so happened to also be born at Adelaide Zoo.@Patrick Keegan
Hey Patrick. Got a helpful reply from Adelaide Zoo about the Brazilian tapirs who were born there between 1987 and 1996:
(F) Tupi (1994) would go on to Dam (M) Arturo (2006) At Taronga Western Plains Zoo and Adelaide Zoo claimed to intend to breed Him with Chiquita his Aunt (even though this was apparently a lie) so unless there was already some inbreeding going on years before it would seem this would've been the direction The regional Zoo's planned to go in if they weren't gonna import more.
Though it seems thankfully this breeding program will soon be revived with 3 seperate pairs planned to be paired that could theoretically sustain the region for at least three maybe four decades before another import or worst case but now least likely scenario inbreeding has to be undertaken.
I could also definitely see Hamilton and Maybe even Taronga who have held this species in the past to also come on board perhaps one more founding pair could be imported while the other takes one or two first generation offspring, Hunter Valley Wildlife park has previously housed Malayan Tapir so i definitely wouldn't say it'd be out of the question for them to take some interest in Acquiring at least one offspring if breeding is not immediately required the former Tapir enclosure is home to Capybara which make for good roommmates anyway.
Last edited:
Oh cool, thanks for the info about them.
Yeah wondering if slightly removed degrees of pairing related individuals for breeding was considered, like has happened with many other species - with not having our human odiums about doing so, just looking at it from a biological health and wellness ''weighing the risks'' point of view. But very much still the caution of health and general fitness factors with higher levels of homozygous genes increasing the odds of probelmatic deleterious recessive alleles being inherited (as far as personal understanding of the risk factors). But if managed without excessive compounded inbreeding over multiple generations the risks would be much lower. With populations of captive animals considered insurance populations for eventual rewilding efforts apparently have to be extra careful because of evolutionary fitness through genetic diversity, for long term survival if have too high levels of inbreeding coefficient percentage genes present in the populations.
But we all pretty much know about that anyway/been discussed before, so won't go on about it, just was reminded of whenever discussing planned pairings for species who come from a smaller founder base. You're right with the 3 planned pairings that are hopefully going to happen pretty soon, will be great and an exciting 'forecast' of Brazilian tapirs in Australia over the decades to come.
With Tiquie am wondering if was a typo and they meant to put down 11/01/1998 not 1996.
*Edit: wish had asked them about their tapirs in 1970s and late 1960s too.
Last edited:
Cheers for this Steve!@Patrick Keegan
Hey Patrick. Got a helpful reply from Adelaide Zoo about the Brazilian tapirs who were born there between 1987 and 1996:
It's interesting to see that Adelaide had multiple breeding females, but that was expected based on them welcoming two offspring in the same year in 1991.
I wonder where the individuals 'Raymond' and 'Jaquita' came from, and whether they were of any relation to Melbourne's breeding pair who were seemingly acquired circa. 1970's. Mendeze was born 1992 (at Melbourne). He later went back to Melbourne (probably around 1996) and then went on to Mogo.
It'll be interesting to know what happened to these Tapirs. Isabella didn't calf after 1991, indicating she perhaps passed away or was transferred out. She was perhaps transferred out to avoid inbreeding with her father again.
Would be nice if you could follow up on more of this. It's a good start though!
Adelaide’s first breeding pair were a male imported from San Diego Zoo in 1969; and a female transferred in in 1977 from Melbourne Zoo. Their first surviving calf was Toby (born April 1978), so it wouldn’t surprise me if Raymond (breeding male at Adelaide in the 80’s and 90’s) was either Toby’s sire or his younger brother (since neither had Brazilian names).
Jaquita in turn may have been the female transferred in from Melbourne Zoo in 1977. She last calved in 1988.
I just wonder sometimes as to why a species like the Tapir gets imported held by a number of holders, breeds well and finds itself allowed to die out and a few years later only to go through the time and trouble on importing yet again, something has to be wrong with the way they were managed?, was it so little cooperation between each holder or was it loss of focus from the SC or something else? Its seem a bit like the movie the "Ground hog day" just repeat and start again 
It's quite likely that the facilities wanted to avoid inbreeding, hence breeding essentially being halted by the 2000's. Imports should've honestly came decades ago, to continue the population, but I honestly think our region has the habit of simply loosing interest in a species when such investment has to be made to revive a population.I just wonder sometimes as to why a species like the Tapir gets imported held by a number of holders, breeds well and finds itself allowed to die out and a few years later only to go through the time and trouble on importing yet again, something has to be wrong with the way they were managed?, was it so little cooperation between each holder or was it loss of focus from the SC or something else? Its seem a bit like the movie the "Ground hog day" just repeat and start again
There were a lot of transfers, switching of breeding individuals, so I doubt it was due to little cooperation, although perhaps there was also the issue of also having to limit breeding due to regional capacity. I'm not sure how much space Dubbo had - but it's quite likely that they had to take on majority of the regions surplus.
Considering Raymond passed in the early 90's, it would make sense if he was indeed the San Diego male. It seems Melbourne followed the trend of giving their tapirs South American themed names, so I also wouldn't be surprised if Jacquita was Melbourne born.
It's possible Jacquita unexpectadly passed soon after she last calved, hence Adelaide electing to import Talara from the UK that same time.