Colchester Zoo Blue Duiker dies

Javan Rhino

Javan Rhino

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Colchester's Cameroon blue duiker (Philantomba monticola schultzei) 'Sapphire' has been put to sleep after an untreatable illness. Very sad news for the zoo and the staff of course, but also a great loss for the UK zoo scene, with her being the only duiker in the UK. Let's hope that these can return soon and become an established part of UK collections.
 
The USA and Europe seem oddly apart when comes to Duikers. A quick look at ISIS just revealed to me that seeing almost any Duiker species would be a major sight in Europe. Meanwhile, during my tour of 26 American zoos in September last year, I almost started taking a Duiker of some kind for granted (and sometimes even more than one species) particulary Yellow-backed Duikers when I was in Texas and Oklahoma. They seemed to be everywhere and were mixed with all sorts of things, usually Okapis.
 
Baldur said:
The USA and Europe seem oddly apart when comes to Duikers. A quick look at ISIS just revealed to me that seeing almost any Duiker species would be a major sight in Europe. Meanwhile, during my tour of 26 American zoos in September last year, I almost started taking a Duiker of some kind for granted (and sometimes even more than one species) particulary Yellow-backed Duikers when I was in Texas and Oklahoma. They seemed to be everywhere and were mixed with all sorts of things, usually Okapis.
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Conversely, I was amazed to see Madagascan jumping rats, various elephant shrews and moose in numerous European collections--all fairly rare in the US. Among rarities, brown hyenas, bush dogs and giant river otters seem to be more widely distributed in Europe as well.
 
reduakari said:
Conversely, I was amazed to see Madagascan jumping rats, various elephant shrews and moose in numerous European collections--all fairly rare in the US. Among rarities, brown hyenas, bush dogs and giant river otters seem to be more widely distributed in Europe as well.
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This is correct - there can be major extremes in either direction. I could name a number of examples and so could most others.
 
Over the past 30 years i can only think of the blue duiker at Colchester and i think Marwell had one at one point, Maxwell's duiker at Edinburgh and again a single specimen at Marwell, common duiker i believe were held at Dublin and red duiker at Chester.

Not a great record.
 
So what's the story with this animal? She was elderly, right? I seem to remember ISIS suggested Colchester had something like 4.1 for several years, did they ever breed at Colchester before dying out?

Are they planning on acquiring any more?
 
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