Generic mammals in zoos

steveroberts said:
@Zoofan15 Agree, not a fan of crossing Siberian with Malayan like you said or any of the other crossovers (can sort of accept Bengal/Siberian {kind-of accept} but still think Siberians should be preserved just as Siberians just like Malayan etc, get the feeling South China Tigers are on their last stretch, not wishing to be pessimist about it just heard all captive SC Tigers are now very inbred, although think saw comments on a thread somewhere on here that there's a selective breeding program that although has to breed individuals who are somehow related if all the population is inbred, there can be a monitored program where after several generations there is more genetic diversity again, so if true here's hoping that gets used).
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I think the problem will largely take care of itself. North American manages three tiger subspecies - Siberian, Malayan and Sumatran. The latter is seperate even under the new classification system and they’ve continued to maintain separate breeding populations of Siberian and Malayan tigers, which are bred in European and Asian zoos respectively.

Some of the other subspecies are held in Asian zoos, such as the South China tiger - but there’s no established regional population outside of Asia.

In any case, I believe it’s too early to make irreversible decisions to hybridise what have been recognised as distinct subspecies for decades.
 
@Zoofan15

Such a relief to hear, yeah would be non-sensical if they did rush in to start hybridizing and mixing say Siberians tigers with Malayan tigers (who look as distinctly different to one another as they do to Sumatran tigers, even if they do have almost identical dna you're so right as you mentioned earlier, still tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of years of separation between Malayan and Siberian populations/clades, I guess the Sumatran tigers just have even more dna/genetic variation albeit same species because of Sumatra's separation from mainland Asia for even longer).

re: South China Tigers - yeah saw mention about them only kept in zoos in Asia (mainly China or possibly entirely confined to zoos in China) when tried to read about their ex-situ conservation status online about five or six years ago, think remember seeing some mention that some South African zoos expressed interest but never found out what happened to their requests.
 
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Here's some information about the Laohu Valley Reserve: Laohu Valley Reserve - Wikipedia.

I still feel that conservationists need to be realistic about tigers. If they intend to preserve pure subspecies for rewilding, they don't need to keep hybrids. If they have no intention of rewilding tigers, there is little point in keeping subspecies pure.

In either case, there are thousands of species that would benefit from captive breeding, even if zoo marketing departments don't know of their existence.
 
Generic zebra are another interesting one. The majority of Australasia’s zoos are content to hybridise the subspecies of Plains zebra.

Like the tigers, these individuals are highly unlikely to return the wild (and are not endangered); yet I feel like an effort should be made to maintain purebred herds of Grant’s zebra when it’s so easy to do so.

We hybridise giraffe out of necessity. For the past 25 years, New Zealand has been unable to import giraffe and Australia is still without a giraffe IRA - but zebra have not been subject to these restrictions and could have easily been imported.
 
Zoofan15 said:
Generic zebra are another interesting one. The majority of Australasia’s zoos are content to hybridise the subspecies of Plains zebra.

Like the tigers, these individuals are highly unlikely to return the wild (and are not endangered); yet I feel like an effort should be made to maintain purebred herds of Grant’s zebra when it’s so easy to do so.

We hybridise giraffe out of necessity. For the past 25 years, New Zealand has been unable to import giraffe and Australia is still without a giraffe IRA - but zebra have not been subject to these restrictions and could have easily been imported.
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Even putting the maintaining pure species/subspecies aside, the matter of inbreeding that has occurred should have been a matter of concern. It seems to appear that doing less is preferred is the better option, why import when inbreeding is less work, time, money and effort as long as a few animals are there for Joe public to look at?. At the end of the day it comes back to the management mindset of what is important to them.
 
Zorro said:
Even putting the maintaining pure species/subspecies aside, the matter of inbreeding that has occurred should have been a matter of concern. It seems to appear that doing less is preferred is the better option, why import when inbreeding is less work, time, money and effort as long as a few animals are there for Joe public to look at?. At the end of the day it comes back to the management mindset of what is important to them.
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In the case of Plains zebras, hybridisation has been chosen over inbreeding. Auckland and Hamilton Zoo once maintained purebred herds of Grant’s zebra, that by the end were mildly inbred. Rather than continue with these herds, they sourced unrelated generic Plains zebra and hybridised. In an ideal world, neither inbreeding or hybridising these zebra herds would have occurred, but like you say - it would have no impact on visitation.
 
To be fair — there’s a very good chance that the “purebred” Grant’s zebras imported from the United States were not truly “purebred” anyways. The vast majority of the American plains zebra population is hybridized, even those labeled as “Grant’s”. This is why they are managed at species level by the AZA/SSP. That combined with conservation status is why they are marked as phase out in favor of Hartmann’s or Grevy’s.
 
This is an interesting discussion thread, but in my view most Zoochatters take the whole subspecies question far too seriously. My thoughts:

1. A tiger is a tiger and if it's housed in a zoo just call it a tiger. The vast majority of tigers bred in zoos are NEVER EVER going to be released into the wild to create a breeding population. Unless they are going to be released does it really matter if they are generic or not? It would be different if they were going to be released though.... That said, don't label them as "Bengal Tigers" if they aren't Bengal Tigers - just call them tigers.

2. If you had an African leopard and a Sri Lankan leopard in two adjacent enclosures and you didn't know which was which, how many people on this forum could confidently tell me which was which? Do the same for a Sumatran Orangutan and Bornean Orangutan, as well as a Nepalese Red Panda and the other type of Red Panda, etc etc...

3. Blackbuck in African Savannah exhibits: This annoys me a bit - but then on the other hand, Taronga Zoo has Fennec Fox in their African Savannah exhibit even though they are a desert species (not a savannah species) while Werribee has gorillas (a rainforest species) while every other African species in the zoo is from the savannah or desert. Zoos are never going to recreate wild habitats perfectly, so I don't think it's a huge problem if they aren't always geographically accurate with these things. That said, blackbuck on an African savannah is pushing the friendship a bit too far in my view.

4. Hybridization vs inbreeding: I will take hybridization every day of the week. The vast majority of large mammals in zoos are ambassadors of their species and are not part of any insurance population to be released back into the wild.

5. Curious question: What are your thoughts on a Sri Lankan leopard labelled as a "Leopard" in the "African Predator" section of a zoo alongside lions, cheetahs, cape hunting dogs and hyenas? Personally, I have no problem with it - as long as it is displayed as a "Leopard".
 
Grant Rhino said:
This is an interesting discussion thread, but in my view most Zoochatters take the whole subspecies question far too seriously. My thoughts:

1. A tiger is a tiger and if it's housed in a zoo just call it a tiger. The vast majority of tigers bred in zoos are NEVER EVER going to be released into the wild to create a breeding population. Unless they are going to be released does it really matter if they are generic or not? It would be different if they were going to be released though.... That said, don't label them as "Bengal Tigers" if they aren't Bengal Tigers - just call them tigers.

2. If you had an African leopard and a Sri Lankan leopard in two adjacent enclosures and you didn't know which was which, how many people on this forum could confidently tell me which was which? Do the same for a Sumatran Orangutan and Bornean Orangutan, as well as a Nepalese Red Panda and the other type of Red Panda, etc etc...

3. Blackbuck in African Savannah exhibits: This annoys me a bit - but then on the other hand, Taronga Zoo has Fennec Fox in their African Savannah exhibit even though they are a desert species (not a savannah species) while Werribee has gorillas (a rainforest species) while every other African species in the zoo is from the savannah or desert. Zoos are never going to recreate wild habitats perfectly, so I don't think it's a huge problem if they aren't always geographically accurate with these things. That said, blackbuck on an African savannah is pushing the friendship a bit too far in my view.

4. Hybridization vs inbreeding: I will take hybridization every day of the week. The vast majority of large mammals in zoos are ambassadors of their species and are not part of any insurance population to be released back into the wild.

5. Curious question: What are your thoughts on a Sri Lankan leopard labelled as a "Leopard" in the "African Predator" section of a zoo alongside lions, cheetahs, cape hunting dogs and hyenas? Personally, I have no problem with it - as long as it is displayed as a "Leopard".
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I agree with most of your views here especially regarding having Indian Blackbuck displayed in a African savanna exhibit this smacks of a lazy cheap co-out to myself. The same as in the past of the displaying asian water buffalo in the African savanna exhibit at Werribee park zoo.

One of the main problems for Australian zoos over the years was the many restrictions placed upon them with regards to what could be imported that's why species which are termed African tend to be bunched together in the African section even though some are really desert species and others forest species, it was more the case of filling the gaps in a limited collection.

I believe, if possible sub species should be kept seperate where possible as one can never rule out that one day some of these species might well be use for reintroduction as has happened with many species over the years, With the world population now spilling over the 8 billion mark many species are under pressure because of this, however rewilding is taking place worldwide including reintroducing the European bison from zoo bred stock back into the UK, as there was with the red wolf in Mexico so yes lets keep them pure in case in the future they need to go back to the native habitats.
 
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Grant Rhino said:
This is an interesting discussion thread, but in my view most Zoochatters take the whole subspecies question far too seriously. My thoughts:

1. A tiger is a tiger and if it's housed in a zoo just call it a tiger. The vast majority of tigers bred in zoos are NEVER EVER going to be released into the wild to create a breeding population. Unless they are going to be released does it really matter if they are generic or not? It would be different if they were going to be released though.... That said, don't label them as "Bengal Tigers" if they aren't Bengal Tigers - just call them tigers.

2. If you had an African leopard and a Sri Lankan leopard in two adjacent enclosures and you didn't know which was which, how many people on this forum could confidently tell me which was which? Do the same for a Sumatran Orangutan and Bornean Orangutan, as well as a Nepalese Red Panda and the other type of Red Panda, etc etc...

3. Blackbuck in African Savannah exhibits: This annoys me a bit - but then on the other hand, Taronga Zoo has Fennec Fox in their African Savannah exhibit even though they are a desert species (not a savannah species) while Werribee has gorillas (a rainforest species) while every other African species in the zoo is from the savannah or desert. Zoos are never going to recreate wild habitats perfectly, so I don't think it's a huge problem if they aren't always geographically accurate with these things. That said, blackbuck on an African savannah is pushing the friendship a bit too far in my view.

4. Hybridization vs inbreeding: I will take hybridization every day of the week. The vast majority of large mammals in zoos are ambassadors of their species and are not part of any insurance population to be released back into the wild.

5. Curious question: What are your thoughts on a Sri Lankan leopard labelled as a "Leopard" in the "African Predator" section of a zoo alongside lions, cheetahs, cape hunting dogs and hyenas? Personally, I have no problem with it - as long as it is displayed as a "Leopard".
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I too have no objection to seeing a Fennec fox within an African precinct - though I’d prefer it to be labelled as an African precinct rather than a Savannah precinct. Auckland Zoo similarly have Hamadryas baboon (North Africa) following on from their Savannah exhibits.

I would also have no problem seeing Eastern bongo displayed in an open range zoo which otherwise focuses solely on Savannah species. They’re from Africa and while not a Savannah species, the wide open spaces would allow them to be kept in a herd which is preferable to maintaining a 1.1 pair in a Congo precinct.

I dislike seeing Indian antelope in an African Savannah exhibit. Compromising biome accuracy within a continent is one thing; but misleading visitors into thinking an animal is from a different continent is another. You might as well have Indian rhinoceros displayed with zebra; or an Emu with giraffes. The modern zoo is supposed to educate.

I would also object to seeing a Sri Lankan leopard in an African predator precinct - even if labelled as leopard. Call it a predator precinct and display tigers and leopards from Asia; lions and wild dogs from Africa by all means.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I too have no objection to seeing a Fennec fox within an African precinct - though I’d prefer it to be labelled as an African precinct rather than a Savannah precinct. Auckland Zoo similarly have Hamadryas baboon (North Africa) following on from their Savannah exhibits.

I would also have no problem seeing Eastern bongo displayed in an open range zoo which otherwise focuses solely on Savannah species. They’re from Africa and while not a Savannah species, the wide open spaces would allow them to be kept in a herd which is preferable to maintaining a 1.1 pair in a Congo precinct.

I dislike seeing Indian antelope in an African Savannah exhibit. Compromising biome accuracy within a continent is one thing; but misleading visitors into thinking an animal is from a different continent is another. You might as well have Indian rhinoceros displayed with zebra; or an Emu with giraffes. The modern zoo is supposed to educate.

I would also object to seeing a Sri Lankan leopard in an African predator precinct - even if labelled as leopard. Call it a predator precinct and display tigers and leopards from Asia; lions and wild dogs from Africa by all means.
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@Zoofan15 . A little like Australia zoos bindi island where one can find Aldabra Tortoises, Lemurs, Snapping Turtles and Macaws ect. Perhaps a new UN exhibit. :D
 
Great Apes

Personally, I support how great apes are managed in Australasia:

Orangutans:

Bornean orangutan and Sumatran orangutan are no longer hybridised. This makes complete sense are they’re different species and it’s theoretically possible to release them into the wild. Perth Zoo have released three Sumatran orangutan to date.

An international moratorium on breeding hybrids has been in place for decades and fortunately came at a time when it was possible to salvage purebred lines from within the captive population. Taronga was the worst affected in Australasia, having founded their colony with two Bornean males and two Sumatran females.

Our eldest hybrid is 44 years old and bearing in mind this species can live for up to 60 years, it’s important to maintain what we’ve worked hard to achieve since the moratorium was actioned.

Chimpanzee:

The region maintains a population of generic chimpanzee, with multiple subspecies represented. I have no problem with this as unlike with the orangutans, it’s not realistic to undo the hybridisation that’s already occurred.

Social dynamics are critical to how this species is managed. To streamline a generic troop into a purebred troop would take decades and require new males and new females to be introduced - the former of which is near impossible without removing adult males (a problem in itself given they’re in low demand). Additionally, this contradicts the female dispersal pattern zoos attempt to replicate.

For interest’s sake, I’d support genetic testing to establish the genetic makeup of the region’s population; but this would be for research purposes rather than for the purpose of using this information to streamline what accidental purebreds it may throw up into a single troop.

Additionally, there’s little to no possibility of chimpanzees being released back into the wild. They’re heavily dependent on the support of their troop and any reintroduction attempts would likely be disastrous.
 
Why is the view that tigers are just two subspecies, one consisting of morphological variations throughout range, which is commonly seen in many widespread carnivores so unaccepted currently? It enables increased support for wild tiger conservation using the two distinct groups and was endorsed by the IUCN cat specialist group.
However the likelihood of any tiger being released into the wild from any zoo is almost certainly 0 so the benefits of a managed subspecies population are negligible

I do think hybridisation in Australian zoos is unfortunately a consequence of our global location and import regulations however when coupled with the constant inbreeding practiced by so many zoos in Aus it has led to a lot of problems in many of the managed species here.
 
Babirusa said:
Why is the view that tigers are just two subspecies, one consisting of morphological variations throughout range, which is commonly seen in many widespread carnivores so unaccepted currently? It enables increased support for wild tiger conservation using the two distinct groups and was endorsed by the IUCN cat specialist group.
However the likelihood of any tiger being released into the wild from any zoo is almost certainly 0 so the benefits of a managed subspecies population are negligible

I do think hybridisation in Australian zoos is unfortunately a consequence of our global location and import regulations however when coupled with the constant inbreeding practiced by so many zoos in Aus it has led to a lot of problems in many of the managed species here.
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I believe there is/was plans to reintroduce the Chinese sub species back to its native range from captive bred animals kept is Chinese zoos, I believe some were sent to a place in South Africa for rewilding and training them to hunt for release
 
Zorro said:
I believe there is/was plans to reintroduce the Chinese sub species back to its native range from captive bred animals kept is Chinese zoos, I believe some were sent to a place in South Africa for rewilding and training them to hunt for release
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Sending tigers to South Africa to learn how to survive in southern China is not in any way helping Tiger conservation, the reclassification supports reintroduction of animals into areas were they were formerly found, the most obvious case being the reintroduction of wild Sumatran tigers to Java
 
Babirusa said:
The reclassification supports reintroduction of animals into areas were they were formerly found, the most obvious case being the reintroduction of wild Sumatran tigers to Java
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Return of the Caspian tiger:

There’s also the reintroduction of Siberian tigers into the range once occupied by the Caspian tiger. This reintroduction shows the most promise with a 35 year plan in place:

Wild Tiger Population Could Be Reintroduced in Kazakhstan by 2025, Says Expert - The Astana Times

The first stage (preparation of the habitat) has already begun with the release of ungulates:

Last year in July, 61 Bukhara deer were released, so today there are more than 150 animals in the reserve,” said Kholov. “It is planned that by 2025 the populations of wild boar, roe deer, gazelles, and kulans will be formed to provide approximately 25-30 ungulates per 1,000 hectares, which is over 3,500 animals in the area. Considering that one tiger needs around 60 large ungulates per year, food will be provided with a large supply.”

The second phase will involve the reintroduction of the tigers; followed by monitoring as part of the third phase:

The second stage of the program will run from five to seven years with the release of 10 to 20 animals. During the third stage – the monitoring stage – the entire ecosystem will be monitored enabling prompt response to any problems detected.
 
Babirusa said:
Sending tigers to South Africa to learn how to survive in southern China is not in any way helping Tiger conservation, the reclassification supports reintroduction of animals into areas were they were formerly found, the most obvious case being the reintroduction of wild Sumatran tigers to Java
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Ok let me explain, They were being trained in South Africa to hunt and live wild for later release back into china not in Africa!
 
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