Hippos in the USA

Z

Zebraduiker

Well-Known Member
I've seen during my two travels to the States in many zoos small and old hippo exhibits, mostly with just one or two hippos and no zoo is breeding now hippos in the USA. A few zoos will stop keeping them, whats the reason for that ? So I've seen old hippo enclosures at L.A.,Fort Worth,Cleveland,San Antonio and Detroit and some formely hippo exhibits, which are now being used for other species, Dallas Zoo for example.

Just a few Zoos in the States have build new exhibits for hippos, San Diego,Toledo,Saint Louis or now San Antonio( does anybody have seen yet this new exhibit at the San Antonio Zoo and can post some pictures ? )

Why the other zoos didn't do that also ? What are the plans for hippos at Fort Worth and L.a ? And why no Us-Zoo is breeding hippos ? Disney has bought all european hippos , which they could get in 1997..
 
Hippos are being bred in the US, there was a birth not long ago at the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Pensacola, FL. There is a problem of hippos with unknown pedigrees, and the situation is currently being sorted out before any official plans are being made. River Hippos have a good future in the US. Like zebraduiker mentioned San Diego, Toledo, San Antonio, and St Louis have more modern hippo exhibits. Other newer hippo exhibits include:

Disney
Busch Gardens
Adventure Aquarium
Honolulu Zoo
Ellen Trout Zoo (Lufkin, TX)
Rio Grande Zoo (Albuquerque, NM)

The new San Antonio facility was opened this year and the following plan to build new hippo exhibits in the future:

Milwaukee County Zoo - 2009
Memphis Zoo - 2010
Dallas Zoo - 2011
Sedgwick County Zoo
Columbus Zoo - 2012
Woodland Park Zoo
Houston Zoo
Little Rock Zoo
Birmingham Zoo - 2010?
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

I think current holding space is also a problem. Once the space expands with the new exhibits, Im sure breeding and the numbers will grow. From what I hear hippo breeding is so easy, the male just has to look at the female to get her pregnant, lol. As for the new construction, hippos havent really been a priority in large-scale new exhibit construction across the country like apes, big cats, and elephants have.
 
Are there any large Hippo herds in the US other than just breeding pairs or Trios?
 
DAK is the only facility with a large pod of hippos. The Leon Zoo in Mexico also a a large herd, but not in the numbers that DAK has.
 
I found out about a month ago that LA and SD zoo will be trading male hippos, but I don't know when that'll happen.
 
Regarding the future of hippos in LA, I'm not really sure what will happen. The original plan was to built a new hippo exhibit that was going to be called "Kiboko Cove", but due to the orginal elephant exhibit being too small, the zoo decided to use the hippo space to make the elephant exhibit bigger. Now that we only have one male, I don't even know what will happen.
 
okapikpr said:
Hippos are being bred in the US, there was a birth not long ago at the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Pensacola, FL. There is a problem of hippos with unknown pedigrees, and the situation is currently being sorted out before any official plans are being made. River Hippos have a good future in the US. Like zebraduiker mentioned San Diego, Toledo, San Antonio, and St Louis have more modern hippo exhibits. Other newer hippo exhibits include:

Disney
Busch Gardens
Adventure Aquarium
Honolulu Zoo
Ellen Trout Zoo (Lufkin, TX)
Rio Grande Zoo (Albuquerque, NM)

The new San Antonio facility was opened this year and the following plan to build new hippo exhibits in the future:

Milwaukee County Zoo - 2009
Memphis Zoo - 2010
Dallas Zoo - 2011
Sedgwick County Zoo
Columbus Zoo - 2012
Woodland Park Zoo
Houston Zoo
Little Rock Zoo
Birmingham Zoo - 2010?
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

I think current holding space is also a problem. Once the space expands with the new exhibits, Im sure breeding and the numbers will grow. From what I hear hippo breeding is so easy, the male just has to look at the female to get her pregnant, lol. As for the new construction, hippos havent really been a priority in large-scale new exhibit construction across the country like apes, big cats, and elephants have.
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Thanx okapikpr,

I suppose the hippos fall in a separate category when it comes to TAG decisions and collection planning?

Since, the new IUCN Red List for mammals came out on 6/10/2008 I suppose we can rearrange collection plans accordingly. Hippos are now classed as Vulnerable down from relatively secure (Least Concern) with 10-20% population declines in Africa and decreasing trends. The total population estimate is yet 125,000 minimum (but that is down from an 1993/4 estimate of 160,000.

Re: LA Zoo. It is rather sad that hippos seem to be squeezed out by the new elephant habitat development (I will discuss that furthr in the LA Elephant redevelopment thread). It seems other zoos are not yet focussing on hippos that much even though they have high profile public viewing/exhibition value (1 of several selection criteria for the collection planning process).l

I personally favour that hippos are assembled into larger herds at selected zoos with sufficient water's edge space replicating its gregarious nature as a species in the wild. That would entail an average zoo holding 1.3 or 1.4 hippos with 3-5 offspring.

Any chance of that happening with the AZA/SSP world before long? :confused:
 
I raised the idea of concentrating herds of hippos into 1.4 at least in larger exhibits while on a work visit to san diego. This from what i heard was just not going to happen unless there was a large rise in the captive population whether it be through import and so on as not many zoo's are willing to give up the hippo. Here in Australiasian region only 4 zoo's have hippos that are part of our region (a private zoo in cairns owns a male and female) The two zoo's breeding the hippos are open range facilities with groups around 1.4. The two others display 1.1 and 1.2. This move to exhibit fewer hippos has shown that hippo's don't effect visitor numbers at all and the move to concentrate herds is a good idea, exhibits just need to be kicked up.
 
zooworker said:
I raised the idea of concentrating herds of hippos into 1.4 at least in larger exhibits while on a work visit to san diego. This from what i heard was just not going to happen unless there was a large rise in the captive population whether it be through import and so on as not many zoo's are willing to give up the hippo. Here in Australiasian region only 4 zoo's have hippos that are part of our region (a private zoo in cairns owns a male and female) The two zoo's breeding the hippos are open range facilities with groups around 1.4. The two others display 1.1 and 1.2. This move to exhibit fewer hippos has shown that hippo's don't effect visitor numbers at all and the move to concentrate herds is a good idea, exhibits just need to be kicked up.
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I realise there is a socio-political element here on the part of individual zoos. However, the TAG - which probably okapikprt or another zoo community individual from the US can testify - decides what species composition the SSP/AZA will be looking at over the next decade. The individual TAG-recommendations are then laid over individual zoos exhibit development and collection plans and that makes for a particular outcome.

Now zoos for that matter are not copy cats and it is no big deal that some zoos will not be able to exhibit hippos if they do realise that 0.1 or 2.1 is not a particularly valid use of exhibit space. I suppose it is very much a fluid thing that will level out over time (in Europe we have this scenario with white rhino in small holdings vs. phase out policy from small holdings - as stipulated by the Rhino TAG - in favour of solitary-pairwise maintained black and Indian rhinos).

okapikpr: what ssp. definitions is the SSP/AZA looking at for common hippo Hippopotamus amphibius?
 
I know how the program works, i've been a keeper for 15 years. What i was trying to say is that i would think nothing much is going to change really unless a zoo decides to build a hippo facility on the scale of elephant developments that have been going through of late. Every single hippo facility i've seen in the US, which is major zoo's, san diego, national, oregon, saint louis and so on all have exhibits and holding facilites not suited to maintaining larger herds. I know the national zoo is giving up their male hippo, don't know where he's going yet however. Zoo's are unlikely to get out of the current 1.2 rut that they are in just due to the space and facilities required
 
@Jelle - River Hippos in the US are part of a PMP not an SSP. The Studbook is a mess with plently of unknowns in the pedigree. Maybe when things clear up they could possibly become an SSP. As for the comments refering to TAGs, they really arent regulatory committees. TAGs send out surveys to zoos and the data return is made into a document called a Regional Collection Plan. From this data, the TAG will determine in the RCP the status of a certain species captive population and reccommend any changes that need to be made. An SSP/PMP coordinator will use these reccommendations to make decisions in the population. Now from here these are all reccommendations to the zoos. Zoos will decide what ever they want to, but often they will abide by these rec's for the betterment of the species in captivity. For zoos looking to acquire a certain taxa, they can use the RCP to possibly choose what species they want - maybe joining a successful species program, or helping to increase spaces in a struggling, but possibly very attractive species program.

@zooworker - Hippos may not increase visitor attendance (calves might though), but they can really move visitors to a certain part of the zoo. Im sure you know, put a hippo exhibit (especially with underwater viewing) in the back of the zoo...and you are sure to get plenty of traffic back there. I also agree with you completely that there needs to be an increase in hippo holdings. From the trends that I can noticed in new construction, many (though not all) hippo holders in the US have increased their space from 1.1 to 1.2.1 in many places. But they could do better, especially bigger zoos. DAK does it best with holding 8.9 right now, and Toledo has 2.4 i think. Houston plans to have a similar group to Toledo, but that's it for larger numbers. Personally I think it will be another 20-30 years before we see an increase in hippos holdings above 1.2 per zoo. Unless activists get the hippo bug, or wild populations take bigger hits.

There is currently a push to increase pygmy hippo holdings. This species is maintained as an SSP. This may have a negative impact for River Hippos, not many zoos would be willing to exhibit both species. Pygmies are smaller, require less space and food. And visitors still get to see a hippo. A lot of smaller zoos are going this route.
 
Does pedigree matter in hippo's? Are there known subspecies? Or are you just mentioning this because of possible inbreeding in the past?
 
jwer said:
Does pedigree matter in hippo's? Are there known subspecies? Or are you just mentioning this because of possible inbreeding in the past?
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Subspecies is not the issue. There is a lack of records, since many hippos are descendants of privately owned hippos. There may be inbreeding an we just dont know. Only 51% of the pedigree is known for US hippopotamus. (as of 2006)
 
okapikpr said:
Subspecies is not the issue. There is a lack of records, since many hippos are descendants of privately owned hippos. There may be inbreeding an we just dont know. Only 51% of the pedigree is known for US hippopotamus. (as of 2006)
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If the common hippo is an PMP does it entail that genetics research may be incorporated into the studbook? Paternity and maternity testing to delineate individual breeding lines could then be accomplished using their DNA (it is a costly affair ... though).

In Europe, one of the Central European zoos has invested heavily in researching the genetic lineages in the common hippo. They are quite advanced in this, yet we have still to experience zoos going for large common hippo exhibits (allthough a few good one like Kobenhavn, Berlin Zoo, Hannover and Antwerpen have happened).

Re TAG's: I was fully aware the TAG collection planning is a policy document and participation in these is strictly voluntary. But I always thought that somehow they acted as regulatory body with defining individual spaces for different spaces, and hence the success of coop breeding programmes. So, this is not the case ...

Good to see though that smaller zoos with lesser hippo holding spaces are opting for pygmy hippos - which are incidentally more endangered than common hippos - and that would be fully in line with a policy to have larger zoos invest in commons and those that cannot provide for a common hippo family grouping into the West-African species.

What are the recommendations eminating from the common hippo PMP?
 
If the common hippo is an PMP does it entail that genetics research may be incorporated into the studbook? Paternity and maternity testing to delineate individual breeding lines could then be accomplished using their DNA (it is a costly affair ... though).
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There is no money for this. Especially since, river hippos are not a conservation priority.

What are the recommendations eminating from the common hippo PMP?
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Fixing the studbook. Because of the problems associated with unknown pedigrees, the PMP manager has asked that zoos wishing to breed contact him. I would assume to give the PMP manager a heads up on what the zoos' intend to do.
 
It's interesting how the solitary male hippo at the Los Angeles Zoo hasn't had a new exhibit built because of the elephant habitat construction, and also at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. the river and pygmy hippos will all be shipped to other zoos as construction moves along on the massive elephant exhibit that opens in 2011.
 
mstickmanp said:
I found out about a month ago that LA and SD zoo will be trading male hippos, but I don't know when that'll happen.
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This is an important move. San Diego has been breeding hippos well over the last ten years. However, their male's pedigree is only 75% known leaving his offspring with 87.5% known...and still somewhat useless to the breeding population. Los Angeles' male hippo is wild born, thus has a 100% known pedigree since he is a founder. Any further breeding at San Diego will then produce genetically sound offspring (their female is 100% known).
 
snowleopard said:
It's interesting how the solitary male hippo at the Los Angeles Zoo hasn't had a new exhibit built because of the elephant habitat construction
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The reason why the LA zoo decided not to build a new elephant exhibit was because activist were saying that the elephant exhibit was too small (about 2 acres, same as SD zoo's new elephant exhibit will be). So the LA zoo decided to not build the new hippo in order to make the elephant exhibit even bigger (3.5 acres plus the barn).
 
Seeing from what's happening here in Australia compared to america, it's become apparent that zoo's in the US are begining to take hippo's for granted. In Australia the only zoo's that keep activly breeding groups of hippo's upgrade facilities with a major exhibit being built recently at werribee which has trumped any other hippo facility i've seen. In the US hippo's are still in simply yards with small pools in the 1.1 situation. This drastically needs to change. It was the same with elephants but is now changing.
 
zooworker said:
Seeing from what's happening here in Australia compared to america, it's become apparent that zoo's in the US are begining to take hippo's for granted. In Australia the only zoo's that keep activly breeding groups of hippo's upgrade facilities with a major exhibit being built recently at werribee which has trumped any other hippo facility i've seen. In the US hippo's are still in simply yards with small pools in the 1.1 situation. This drastically needs to change. It was the same with elephants but is now changing.
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Zooworker,

I do not agree with you on this one. In the US the main stumbling block to a concerted effort to manage the common hippo population is the lack of reliable origin data and incomplete record-keeping. That is the exact reason why - as okapikpr mentioned - a PMP has been established and a zoo staff member has been assigned to open and maintain a studbook.

If and when the issues explained by okapikpr have been clarified and addressed properly can AZA/SSP decide what course of action is required for the common hippos inside US/Canadian zoos and give them a proper placing in the Hippo/Tapir TAG planning exercise. Part of that effort is also to look at the availability of spaces for hippo species and how best to make use of the tight resources on hand.

It is unjust to compare the Australian situation to either that within the SSP and/or EEP as so few common hippos are based in Australia anyway (and to pick the elephants into the debate is even a more startling matter as Australian zoos are not confronted heavily with elder elephants that are incapable of breeding nor do they face the severe space constraints that are operating either in the SSP or EEP).

And if it is any question to you ... I do not mind critiscism at all, it just requires the right perspective on things and a sound evaluation of the data in hand. That is obviously also the reason why I take quite a lot of notice of what zooplantman, okapikpr, snowleopard and mstickman throw out us regarding US and Canadian zoos (some even with a direct inside eye on the issues at hand). So, it is fine to disagree on subject matter, but please stay with the facts and let those speak for themselves ...).

To suffice: the common hippo has only been upgraded to its present category since the new Red List based upon a 2005 re-evaluation. Zoos tend to take the long term view and insist on the full facts, so it takes time for these facts to filter through to plan and build new exhibits as well as form new coop breeding programmes.
 
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