How do zoos aquire their animals?
- Thread starter Dom
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taun
Well-Known Member
True,
Where breeding loans are intiated, it usually falls that the first born goes to one collections, than the second goes to another.
Sometimes they are swapped but maybe for another species.
Soemstimes they are bought.
Its a very difficult question to answer as there are quite a few ways to acquire animals.
Yes, as was said, the difficulty lies in that there is not one answer. Animals are bought and sold, sometimes directly from other zoos or sometimes through dealers. Many animals are loaned or traded, the terms of which varies by situation. Most animals originate in zoos or other captive situations, but some are still taken from the wild, but the circumstances of that also varies greatly.
The majority of transfers occur in the loaning of animals between institutions...from a legal/financial standpoint, this can often be the most effective in retaining/growing the assests of the zoo since half of any future offspring of said animal would be owned by that zoo.
djaeon
Well-Known Member
I'd say write that question down at the top of a word doc. Then write a list of possible ways any given zoo can acquire animals underneath. The answer will be "All of the Above".
Up until say 40 or 50 or so years ago, almost all zoo animals came out of the wild. Whether the zoo went to get them themselves, they bought them from a dealer or people on safari brought animals back to their local zoo. Any breeding in a zoo was probably done out of luck. Then animals started getting harder to find and dealers started charging more and more money. Zoos started getting the seeds of an idea that maybe wild populations of these animals might be getting scarce, and so conservationist ideas, captive breeding programs and SSP's were eventually born. I think these days most animals in zoos come from trades with other zoos and breeding programs, and far fewer animals come out of the wild. But the "All of the Above" answer is still probably the most correct.
Up until say 40 or 50 or so years ago, almost all zoo animals came out of the wild. Whether the zoo went to get them themselves, they bought them from a dealer or people on safari brought animals back to their local zoo. Any breeding in a zoo was probably done out of luck. Then animals started getting harder to find and dealers started charging more and more money. Zoos started getting the seeds of an idea that maybe wild populations of these animals might be getting scarce, and so conservationist ideas, captive breeding programs and SSP's were eventually born. I think these days most animals in zoos come from trades with other zoos and breeding programs, and far fewer animals come out of the wild. But the "All of the Above" answer is still probably the most correct.
It's interesting that the 6 young females came directly from Africa at Valencia Bio parc.
I would guess that money directly change hands here.
It concerns me as this was probably not in the best interest for them.
Also that it seems to have happened with a zoo that is privately owned and yet has strong relationships with the world wide zoo community.
Sun Wukong
Well-Known Member
I wish most zoos, or rather, the people in charge back then, had been that noble and thoughtful; the reality was a little different. Starting in 1960s and increasingly in the 1970s/80s, the Environmental movement became more and more prominent in Western society, resulting in public pressure also in regard to zoos and the animal trade. As a result, CITES and similar resultions came into existence, making the legal (and partly also the illegal) commercial trading of animals more difficult for all involved. That, together with a changing public attitude torwards zoo husbandry and the trade/exhibition of wild animals in general, forced zoos to establish self-sustaining zoo populations of at least the most popular species. To hit two birds with one stone, this was also described as practical conservation work, although the real merits here are still rather dabatable...
When it comes to popular mammalian crowd pleasers like Great Apes, Big Cats, giraffes, zebras etc., most of the ones now exhibited in western zoos are captive-, or rather, zoo-born and when needed, transferred from one zoo to another, sometimes according to a breeding plan/stud book coordination (although, for example, some of the older Apes or 'pachyderms' in zoos were often taken from the wild as juveniles). However, there are also exceptions with a non-zoo origin, like the recent Southern White Rhino transfers from South African game farms to European zoos or the elephants, transported from Asian work elephant camps to the Cologne zoo.
Some zoo animals are bought from the commercial pet trade and professional/(rarely) hobbyist breeders; some (but usually less than in the past) are 'confiscations' of illegal activities (animal smuggling, illegal pet husbandry...), wild "orphans"/"invalids" unfit for reintroduction or, rarely, former labratory animals/pets. Some few specimens are taken from the wild as part of an conservation program (like Bali Mynah, Partula snails or Visayan Warty Pig) to establish an ex-situ breeding group.
Animal exchange between zoos does still exist, too.
However, when it comes to many "not so popular species", especially on the field of fish and, to a lesser extent, exotic invertebrates, smaller reptiles or various bird/small mammal species..., quite a lot of what you can see in zoos are wild-caught, as so far, no self-sustaining captive populations exist of these very species.
EDIT: I forgot to mention two other ways for zoos to obtain certain animals: a) as a diplomatic gift (like several Giant Pandas in the past, Copenhagen's Tasmanian Devils or Berlin's Aye-Aye) b) as a loan (once again, Giant Pandas, or Audubon Zoo's leucistic alligators...).
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For fans of statistics, I enclose two lists from the annual report 2007 of Prague zoo. But I´m not sure to what extend it´s comparable with UK zoos:
124 animals were bought
78 animals were traded in
139 animals came on loan
42 animals (loaned to other zoos) came back
58 animals came as donations
= it makes 441 new arrivals to the zoo
229 animals were sold
82 animals were traded out
380 animals were loaned to other zoos
21 animals (loaned to Prague) were returned
86 animals were donated
= it makes 788 animals that left the zoo within one year
124 animals were bought
78 animals were traded in
139 animals came on loan
42 animals (loaned to other zoos) came back
58 animals came as donations
= it makes 441 new arrivals to the zoo
229 animals were sold
82 animals were traded out
380 animals were loaned to other zoos
21 animals (loaned to Prague) were returned
86 animals were donated
= it makes 788 animals that left the zoo within one year
Zooman, in most cases that I have read with modern zoos taking elephants from the wild, it is usually to protect them from a local cull or they have been orphans and the elephant orphanage can't hold many more individuals.
San Diego and the West Midlands Safari Park have gone down this option, so it wouldn't surprise me if Valencia was similar.
taun
Well-Known Member
interesting as am sure I read somewhere that Upali (Bull elephant) was bought.
taun
Well-Known Member
taun
Well-Known Member
I don't think chester demanded, but they still had Chang then and so the young bull would of had a good father figure, to be shown what to do when he was older.
Well that's not really good enough, I know he was partly hand reared but think of what he and his mother went through; imagine how a 2 year old child would feel being taken away from their mother.
They should have waited till he "got the boot" from the herd, the way it's meant to go.
They should have waited till he "got the boot" from the herd, the way it's meant to go.
The site which Taun linked to says Roger Cowley demanded the elephant at 1 year old (although may be a mistranslation)
It doesn't seem like the zoos' decision to remove him from the herd that early