Kinds of Birds Not Seen in Captivity

C

Crotalus

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I've been browsing around American zoo collections and a few foreign ones and I've noticed a conspicuous lack of grebes in captivity. As far as I know, they aren't particularly hard to keep. Do they require loose grass or other special conditions to do well in an aviary or exhibit?

Grebes inspired me to make a thread about kinds of birds not seen or rare in captivity. If you know anything about why these birds aren't kept, please let me know.

PLEASE NOTE
-This is not for species; it is for groups of birds or genuses; however, monotypic genuses are alright, like hoatzins or something similar

Crotalus
 
There are some captive grebes in Japan, although without my photos I couldn't tell you what or where. I think Little Grebes at Tama?
 
Lake Biwa Aquarium:
full

Lake Biwa Museum's aquarium - ZooChat

Inokashira Park Zoo:
Little grebe, October 2017 - ZooChat
full


As far as I know, only little grebes are in captivity in Japan.
 
I have seen Australasian grebes at Taronga Zoo and Territory Wildlife Park in Australia.
 
A facility or two hold Pied-billed Grebe here in the US.

Goura said:
However I've never heard of Gaviiformes in any collections.
Click to expand...

I haven't either... only longer term captive references to loons I've seen have been a couple research facilities.

As far as other families go, shearwaters and petrels come to mind, as well as the storm-petrels. Albatrosses currently only represented by a pair of Laysan Albatrosses at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Hoatzin is another. Other notables would be tropicbirds, mesites, oilbird, finfoots, sheathbills, crab-plover, skuas, todies, jacamars, honeyguides, and a wide variety of passerine families.

Nightjars, swifts, swallows, frigatebirds, ground-rollers are only very rarely kept for various reasons.
 
Seen quite a few captive grebes:

Black-eared at Walsrode and Augsburg.
Little at Dresden, Koln, Frankfurt, Olching and Innsbruck.

Never seen a captive loon/diver but they pop up occasionally in European collections, usually as short-lived rescue animals.
 
Great Argus said:
skuas
Click to expand...

Mr. Zootycoon said:
At least a single rescued individual of the Great Skua is/was on show in Ecomare in the Netherlands.
Click to expand...

I've seen single, presumably rescued, skuas at Artis, Walsrode and Mablethorpe over the years - think these are all long gone now though.


TeaLovingDave said:
Black-eared at Walsrode and Augsburg.
Click to expand...

Black-necked (aka Eared), presumably, rather than Black-eared! :D

Black-necked were at Zurich and Stuttgart on my last respective visits as well, but are certainly not common in captivity. Little Grebes are a bit more common, but still not very, very. Don't think I've seen any others (even Great Crested, which being widespread and conspicuous you'd think would turn up as a rescue from time to time).
 
On my visit to the Montreal Biodome in September 2017 there was a stunning summer plumage red-necked grebe in their beaver enclosure, but I don't think it has been seen since so it might not have been that long-lived. It was an absolutely fantastic bird to see up close and even from an underwater viewing window, though!

The only other captive grebe I've seen is black-necked in Walsrode, as mentioned above.
 
Vision said:
On my visit to the Montreal Biodome in September 2017 there was a stunning summer plumage red-necked grebe in their beaver enclosure, but I don't think it has been seen since so it might not have been that long-lived. It was an absolutely fantastic bird to see up close and even from an underwater viewing window, though!

The only other captive grebe I've seen is black-necked in Walsrode, as mentioned above.
Click to expand...

That's a shame! I wanted to plan a visit to Canada in the nearish future and was hoping to see the grebe.

Personally I have seen Black-Necked (Walsrode) and Pied-Billed (Aquarium of the Pacific) in captivity, though I'm unsure whether the latter is still present.

I know skimmers, genus Rynchops, do very poorly in captivity. I've only seen one in a zoo ever, a Black Skimmer rescued by the Bronx Zoo. I saw it only once, and I actually wasn't sure if it was even still alive until I could confirm it was breathing. My understanding is it died after a very short span at the zoo.

~Thylo
 
Maguari said:
I've seen single, presumably rescued, skuas at Artis, Walsrode and Mablethorpe over the years - think these are all long gone now though.
Click to expand...

Zoogiraffe pointed out a skua to me at Mablethorpe, and I was like, so what, there are gannets. I never photographed it.
 
Maguari said:
I've seen single, presumably rescued, skuas at Artis, Walsrode and Mablethorpe over the years - think these are all long gone now though.
Click to expand...
London Zoo had Antarctic skuas during the 1970s and 1980s. (I remember them best housed in one of the old Birds-of-Prey Aviaries but they were also kept in the Eastern Aviary too.)

Personally I would love to see both species of Picathartes again but, regrettably, I doubt I ever will.
 
I don't know I would say never, but birds that are rare (comparatively):
swifts, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, albatrosses and petrels,
 
Do scoters do well in captivity? Eiders of course do, they're in a fair few collections...
 
ZooBinh said:
Nice to know they are still there. What would be my chances of seeing them?
Click to expand...

The aquarium posts photos/videos of them fairly frequently on social media. However, I'm unsure of the chances of seeing them. When I visited in March I couldn't find any reference to the albatross encounter they used to do or any way to see one of them... was quite disappointed. :(

TeaLovingDave said:
Never seen a captive loon/diver but they pop up occasionally in European collections, usually as short-lived rescue animals.
Click to expand...

Any clue why they're short lived?

ThylacineAlive said:
I know skimmers, genus Rynchops, do very poorly in captivity. I've only seen one in a zoo ever, a Black Skimmer rescued by the Bronx Zoo. I saw it only once, and I actually wasn't sure if it was even still alive until I could confirm it was breathing. My understanding is it died after a very short span at the zoo.

~Thylo
Click to expand...

That I didn't know, curious if anyone knows why they don't do well?

Crotalus said:
Do scoters do well in captivity? Eiders of course do, they're in a fair few collections...
Click to expand...

I've wondered about that, very few collections seem to hold them. Surf scoter in particular seems like it would be a showy exhibit bird from the wild ones I've seen, but I've never heard of them being kept anywhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top