I've never been and, due to the price, likely never will.
~Thylo
~Thylo
LEO Zoological Conservation Center News
- Thread starter ThylacineAlive
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Their last Facebook post was on February 9, 2019, stating that they are closing. Part of the statement reads "The animals at the center are being loaned, donated and transferred to accredited zoos in the US that have pledged to annually support conservation causes for their wild counterparts."
If anyone knows where the king cheetah is going (or has gone), please post here.
If anyone knows where the king cheetah is going (or has gone), please post here.
Why don't you just email them and ask? Would probably be quicker.
I found out from some sources in the zoo world that all of LEO's cheetahs went to Virginia Safari Park. I am awaiting confirmation from the park itself that they have the king cheetah.
I was going to guess that it would be somewhere non-AZA/not active in the SSP, unless it's in a coalition with non-relatives, since the king cheetah is unusable.
I had been hoping to go to LEO in the next year or two specifically to see the cheetah program. I assume they closed because of financials?
The king Cheetah can breed, and she has done in recent years.
~Thylo
~Thylo
AZA and the SSP don't allow for king cheetahs to be bred.
Well... she has. Not sure what became of her young, none of which are king Cheetahs.
~Thylo
Just like white tigers are still bred, even though they're also not allowed by aza/ssp... animals exist outside of those programs.
I'm not sure if that is true. I'm assuming you are referring to the white paper by the AZA about the breeding of mutations (white tigers etc), but despite the way it is interpreted online the document is actually about intentional inbreeding to express the mutant characteristics. Generally, other cheetah management programmes include King Cheetahs (if they are kept within the country in question) but they are bred as any other normal Cheetah within the programme would be, with the mutant gene neither being selected for nor against.
The king Cheetah at the center has produced eight cubs, none of which express the king mutation but will all be carriers of the gene (there are likely many carriers within the American and definitely European populations, seeing as most captive Cheetah populations descend from South African cats). Of these eight, two were sent to South Africa to breed at a reserve that will release their offspring back into the wild. The remaining six have been/will be sent to other US zoos, though I don't know which. If anyone has any further information I'd love to find out.
~Thylo
~Thylo
I know that two of the cubs went to San Diego Safari Park, where I believe they are being used as ambassador animals. An inside source recently told me the cheetah SSP is clamping down on the inclusion of non-SSP (non AZA) cats and after a coming deadline (this fall I think) it will be strictly forbidden for any AZA facility to breed their cheetahs with cats from non-AZA facilities. However cheetahs outside the AZA have increased in recent years due to imports from South Africa.
I think this is basically because the American management programme for cheetahs doesn't want to include animals of unknown pedigree which makes sense for some species (e.g. tigers) but not really at all for cheetahs. They are rather handicapping their own programme by leaving out any number of new founders.
Especially considering all Cheetahs are imported from South Africa anyway... The AZA tends to do this a lot, and if very often backfires on them. Their refusal to accept genetics from private and non-AZA holders for hoofstock for many years has found a lot of programs on the brink of collapse. I do support the idea of not integrating unknown genetics when attempting to maintain a known pedigree population, but when the animals outside the AZA are the exact same taxa, it exclusivity is nothing but harmful.
~Thylo
What facility? Keepers unfortunately aren’t always the most knowledgeable.
I'm not comfortable saying more than one of the breeding facilities, that plays an active role in the ssp.
There are certainly enough potential carriers around that, were the AZA actually pursuing a policy of not breeding from any stock which potentially carry the gene, they would find themselves with quite a shortfall of stock to breed from compared to the current situation
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I have tried contacting Virginia Safari Park once via email and twice via Facebook Messenger but they are not responding. There is no mention of the king cheetah on their Facebook page (which is updated every couple weeks) or their website (though the "news" section has not had a post since May 2018).