Leopard subspecies in zoos

F

foz

Well-Known Member
In recent years the trends seems to be to exhibit the critically endangered Amur leopard. But to me it seems a loss to other Leopard subspecies. Other subspecies such as the Javan leopard and Arabian leopard (both of which are also critically endnagered) seems to be shoved to one side to make room for the 'rarest cat in the world', And while I'm pleased that the plihgt of the amur leopard is more well known and safe guarded by zooo breeding. i can't but think that perhaps the zoo community should work as equally hard for other endagered leopard subspecies such as the Javan, persian, Sri Lankan (basically msot subspecies apart from african).

Does anyone else feel this is the case? I would love to see a greater variety in subspecies displayed at zoos, but udnerstand that zoo's would not want to exhibit 'another leopard' when they already have the 'rarest cat in the world' (by the way im not disputing the rarest cat in the world thing, but its at practically every zoo ).
 
This has already been touched on, from a UK perspective, in another thread(s) (sorry I don't know how to put a link in).

In the UK, if you can travel a bit, as well as a fair number of Amur Leopards there are also Persian (Chessington), North Chinese (Howletts), and Sri Lankan (Banham) and a handful of "Zoo" Leopards which can be seen.

I can appreciate zoos dilemmas: limited space; good leopard enclosures aren't cheap; to the average visitor "a leopards a leopard" -at the end of the day it's (sadly) not really possible to keep viable captive populations of several sub-species of one animal.

In an ideal world I'd love to be able to see and compare & contrast many various sub-species, but realistically I accept it's unlikely and we've got to appreciate what we've got.
 
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this is the thread (Arabian Leopards) it's in the UK Forum from about October or November sorry don't know how to link threads
 
The Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg (Canada) exhibits:
1.1 snow leopards
1.0 Amur leopard

It housed 1.0 Persian leopards for many years but decided not to replace it upon is passing in favour of building a new exhibit for Asian lions.
 
I totally agree with your message. It seems like every zoo I go to has an Amur leopard. In fact, there are so many that it is hard to believe they are still endangered. I even rarely see African Leopards. There are only two zoos that I have been to that have leopards other than an Amur or African Leopard. Those zoos are the Cleveland Zoo with a Persian Leopard and the Lincoln Park Zoo with a rare Afghanistan Leopard.

Can anyone else tell me where there are other species of Leopard other than Amur or African in US zoos?
 
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I heard that export of founder Javan and Sri Lankan leopards is made very difficult by their native governments.
 
Interesting topic. I checked zootierliste and it look like a brittish specific to some extent. For example in my country amur ones are in 4 zoos, north chinese in 2, persian in 2 and sri lankan in 3. One zoo, Jihlava, has both persian and sri lankan. Pretty balanced country wise - I wouldn't be opposed to amur leopards being in more zoos. Also in Germany it doesn't look like amurs are the only one well represented; in Netherlands common subspecies are in 2-3 zoos each, etc.
 
jaguar78 said:
Cleveland Zoo with a Persian Leopard and the Lincoln Park Zoo with a rare Afghanistan Leopard.

Can anyone else tell me where there are other species of Leopard other than Amur or African in US zoos?
Click to expand...

First off, Afghan and Persian are one and the same (P.p. saxicolor).

African leopards (P.p. pardus): they had two at Maryland Zoo when I was there in 2005 and they had two at Columbus Zoo when I was there in 2001. Not sure if all or any of those are still alive.

2 or 3 Persian (P.p. saxicolor), 5 or 6 North China (P.p. japonensis) as well as several amur (P.p. orientalis) and one generic black can be found at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in Rosamond, California.

The AZA Felid TAG has made amur subspecies the one that accredited U.S. zoos are working on. But I also find this frustrating (as does the founder of Exotic Feline Breeding Compound). I don't fully understand how the AZA can have SSP's for three different tiger subspecies but only one leopard subspecies. Especially since tigers are so much bigger.
 
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I'm guessing because there are a lot more spaces for tigers in AZA zoos than leopards. Few zoos don't have tigers, but lots of zoos don't have leopards.
 
@Jurek is it that difficult to become sri lankan leopards from Sri Lanka, because at least 2 of the last breeding males, in Burgers Zoo, were wildborn animals from Colombo zoo.

The situation isn't that nice I think because almost 50% of the sri lankan leopards was born in Burgers Zoo
 
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