Little Rock Zoo Little Rock Zoo

On March 11th, the zoo announced that (0.0.2) blue-eyed black lemurs were born in late February.

Little Rock Zoo

On May 2nd, the zoo sexed the lemurs as (1.1), and were named Radcliffe and Swift.

Little Rock Zoo

On May 6th, the zoo announced that they acquired a (0.1) sloth bear named Hani from the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois in early April which is now on exhibit.

Little Rock Zoo
 
Looking through the various holding lists for Ibis after seeing Omaha add Black-Faced Ibis, I wanted to note that when I visited Little Rock a couple of weeks ago, there were a pair of Southern Bald Ibis in their tropical bird house aviary. I was a little shocked to see them, as they seem to be way less prevalent than their northern cousins in AZA collections these days.
 
I think they still see some use as lab specimens. There’s also an invasive population in the Keys. I imagine Florida wouldn’t mind some help rounding them up if any zoo really wanted some.
 
I've seen on Zootierliste that (at least some of) the population may have come from Cornell University in New York.
Now that’s interesting, I wonder why they made the decision to send them out to these other zoos?

The psychology department at Cornell has been conducting research with the pouched rats - funded by the Army to see if the rats are a good option for mine detection and if they can be bred sufficiently in captivity. It's possible that research resulted in surplus animals that the lab is now rehoming to zoos.

Looking for love, finding TNT | Department of Psychology

It's not unusual for exotic animals used in scientific research to end up in zoos - either due to space limitations during the project, or when the research concludes and the animals are no longer needed.
 
It's not unusual for exotic animals used in scientific research to end up in zoos - either due to space limitations during the project, or when the research concludes and the animals are no longer needed.

Another example of this was when the University of California, Berkeley's former spotted hyena research colony ended and the animals were sent to zoos.
 
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