ZOO Dvůr Králové northern white rhino

what to do?... more like what should have been done!!

well! nice to see i started up a hot thread here!!

i should clarify my position.

firstly, i hate the whole "doing the best they can" argument. i often see its as a bit of a lameo excuse, essentially do an inadequate job. unfortunately modern politics doesn't reflect this in the slightest, but i see at the heart of good leadership, not being able to do everything yourself or knowing everything yourself, but to know who to listen to and take advice from when you don't...

jwer said D-K zoo isn't optimal but not bad. but shouldn't we disregard anything but optimal? hasn't this been a case of needing an absolute optimal situation for a long time now?

secondly, i've never suggested moving the rhino from one zoo to another. especially not whipsnade. indeed like-it-or-not, one of my qualms with D-K is its frigid climate. i'm a big believer on environmental conditions playing a role in breeding behaviour in animals. but before you start speeling off lists of elephants breeding in germany or sumatran rhino in cincinatti - i know, i know!!!. but to put it simply. why risk it. like i said, worlds rarest rhino taxa - things need to be optimal. snow and rhinos does not equal optimal. neither does being kept in a barn for six months of the year or more.

thats why i have always advocated sending the animals back to africa.

whats that you say? - no, of course i wouldn't suggest releasing them back into the DRC to be shot. i'm not stupid!! did you know the northern whites range was much more extensive than that. in actually included some places that are now the best protected in africa...relatively stable and safe places like kenya.

and no, i'm not suggesting releasing them into the true "wild" either. too many natural risks there also. moreso a highly controlled and protected reserve, much more akin to something you'd find at an open range zoo - albeit on maybe a slightly biggers scale. that should give a scenario that close to the best of both worlds, something that is optimal.

there they will find a natural diet, warm sun on their skin, the stimulus of other animals and most importantly the space to work out their own social requirements. and yet they are still not completely without the (in this case) helpful intervetion of humans should require it. animals can stillbe "paired" if need be...

but i must say. this all really should have happened a long time ago. in fact, when the last NWR in the wild where on the brink of extinction, just a few years ago, it was suggested moving the remaining animals to kenya by conservationists, but the congolese refused.

now i'm not saying it would have made a difference, but it might have been much more appealing or workable a situation if neighbouring kenya already contained a breeding population of the rhinos.

fortunately, the northern white rhino is not a species in its own right. instead it is simply a very rare variety of the most common rhino species left in existance. the race can freely interbreed with its southern cousins and no doubt the distinction between the two would not have been that great in historic times. you would have thought these factors would have made it all the easier for D-K zoo to switch to southerns, you would have thought this would have made the sacrifice to repatriate these northen animals back to africa all the easier, you would have thought this would make the possibility of bouncing the subspecies back much simpler, and i would have thought all this seems pretty bloody logical and obvious.

unfortunately it seems it isn't. short of rediculous cloning program (that really would be money best spent on reviving another rhino species such as teh sumatran), i can't see how the northerns can survive in a purified form, and with D-K being so adment to keep NWR in their winter rhino barn, i can't much see how they will continue to exist at all.

you guys are welcome to think differently. but D-K will never get any praise from me.

instead i think they are well on their way to making a brilliant example of a zoo who not only fails and preserving its animals in the wild, but in captivity as well.
 
There is certainly the argument about appropriate climate, but how many of these animals are still viable?
 
If you follow Patrick's solution of 'repatriating' them, then the best place to send them would be probably be to Anna Merz' Lewa Downs rhino sanctuary in Kenya. It was set up some years ago to protect Black rhino and now has some Souhern Whites as well. If anywhere could protect them safely and breed from them, then her sanctuary probably could.

Sadly, I feel it won't ever happen though....
 
Her place has expaned a few times in size and is well protected, I have her book about Lewa downs its interesting reading, I think they may have a website now. They had a fair number of rhinos there a while back but not sure how many they have these days.
 
I don't follow Patrick's statement at all.

First of all, the temperature thing, i don't buy it. When Andalas returned to Indonesia he had all kinds of custom made shots to protect him from influences he never had to cope with, and i wouldn't doubt that these rhino's would need the same. Apparantly it isn't impossible, but taking Andalas back to Indonesia was and still is a big risk, he could die from some infectious desease any moment. A few years ago, there still were NWR in Africa, and it seemed pointless to risk these few in captivity, especially since they bred in 2000. Why risk a very valuable infant female rhino to something like that, discarding the risks of sedation and transport!

Second of all, where will you put em. "Seemingly stable" Kenya could suddenly be a lot less stable when you put one of the most valuable animals on the doorstep of some of the poorest people in the world. Would you vouch for their safety, i sure as hell won't.

Third, which sanctuary to put them? Kenya had very few southern white rhino's untill they imported some recently, and not very many have great expertise with them. So which sanctuary to pick? I don't doubt each and every one would be in line to shout they are the best just to be able to brag about it. I wouldn't like to be the one to pick a park, it would be political rope-pulling to the extreme (with Tanzania, South Africa and others claiming they would be the best option...).

Fourth, would make the decision? D-K are the owners so they should shouldn't they? Or do the funders of this whole operation get a vote too, because why would D-K fund something like this? Do funders have any knowledge which park to send them?

Fifth, who says they will do better in Africa? The one that could bred at D-K in 2000, so why move them? The others might have reproduced in Africa but whether they would have or not is just another stab in the dark as any other. You can't claim it's a certainty they would do better there, perhaps the 2000 calf wouldn't even be born there...

Sixth, they are about 400?KM away from probably the best rhino-reproduction team in the world. You would ship them to a place with far less vetenairy care and equipment because they could do better? I'd rather have them close to the Berlin scientist.

Look, i agree to some extent that the best that could have happened to them was to be shipped to probably HluweHluwe Umfulozi in the 1980's and be held there. At that time it would have made sense since the animals would almost all be reproductive and that park was stable at that time, afaik Kenya wasn't. But then there were still quite a few NRW left and it didn't seem necessary to ship just 7 or so of them to Africa to "save the species".

I'm not saying you are all wrong, i'm just saying that now it's easy to say what should have happened 20 years ago, because we know what the situation is now. I'm saying that with the information that was available at the time, everything that happened seemed the logical option (to me anyway).
 
Maby these rinos would do better in Africa, but Kenya would be the last place any endangered animal should be sent. Kenya has one of the worst records on stoping poaching, hopefuly the previously mentioned rino sanctury has better results to the rest of the country.

An extract from the Game Rangers Assoc. of Africa news letter

Dr. Laurence Frank, from the University of California, Berkeley and the Wildlife Conservation Society, has studied predators in Kenya for 37 years.

He runs the Living With Lions project, working on lion conservation outside of national parks. He is not a big game hunter.

***

Once internationally famous for its magnificent wildlife, Kenya is in a conservation crisis, due largely to the cynical and corrupt influence of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the US Humane Society and other animal rights groups which spend millions to prevent rational conservation policies that would benefit both wildlife and impoverished rural Africans.

Seventy percent of Kenya’s wildlife has died in the last thirty years, strangled slowly in snares and sold as cheap, unidentified meat. Even animals in national parks are in serious decline due to poaching and habitat destruction on their boundaries. Lions are being speared and poisoned into extinction.

In that same period, South Africa and Namibia saw an immense increase in wildlife numbers, as over ten thousand ranches found that wildlife for trophy hunting is more profitable than cattle. Wildlife in Zimbabwe quadrupled with the growth of hunting on large conservancies, until Mugabe’s ‘land reform’ resulted in most of it being snared. Wildlife continues to flourish in Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia, where hunting contributes significantly to national economies.

Sentimental love of animals is a luxury affordable by comfortable westerners, but meaningless to the world’s poor and hungry. With ever-increasing human numbers, wildlife in Africa is doomed unless it produces income for rural people. That is not possible in Kenya because retrogressive policies, bought by tragically naive American animal lovers, ensure that rural people resent wildlife instead of profiting from it.

For rural Kenyans, wildlife is an unmitigated nuisance: lions kill precious livestock, wildebeest and zebra compete with cattle for grazing, elephants and buffalo destroy crops and occasionally kill people. While tourism brings wealth to hotels and tour companies, virtually nothing reaches the rural people who bear the costs of living with wildlife. Telling a Masai herdsman that he should cherish wildlife is like telling an urban American that he should cherish muggers and murderers.

Although unpalatable to many urban westerners, carefully regulated trophy hunting is the one avenue through which wildlife can bring serious money to rural Africans. Foreigners pay over two hundred million dollars for hunting safaris elsewhere in Africa, taking old males with impressive horns, tusks or manes, animals that are no longer of importance to the population (as any man my age knows all too well). In North America, Europe, and southern Africa, carefully managed hunting has greatly increased wildlife populations because people value them.

Tanzania has set aside over 100,000 square miles of wilderness for hunting.

It has more wildlife than any country in Africa, and half the world’s remaining lions. In Botswana, a very few male lions are shot every year, earning $65,000 each for the rural community in which the lion was taken, and half that amount for the national conservation agency. The community profit would pay for 350 cattle taken by lions, or support teachers, nurses or wildlife rangers. Lions and all the associated wildlife are a source of income, to be valued and protected.

In Kenya, that lion is only a cattle-killing nuisance, to be poisoned and left to rot in the sun. A rural community would earn far more from a single old male impala shot as a trophy than a poacher earns from snaring an entire breeding herd of females and young for bushmeat.

Kenya shut down legal hunting in 1977, when the world was outraged by hunters’ reports of industrial scale poaching of elephants for ivory, abetted by high government officials. The ban silenced the hunters and the elephant slaughter continued. In the absence of the hunters’ anti-poaching patrols, bushmeat snaring exploded. Vast regions of this country that teemed with large mammals thirty years ago are now barren of any animal bigger than a rabbit.

In spite of plummeting wildlife numbers, that failed policy has been maintained by foreign animal rights groups. Whenever real conservationists try to reform Kenyan policy to reverse the decline in wildlife, these groups launch disinformation campaigns in the local press, relying on racial resentment combined with outright fabrication: “Rich white foreigners want to kill all the animals in our national parks; only rich whites will profit from hunting”. They hire mobs to disrupt public policy meetings and fill the press with nonsensical claims that hunters would indiscriminately slaughter all game.

It is widely believed that these groups rely heavily on bribery, spending huge sums to buy sympathetic media coverage for their propaganda, and to buy influence at the highest levels of government. In a young democracy struggling against entrenched corruption, large scale bribery by westerners is stunningly irresponsible.

Worst of all, these ideologues apparently do not seem to care that millions of animals die wretchedly in snares, so long as none are shot for profit.

They boast to their American supporters that their donations prevent hunting in Kenya, never telling them that, as a result, there is little wildlife left, either.
 
rhinos

I have never been to Europe , however .....

What is DK zoo doing that makes them succeed with the breeding of rhinos that other zoos arent ? Or another way of looking at this question , what are other zoos doing that have made them less successful with these rhinos than
DK zoo ?

Secondly , most of Wellington zoo is not exactly optimal , but is not bad .
If we follow Patricks line of thought , perhaps we should all campaign that the city closes the zoo because of this ?

Is climate REALLY an important factor for rhinos ? How come they do so well at DK zoo ? Does Toronto or Minnesota zoos not have rhinos ?
And where does one draw the line as to where a suitable/unsuitable climate
eg Orana Park is probably the closest zoo to the South Pole . Perhaps they should refuse to have rhinos -- it can get pretty chilly there in winter

And I am sure that the DK zoo is probably doing the best they can . If one of us could sponsor a giant state of the art rhino house complete with hot air jets and anything else a rhino might want , I bet the zoo wouldnt turn it down .

DK is obviously not the preferred optimum site/climate for rhinos , but as the zoo has proved that it can somehow successfully breed these rhinos -- good on them
 
i gotta say - i'm amazed at how people have chosen to answer this..

firstly for those of that questioned my suggestion of kenya - its somewhat irrelevant. personally, i don't for a second believe that there are not well protected locations in kenya, but even if there were not, then how about tanzania, or congo (thats not the DRC) or any other locations that are safe and fall within the range of the species. surely, not the entire northern part of africa is at war?

jewr - no offence intended, but didn't i say spare me the comparisons with sumatran rhino? i don't much care how another rhino species do in D-K zoo, let alone another species in another zoo entirely. i think there are just far too many differences to be able to factor in a very accurate comparison between the two situations.

thirdly - can we at least clarify one thing. are you guys saying that one birth almost 8 years ago is a sign of success? because i sure as hell don't. factoring in the amount of animals they have at the zoo, life expectancy and amount of time white rhinos take to raise their young, i'de call that pretty damn lousy..

and lastly, nigel - to say that DK zoo "are doing the best they can" shows that you have actually missed my most important point entirely. is "the best they can" good enough? in this situation i would say no. the best they can hasn't offered much hope at all. in fact if you really think about it "doing the best they can" is realising that the "best they can" isn't the "best anyone can".

wellington zoo isn't exactly optimal you say... well for what? i'm sure its very optimal for kiwis and native birds. hell i'de say its probably pretty good for baboons and not bad for chimps or any of the other animals they have success with there. and even if its not very optimal for breeding some species, well i suppose you'd have to factor in how badly that species needs to breed. but sure, since you say wellington is a cliff - i wouldn't propose keeping the only existing population in the world of a large species there unless their habitat WAS a cold windswept cliff.

unfortunately, i think my opponents here are getting a little hot under the collar becuse i'm suggesting that environmental factors might have something to do with this. many of you live in places where it gets pretty cold and wether you realise it or not, your defending your right to keep exotic species because you enjoy them.

and i can understand that.

but we are talking specifically about a particular kind of animal that is about to go extinct. is it just the cold weather, maybe not. maybe its the small space restricted barn that the animals spend so much time in to keep out of the cold. maybe that isn't exactly allowing for a large range of natural behaviours. and sure, maybe it has nothing to do with DK zoo at all.

remember white rhinos EVOLVED in africa. just as sumatran rhinos EVOLVED in asia. do you honestly think their is any dangers there other than us than are worse than those associated with captivity in the other side of the world? the problem with in-situ breeding centers is that they often have not the same amount of funding, equipment and professionalism that western zoos have. the answer doesn't lie in taking animals to western zoos - the answer lies in western zoos taking expertise to the animals.
 
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Its a sensitive issue...if only three or so animals are still viable in captivity, then it would be scandalous for them to be held in zoos if and when the translocation of wild Northern whites takes place to Kenya. Surely the remaining, elderly, 'non-viable' animals would all be females which had stopped cycling.
I don't ever imagine the DRC to be a safe place for any wildlife so long as the rest of the world continue to plunder it for coltan and other ores used in mobiles and laptops etc while the people there live in utter poverty.
Who are the partners involved in the Kenya end of the proposed Rhino relocation from Garamba? Without this move, it seems irrelevant to worry about the 3 or so viable captive animals. But then, with the fallout from the civil war in DRC, I would say moving five northern white rhino is low on the list of priorities for officials in the countries involved.
 
hadley - there are no NWR left to translocate.

the move was proposed at least a year ago when there were still just a few rhino left in the DRC. the congolese refused. the rhino were all gone just a short time later.

thus i don't much care now what D-K zoo does with theirs. the race is functionally extinct.
 
Patrick, I am really enjoying your reasoning re: Northern White Rhinos. Perhaps D-K zoo would consider sending one of their younger females to San Diego or a sperm donation from the younger male at San Diego to the D-K zoo for insemination. Only a thought, certainly not a solution the on going problem.
 
thegoldendragon said:
Patrick, I am really enjoying your reasoning re: Northern White Rhinos. Perhaps D-K zoo would consider sending one of their younger females to San Diego or a sperm donation from the younger male at San Diego to the D-K zoo for insemination. Only a thought, certainly not a solution the on going problem.
Click to expand...

I thought there is only one male at San Diego nowadays, and he's about 35
years old. Also he apparently has never showed interest in mating so to send a female from D-K and then find that he's still not interested (though of course he might be...) is probably risky as there are no other males for her in the USA.

I believe they have sent semen from this male to DK but it got 'lost in transit' and that they will repeat the procedure. That does seem the only way to possibly utilise him.
 
There is no "younger male at San Diego". There is only an elderly male who hasn't showed interest in mating all his life...
 
i read a comment on another forum posted by a supposed SDWAP keeper saying that the male NWR at the park has showed no interest in mating, even with breeding age SWR females. my opinion is that this species should be put on the extinct list now...
 
In regards to the NWRs at the SDWAP I had read in one of my SD zoo magarzines a few years ago that the male NWR was chased away by the females when he went anywhere near them as the females seemed not to be having any breeding cycling, so maybe he did want to breed but the females could not.
 
Yes it would seem that the current situation, for now, is optimal. AI attempts between SDWAP and D-K zoo, because of the unrelated male, with the last two viable females, and I guess the results of the insemination attempts on them will be announced in the next couple of weeks.
 
Wellington zoo -- optimal ?!?

wellington zoo isn't exactly optimal you say... well for what? i'm sure its very optimal for kiwis and native birds. hell i'de say its probably pretty good for baboons and not bad for chimps or any of the other animals they have success with there. and even if its not very optimal for breeding some species
the above is quote by Patrick

The infrastructure of Wellington Zoo is basically crumbling away , and the zoo has limited funds . It is basically trying to run on half the smell of an oily rag . The water supply is not optimal -- the zoo has to almost employ a plumber full time . Most of the cages are still just that . CAGES
50% of the enclosures really need a service from a bulldozer . The pathways are cracked . The facilities for keepers inside the enclosures are of poor standard . The sunbear enclosure is far too small for the inhabitants . The new lions enclosure is somewhat small for 3 lions , and will be positively cramped for any more in the one enclosure .All of the aviaries are placed in the wrong position , and all have to be resited and replaced ( this is part of recommendation by a visiting bird expert a number of years ago )
The zoo has only recently hired a professional groundsman/landscaper -- this one position has improved the overall "look" and has got rid of the numerous "pigs breakfasts" that dotted all over the zoo


I have not seen the inside of the animal hospital, but apparently it is a joke . The operating theatre is apparently the broom cupboard . Would Melbourne Zoo accept an 100 year old "temporary" army shack that hasnt had any modifications or alterations since day one , as their animal hospital ?


Numerous times , the city council has been urged by many people to either
spend serious money to upgrade the zoo , or bulldoze the "scrapheap" altogether

To me the word optimal means "best possible"

I would consider Wellington Zoo to be barely "adequate " , and I only support it as it has made serious attempts to improve its infrastructure , animals living conditions , and image in the past few years , along with its breeding programmes . If it hadnt done these improvements , I will probably be advocating its downsizing or even closure today . I cant stress enough that it used to be an embarrassment to the city and to zoos in general !

The nocturnal house and baboon enclosure would possibly be the only parts that I would consider optimal . The chimps enclosure will be a probable
adequate , but I havent seen the new chimp house in its finished state , and you have stated before that you thought the area was inadequate . You are probably right , as there are more than just one troup that lives in the one enclosure , this may be inadequate .

But I am sure that all of us have visited a B grade "Zoo" and have not been impressed . Wellington Zoo has now lifted itself out of that category . It used to be a FILTHY disgrace of a "zoo" a couple of decades ago
It has a heck of a long way to go before one could honestly say the zoo was optimal , but it is now getting better each year ( a long time coming ! )
and I will support any zoo that is keeps itself out of the B grade category

I still stick to my original words . Wellington Zoo isnt exactly optimal .
Adequate ? ........debatable
Improving ? .........YES

but optimal ?!?! ask me again in 12 years (?)
 
Nice topic.

Well, first of all: according to different accounts, there seem to be at least a few wild Northern whites left...but that won't change a lot on the long run.

About Dvur Kralove: I've been there and have to say it's a pretty good zoo. There are things that could be improved-but that can be said about every zoo, even (and especially) San Diego, Whipsnade etc. Their "secret" of success in breeding especially African large hoofstock (including maneless zebras): they don't have the one or even(!) two pairs You have in most zoos; where Your average zoo has 2-3 Lesser Kudus (if at all), they have over 30. Same goes with many other African species...Due to that, they have more chances to be "successful" where others fail. And about their Northern rhinos: actually, they're now down to 1,2 / 1,1 animals able to breed. Hildebrandt and the other folks of the IZW are trying to put their experiences from Budapest and other zoos into work on then, but so far without much luck. Speaking of "luck": though I'm "riding the same wave" with pat when it comes to preferring to keep breeding programs at apt climatic surroundings (so no Polar bears in the tropics...), one should a) not forget something good ol' Hagenbeck tried called "gradual acclimatisation", which works fine with quite a bunch of species, and b) not judge Dvur Kralove before having been there. The "lucky" thing: The whites produced offspring at Dvur (that's more than many other Southern white rhino-keeping zoos can say), but "unfortunately", it's a hybrid of the two subspecies. But You know what: for me, the hybrid is the key to the survival of the species in general. Instead on relying on these 1,2, do what the US did to bring their Eastern Peregrine Falcon population back to life: crossbreed subspecies and even gain more genetic diversity (and maybe a little heterosis effect) by doing so! Though You don't have a "real" Northern White Rhino (haven't found anyone so far that could really tell me the difference and didn't observe it either...) afterwards, then at least You've got an animal that might fill in the niche left in Uganda once things are doing better there (which I doubt is going to happen soon) and that might cope with the conditions there (tsetse-flies...) better than a pure-bred Southern white-or a highly inbred Northern white rhino.

About Africa: although I always prefer in-situ projects to take place in the native country, I do not always trust Africa when it comes to running projects like this on the long run; current events in Simbabwe, Ruanda (Mountain gorillas!), Nigeria (hippo slaughtering) Somalia (illegal sales of Dibatags and other rare antelopes to Arabian collections..), West Africa (bushmeat) etc. indicate what I mean. Australia's climate might be better suited for white rhinos than Dvur Kralove-but transferring them now (or having had transferred them years before) wouldn't make/have made a difference. I say: crossbreed them, breed the hybrids (maybe at South African game farms...-or AUS;) ) and establish a stable, steadily reproducing ex-situ population (which is at the moment not even the case in most zoos with the Southern whites...) and don't forget to take care of the Black rhino, as not many seemed to have noticed the Western Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis longipes) being declared extinct in 2006...
 
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