Once in zoos but now extinct

Brum said:
I'd say a prime candidate (in fact a certainty) is the Northern white rhino, I've not personally seen one but I'm pretty sure you have Ian! ;)
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Its been discussed somewhere on here before but I can't remember the outcome, however I'm presuming that the original White rhino pair at ZSL- 'Ben' and 'Bebe' were both Northerns (then regarded as a subspecies or race). I remember vaguely seeing them in the old Cattle Sheds. 'Ben' of course lived to go into the Casson building with his 2nd (Southern) mate where he was such a familiar sight I never took any special notice of him. Of course, although its nowadays deemed a 'good' species, the Northern is so similiar (virtually identical) to its Southern counterpart it doesn't IMO have quite the cachet of other more inidividualistic species.
 
Pertinax said:
Its been discussed somewhere on here before but I can't remember the outcome, however I'm presuming that the original White rhino pair at ZSL- 'Ben' and 'Bebe' were both Northerns (then regarded as a subspecies or race). I remember vaguely seeing them in the old Cattle Sheds. 'Ben' of course lived to go into the Casson building with his 2nd (Southern) mate where he was such a familiar sight I never took any special notice of him. Of course, although its nowadays deemed a 'good' species, the Northern is so similiar (virtually identical) to its Southern counterpart it doesn't IMO have quite the cachet of other more inidividualistic species.
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Indeed London Zoo’s original white rhinos, ‘Ben’ and ‘Bebe’, were both of the northern form.

They arrived at the zoo in 1955. ‘Ben’ was sent to Dvur Kralove in 1986; when ‘Bebe’ died she was replaced by the southern white rhino ‘Mashobeni’. (I believe she was eventually sent to Glasgow Zoo.)

I well remember seeing the white rhinos in the old Deer & Cattle Sheds; their outside enclosure was roughly where the lion exhibit now is. (I also remember seeing the black rhinoceros ‘Lorna’ in the Deer and Cattle Sheds too – and before that in the old Antelope House.)

As well as seeing ‘Ben’ countless times, I have been fortunate enough to see northern white rhinos in several other collections too; it is a sobering and depressing thought that I may never see another one.
 
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Another sad thing about the Carolina Parakeet: it might have survived in free-ranging populations in Europe. Among others, the German ornithologist Hans Freiherr von Berlepsch released several specimens at his estate in Thuringia in 1874; back then, the species was still quite common in the pet trade, although not really popular. Similar to the thriving current European populations of the Ring-necked Parakeet, this population appeared to adopt well to the local climate and was even reproducing. However, in 1876, all birds rapidly disappeared. Many decades later, von Berlepsch found out what had happened: a local landlord had shot them one by one within two days and zhad served them in his inn. The peculicar "gawking" behaviour of the Carolina Parakeet had made them an easy target. [The folloing link is written in German.]
http://www.papageien.org/df/Df_al10_karolina.htm

Kinda reminds me of that little fictious story about the late survival of the dodo in the Southern United States...
 
Just out of interest has any establishment ever kept and bred the Baiji in captivity for any long periods of time? If so then that would have been a real last chance to save the species.
 
IanRRobinson said:
My mother was born in 1923, so I think her childhood visits might have encompassed the captive lifespan of London's last Thylacine. Somehow I can't get rid of that thought, nor the idea that to most visitors it was another dog-like animal that was quite probably curled up asleep.
Indeed, to most visitors they would probably have had little interest, especially when inactive. From one ZSL photo I've seen- of a Thylacine standing up against a door- I suspect they may have been shut out in the daytime, but they probably slept a lot nevertheless.

Of course in Zoological circles it was already known this was becoming an extremely rare animal, possibly already on the brink of extinction, but London had no reason to know they couldn't replace this last one,(did they even care back then?) so they probably gave it no special attention or importance display-wise over the previous ones.
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@Brum: the English wikipedia article on the Baiji includes a list of all specimens kept in captivity since the 1980s, including the male specimen QiQi of "Last Chance to See" fame.
 
Tim May said:
Indeed London Zoo’s original white rhinos, ‘Ben’ and ‘Bebe’, were both of the northern form.
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I thought so. Named after Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels from the 1950's comedy Radio/T.V. Show of the time- 'Life with the Lyons'.

ZSL revived this tradition of naming animals after media people with the later black Rhino calves Esther(Rantzen) and Parky(Michael Parkinson). I think they may have done it with a few other animals too but can't remember the specifics.
 
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Batto said:
@Brum: the English wikipedia article on the Baiji includes a list of all specimens kept in captivity since the 1980s, including the male specimen QiQi of "Last Chance to See" fame.
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Thanks, I'll check it out once I'm back on my computer.
 
Hello, who knows some extinct animals that zoos used to have in their collection. Im talking about used to, because im talking about completly extinct. Like the quagga in London zoo. So if anybody knows if zoos used to house animals that are now extinct (or back then), please tell me.
 
Canihelpyou? said:
Hello, who knows some extinct animals that zoos used to have in their collection. Im talking about used to, because im talking about completly extinct. Like the quagga in London zoo. So if anybody knows if zoos used to house animals that are now extinct (or back then), please tell me.
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London Zoo bred Passenger Pigeons early on. They also had Thylacine and Pink-headed Duck, neither of which has been reliably seen for many decades.
 
Canihelpyou? said:
Like the quagga in London zoo.
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London Zoo had three quaggas in total; the one that died in 1872, and which can still be seen in the Edinburgh Museum, is the only living quagga known to have been photographed.

FBBird said:
They also had Thylacine
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London Zoo had twenty thylacines between 1850 and 1931.

Amongst other now extinct animals, London Zoo also had both Syrian wild ass and bubal hartebeest. And it was probably the only zoo in the world ever to exhibit the now extinct Falkland Island "wolf"; with four specimens between 1845 and 1876.
 
Jurek7 said:
Interesting project for the zoo fans here would be to make a list of all extinct animals present in zoos.

I will add one more: the Pink-headed Duck, which according to this website was in captivity until 1936. Somehow, the history of extinct and possibly extinct birds in captivity did not attract the same attention as large mammals.
Oriental Bird Club Image Database : †?Pink-headed Duck » Rhodonessa caryophyllacea
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Alfred Ezra still kept them privately at his home Foxwarren Park in Surrey into the 1940's- 1944 springs to mind.
 
Pertinax said:
Alfred Ezra still kept them privately at his home Foxwarren Park in Surrey into the 1940's- 1944 springs to mind.
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Alfred Ezra's daughter Ruth used to have a lovely painting of one of her father's pink-headed ducks; I wonder what happened to it?
 
Rotterdam and Amsterdam zoo used to have Javan tigers on display. And many of the older European zoos had Barbary lions.
 
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