Shoebill storks in the UK

kiang said:
Can anyone provide any information regarding shoebills that have been kept in the UK.
I know that 2 zoos have kept them in the past, London and Edinburgh, i think Bristol may have kept one or two in the past (unconfirmed).
Do we see a collection in the future, bringing in my favourite bird species, Marwell mentioned them in a masterplan from a few years back, unlikely, but who knows?
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Unlikely is the key word here , very unlikely in Marwells case at least!
 
If any collection in the UK were to show an interest in shoebill, i would like that collection to be Slimbridge.
I think the expertise in their habitat, plus the location and layout of the site, could do the shoebill justice.
 
Tim Brown said:
Having examined all Bristols archives when i wrote "An Illustrated History of Bristol Zoo Gardens"i can say that Bristol never had a Shoebill.They were always very expensive, which probably accounts for the fact that Mottershead,Len Hill,even Regents Park, did not buy them through the 60s and 70s when they did crop up on dealers lists.In fact if you are prepared to pay you can still obtain this taxon from a sustainable source.Can the U.S.zoochatters confirm american breedings? I was under the impression that the Belgian breeding was a world first.
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Came along this old thread and couldn't believe so few Shoebills were kept in the UK ! By checking several sources it seems however realy that the species was VERY rare in the UK but I found a note that in the International Zooyear Book it should have been mentioned that Bristol had 1 specimen during 1968 (?).
 
I just had a look and it does list Bristol having 1 specimen in the 1968 rare animal census, with a footnote that it was on loan from Frankfurt.
 
Is it still true that only 2 institues worldwide have been sucessful in breeding shoebilled storks?
Lowry Park Zoo (USA) and Pairi Daiza (Belgium)
 
I'm assuming that Al wabra was unsucessful in the rearing of the chick, as they never mentioned anything after it reached approximatley 4 weeks old, and nothing has been said since.
 
Macaulay said:
Iv just looked on trade database and their is 6 shoebills in Britain but they are in private collection they where imported in year 2000
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Or rather, there was an import certificate granted 20 years ago - there is no guarantee that a) the information given to CITES was true b) the birds ever actually arrived or c) the birds, if they arrived, are still alive.

Given some of the other very obvious fraudulent import listings on the database if one knows where to look (particularly where permits for pangolins are concerned!) I'm inclined to say the birds were never intended for the UK in the first place and never arrived if they were.
 
Macaulay said:
Iv just looked on trade database and their is 6 shoebills in Britain but they are in private collection they where imported in year 2000
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It's a bit of a jump to go from a 20-year old CITES export record to that these birds are in Britain but they are kept in a private collection. That's just making things up.

As TLD suggests, some countries are renowned for dodgy export records. If you look through the DRC's export records there are absolutely loads with no corresponding import record from the country they were supposedly exporting to. And loads where the two figures do not match at all.

If you look at the export records from the DRC specifically for Shoebills, none of them have corresponding import records, including the 14 and 20 birds supposedly exported to China in 2018 and 2019.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Or rather, there was an import certificate granted 20 years ago - there is no guarantee that a) the information given to CITES was true b) the birds ever actually arrived or c) the birds, if they arrived, are still alive.

Given some of the other very obvious fraudulent import listings on the database if one knows where to look (particularly where permits for pangolins are concerned!) I'm inclined to say the birds were never intended for the UK in the first place and never arrived if they were.
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fair enough but if they did arrive then they could still be alive only problem is from the various websites iv looked at shoebills can live anywhere between 25 to 35 maybe 50 years but I'm dawtfull
 
Chlidonias said:
As TLD suggests, some countries are renowned for dodgy export records. If you look through the DRC's export records there are absolutely loads with no corresponding import record from the country they were supposedly exporting to. And loads where the two figures do not match at all.
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Of course, there's also plenty of cases where there is an export listing but no import record, or an import record with no corresponding export record, but where animals are known to have arrived..... but this is not one of them :p generally it's possible to deduce what is likeliest on a case by case basis, and by looking at the species, countries and timespan in question. An export listing from within the last year or so would be believable - one from two decades ago with no rumour of any such import having taken place is another thing entirely!
 
If there were Shoebills in the UK, I'm sure it would be known about by some on here, even if they were in private hands...
 
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