Southern helmeted curassow

Saro

Saro

Well-Known Member
Some years ago, I saw a rather large number of Southern helmeted curassows at the Santa Cruz Zoo in Bolivia. Unfortunately, back then I did not even realize how rare these birds are (didn't even take a photo :mad:). According to ISIS, only the Dallas World Aquarium and Lotherton Bird Garden in the UK have a small number of individuals. I am wondering if this species is present in any private collection outside of South America ?
 
To be honest, I've seen these at Lotherton (which is quite close to me) a few times without realising just how rare they are (I knew they were rare, but not only-ones-on-show-in-Europe-rare!). I've half a feeling I've seen them somewhere else as well but I could just be thinking of the more common Northerns. I'll check my records and get back to you. ;)

For a long time Lotherton had the two species in adjacent aviaries, which was nice. Not sure if that's the case now; they had been moved apart I think last time I was there.
 
Maguari said:
I've half a feeling I've seen them somewhere else as well but I could just be thinking of the more common Northerns. I'll check my records and get back to you
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Maybe you saw them at Birdworld, Farnham? That collection achieved a first UK breeding of this curassow in 1998. I saw the species there on a couple of occasions in the late '90s.
 
MikeG said:
Maybe you saw them at Birdworld, Farnham? That collection achieved a first UK breeding of this curassow in 1998. I saw the species there on a couple of occasions in the late '90s.
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Give that man a coconut! :D

Thanks Mike, didn't get a chance to check last night but that'll be it - I first went to Birdworld actually in 1998 (day before my first visit to Port Lympne).
 
I visited Santa Cruz last July and don't remember seeing more than a pair of the birds on show. If it makes you feel any better, I've attached photos of them and of the aviary's sign. ;)
 

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Thank you devilfish, that does make me feel better ! I visited in fall of 2004 and saw a large number (at least 10) in a cage next to the freeflight aviary.

I've heard that the Santa Cruz Zoo had some upgrades lately. Maybe you could start a separate thread on that? I would be very interested to hear some news about their marsh deer, blue throated macaws, crab eating fox or chaco jaguars etc.

I sincerely hope they are not keeping giant otters again ?
 
No problem, I hope to start a thread and upload some photos within the next couple of weeks when I have less work to do, hopefully a gallery will have been created by then. It was my only visit, so I'm not sure about what's been upgraded and what's changed, but a huge group of blue-throated macaws appeared to be doing well, and I counted at least ten jaguars on display around the zoo. There was one crab-eating fox on display, and a small but comfortable-looking group of 1.2 marsh deer. There were no giant otters in sight :) .
 
devilfish said:
No problem, I hope to start a thread and upload some photos within the next couple of weeks when I have less work to do, hopefully a gallery will have been created by then. It was my only visit, so I'm not sure about what's been upgraded and what's changed, but a huge group of blue-throated macaws appeared to be doing well, and I counted at least ten jaguars on display around the zoo. There was one crab-eating fox on display, and a small but comfortable-looking group of 1.2 marsh deer. There were no giant otters in sight :) .
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Thank you ! I have mixed feelings about this place. Some areas were okay, even interesting, some were just horrible and their giant otter "enclosure" was probably the worst in any zoo (about 15m² of water and concrete).
Some conservationists I talked to in Bolivia at the time were not too happy about the huge number of blue throated macaws at the zoo. I don't want to get into any legal trouble naming the reasons, but one quote was "They shouldn't have them"...
 
I actually can't find any indication either way regarding if I actually saw Southerns at Birdworld, but I think if I have seen them anywhere other than Lotherton it must have been there.

Here's a photo of one of Lotherton's birds in 2007. Not the best photo I've ever taken but they weren't being very helpful!
 

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Southern Helmeted Curasssow

One problem with Helmeted Curassow is that some of the European captive population are the result of Southern x Northern Helmeted!

There are a considerable number of Cracid species privately kept and bred in Europe - and to a lesser extent - in the UK.

If there are any Zoos in South America keeping the various Cracid species - any chance of some fertile eggs being sent to Europe as change of blood?
 
Vida Silvestre in Mexico City has almost all species of curassow, including southern helmeted. I guess Vida Silvestre is the source of the ones in Dallas World Aquarium. There are some fairly big private collections of cracids in Brazil (including the only Alagoas curassow of course) but I don't know if any of them have southern helmeted. The Sira curassow was recently proven to be a species instead of subspecies of southern helmeted and I don't think there are any in captivity.
 
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condor said:
There are some fairly big private collections of cracids in Brazil (including the only Alagoas curassow of course) but I don't know if any of them have southern helmeted.
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Yes there are, Poços de Caldas have them, so I guess Crax Brasil have them too.

Poços de Caldas have at least 15 species/subspecies.

Both are really big collections, Crax Brasil also owns the biggest number of harpy eagle held in any place of the world, there are at least 25 right now.
 
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