Yes, I'm mentioning this one. It's now probably becoming one of the "reis da selva" enclosures, right?
Species formerly kept in Brazil
If this area was built where the petting zoo was located, then exactly. Before the existance of the petting zoo, not only Cacareco, but the Brazilian tapirs, at least one of the common hippos, the black wildebeest, the rheas and the cassowaries lived there.
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Hmm I thought the petting zoo existed since the beggining. I didnt know it was built after...
The Belo Horizonte zoo was not the only one in Brazil to keep Nile crocodiles. There was a "zoo" in Osório (Rio Grande do Sul), called the Zambezi Crocodilo Zoo. Besides some animals native to Brazil, their main attraction were the more than 80 Nile crocs living in the place. At the same time the zoo was opened, there were other crocodile breeders in the city, which bred the animals for their skins. I believe the zoo, as well as the farms, closed down in the early 2000's and all the crocodiles were sacrificed, as you can see in these links:
O que aconteceu com Dindinho e outros ícones do passado praiano | GZH
O LOBO-GUARÁ DA ESTRADA DO MAR – Moisés Mendes – Jornalista – Porto Alegre – Rio Grande do Sul
Criadores de crocodilos do Nilo de Osório devem apresentar e...
O que aconteceu com Dindinho e outros ícones do passado praiano | GZH
O LOBO-GUARÁ DA ESTRADA DO MAR – Moisés Mendes – Jornalista – Porto Alegre – Rio Grande do Sul
Criadores de crocodilos do Nilo de Osório devem apresentar e...
I remember seing these data in CITES right after we last talked about the crocodile from BH. I was scared to see that 110 individuals were brought...
The salty is the one in the background right? Once we have the malayan gharial in the front, their lake must have been divided in two, right?Next, we have the saltwater crocodile. Apparently, one of those lived at the São Paulo zoo back in the 2000's. Take a look at this picture from 2009:
Credits: Marco Aurélio Esparza
I forgot to say that the zoo probably started a farm. I wasn't scared, but got surprised with the numbers, since I did not think people would farm crocodiles in a country where six species of caiman live and are bred as well.
Most likely to São Paulo or Rio... But I'm curious where these animals went for...
The background one is the saltwater crocodile and your hypothesis could be right.
These were probably kept in São Paulo, once they have more experiences with crocodilians.
Exactly. It's surprisingly and scary that, unprecedented, many specimens were brought... It's weird. Do you have any idea of where they could be located?
The crocs have probably been brought by the breeders to start with the farms. All the animals have probably been sacrificed. That's what I believe, at least, because as you can see in the last link I found, they had problems with IBAMA. Another proof the crocodiles were possibly sacrificed is a tweet I found:
https://twitter.com/fiscaldoibama/status/1281001777530376203
Oh, yes, I confused this with more recent data. If these imports happened in 1989, so it's probably for this farm/zoo indeed.
Next, we have the American alligators. According to CITES, in 1994, 13 of those were sent from the USA to Brazil. The first import, with seven specimens were brought to a circus and the second one, with six individuals, had commercial purposes.
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While searching for the Zambezi crocodilo zoo, I found a video of "Irk", the nile crocodile in BH zoo. Check it out:
By the way, for what we can see, he probably suffered of the same/alike health problem of the white jacare caiman from São Paulo aquarium.
I've never heard about any zoos in the country keeping these. Have you? Do you think they may have came for any farm too?