Species no longer held/nearly gone from US zoos

Great Argus said:
As I already stated, we don't hold Goodfellow's because of the consortium decision on how to dedicate enough space to both Goodfellow's and Matschie's. Oceania maintains multiple species, but they also have fewer options for filling the slot of medium-sized arboreal mammals.
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Asia is mainly focused on Grizzled tree kangaroo (Over 5 zoos) but one of the zoos has a pair goodfellow’s tree kangaroo.
 
Great Argus said:
Also, Bear Cuscus is not "disappearing", they were never here in numbers anyways. We only get Tasmanian Devils when they're post-breeding age and have 3-4 years left. Again, we can't claim losing something we were never managing a population of in the first place. Many of the opossums are short-lived to begin with and are continually being imported to refill the gaps, besides not being very common in larger zoos in the first place.

Who had Grizzled that recent? Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo was a deliberate phase-out following a consortium decision of NA focusing on Matschie's and Europe focusing on Goodfellow's. Tiger Quoll and Striped Possum are both not particularly long-lived and without careful effort in maintaining the population will readily die out anyways.
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Also striped possums can live up to 9 years and I never said they must bring back these as common in zoos. I used these animals as example on how many species the US has lost in the short time
 
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Evirapo said:
Asia is mainly focused on Grizzled tree kangaroo (Over 5 zoos) but one of the zoos has a pair goodfellow’s tree kangaroo.
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Point being? A pair isn't exactly much in the way of Asia "doing their job," as you put it earlier.

Evirapo said:
Also striped possums can live up to 9 years and I never said they must bring back these as common in zoos.
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That's considered the high end, not the average though. You have to be breeding them on the regular if you want to keep them around. And no, you didn't say that - but unless several zoos were committed there's no reason to bring them back anyways. They'd be taking up space from populations that do need it.

Evirapo said:
I used these animals as example on how many species the US has lost in the short time
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I raise you Yellow-throated Marten, Scaly-sided Merganser, Madagascar Sacred Ibis, Madagascar Pond Heron, Amazilia Hummingbird, and Bloody Belly Comb Jelly for a start.
 
Great Argus said:
I raise you Yellow-throated Marten, Scaly-sided Merganser, Madagascar Sacred Ibis, Madagascar Pond Heron, Amazilia Hummingbird, and Bloody Belly Comb Jelly for a start.
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Wasn't I talking about marsupials and what is this supposed to be about?
 
Evirapo said:
Asia is mainly focused on Grizzled tree kangaroo (Over 5 zoos) but one of the zoos has a pair goodfellow’s tree kangaroo.
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That’s probably only a few individuals. Far from an actual breeding program. Goodfellow’s and Mastchie’s are similar enough that I don’t think the AZA will ever have any incentive to keep them
 
Great Argus said:
Point being?
I raise you Yellow-throated Marten, Scaly-sided Merganser, Madagascar Sacred Ibis, Madagascar Pond Heron, Amazilia Hummingbird, and Bloody Belly Comb Jelly for a start.
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Asian golden cat, malagasy giant jumping rat, barbary macaque, japanese serow, and so on would probably work as well
 
Evirapo said:
Ah, that's what I thought. Hopefully, they could at least reimport animals after no longer being held at NA recently or nearly gone like what Bronx Zoo and some zoos did
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Just out of interest could you explain why you think reimporting a species like, for example, the Striped possum to the US is important? The reality is that unless a serious, coordinated breeding program is set up for an imported species, it is unlikely to persist long and serves very little conservation (or other) purpose. Going to all that trouble, plus the cost and time of importing the animal, especially for an LC mammal, doesn't make much sense.
 
amur leopard said:
Just out of interest could you explain why you think reimporting a species like, for example, the Striped possum to the US is important? The reality is that unless a serious, coordinated breeding program is set up for an imported species, it is unlikely to persist long and serves very little conservation (or other) purpose. Going to all that trouble, plus the cost and time of importing the animal, especially for an LC mammal, doesn't make much sense.
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I'm not the guy you were responding to, but I wanted to answer if that is ok, species like the Striped Possum serve as ambassadors for species like the Leadbeater's Possum which are critically endangered and have a 0% chance of being exported out of Australia. Also increases diversity of collections, Australia is up there with Europe with being the most under-represented continent in US collections. And the goal would be to set up a breeding program, but for other zoos to get on board, one zoo usually has to take the initial hit. there are quite a few species imported by a single zoo that eventually got other zoos interested in them and they slowly started to spread out.
 
King of Komodo Dragons said:
I'm not the guy you were responding to, but I wanted to answer if that is ok, species like the Striped Possum serve as ambassadors for species like the Leadbeater's Possum which are critically endangered and have a 0% chance of being exported out of Australia. Also increases diversity of collections, Australia is up there with Europe with being the most under-represented continent in US collections. And the goal would be to set up a breeding program, but for other zoos to get on board, one zoo usually has to take the initial hit. there are quite a few species imported by a single zoo that eventually got other zoos interested in them and they slowly started to spread out.
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As much as I would want more phalangerid representation in the US (or globally for that matter), this does not sound convincing. Yes the Leadbeater’s possum is in great danger but American zoos don’t really have a great focus on Australian conservation issues and they are better off having programs for local conservation issues along with the three continents zoos always love (Africa, Asia, and Central+South America). I also don’t think the average Amrerican Zoo visitor being aware of the plight of the Leadbeater’s possum is going to have a visible impact on their conservation. Not to mention a non-color morph sugar glider could also serve as an ambassador for Leadbeater’s possums and all a zoo needs to do is to check local rescues rather than jumping through hoops to import from a trader who may or may not be meet the ethical standards of the AZA to obtain the right amount of striped possums to make a sustainable population.

While there are species that were able to spread out there are also species that didn’t and are either geriatric or on their way to the shadow realm such as the spotted-neck otter.
 
amur leopard said:
Just out of interest could you explain why you think reimporting a species like, for example, the Striped possum to the US is important? The reality is that unless a serious, coordinated breeding program is set up for an imported species, it is unlikely to persist long and serves very little conservation (or other) purpose. Going to all that trouble, plus the cost and time of importing the animal, especially for an LC mammal, doesn't make much sense.
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I didn't mean that they should reimport all phased-out mammals. In my opinion, Some threatened species like Malagasy rats, bear cuscus, Mountain tapir, and any primates deserve another chance, and it would be nice for US zoos to do with these as how Nashville Zoo did with Fanaloka
 
Evirapo said:
I didn't mean that they should reimport all phased-out mammals. In my opinion, Some threatened species like Malagasy rats, bear cuscus, Mountain tapir, and any primates deserve another chance, and it would be nice for US zoos to do with these as how Nashville Zoo did with Fanaloka
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I don’t think anyone disagrees with you that the species you listed deserve another chance, but if it were that easy it would have been done. But not only is it not that easy to import these species back, zoos cannot afford to use up space that the animals they currently keep will need in the future as welfare requirements continue to increase.

Also, I hate to rain on your parade but I wouldn’t expect the fanaloka to go anywhere considering that only a small number of animals were imported. The fact that the cub born in Nashville is used as an ambassador doesn’t look promising to me.
 
PossumRoach said:
Also, I hate to rain on your parade but I wouldn’t expect the fanaloka to go anywhere considering that only a small number of animals were imported. The fact that the cub born in Nashville is used as an ambassador doesn’t look promising to me.
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Honestly, the way his posts read in the thread, I don't think he really grasps the difference between a sustainable zoo population and there just being a few random animals dotted about.
 
PossumRoach said:
I don’t think anyone disagrees with you that the species you listed deserve another chance, but if it were that easy it would have been done. But not only is it not that easy to import these species back, zoos cannot afford to use up space that the animals they currently keep will need in the future as welfare requirements continue to increase.

Also, I hate to rain on your parade but I wouldn’t expect the fanaloka to go anywhere considering that only a small number of animals were imported. The fact that the cub born in Nashville is used as an ambassador doesn’t look promising to me.
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I’m aware it might not be that easy to import things, and I guess it's something up to my hope


Also, didn't Nashville Zoo imply that they have two male adult fanaloka according to their reply to one of the users, but who knew there might be more than that, or do we have USDA for the zoo?
 
Evirapo said:
I’m aware it might not be that easy to import things, and I guess it's something up to my hope


Also, didn't Nashville Zoo imply that they have two male adult fanaloka according to their reply to one of the users, but who knew there might be more than that, or do we have USDA for the zoo?
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Oh probably never mind since one of their posts said only three fanaloka in the AZA facility after the pup is born but I don't know why Nashville's answer to the “Is he related to the pup or just a friend” question “Friend”
 
King of Komodo Dragons said:
Also increases diversity of collections, Australia is up there with Europe with being the most under-represented continent in US collections. And the goal would be to set up a breeding program, but for other zoos to get on board, one zoo usually has to take the initial hit.
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Glossing over the first few points as PossumRoach has already addressed them, but:

Playing Devil's advocate to an extent here but why do zoo collections need to be highly diverse? The vast majority of visitors will only (at least regularly) visit one or two institutions max. If anything, massive diversity is a disservice to the role of zoos in ex situ conservation as it limits the number of sustainable breeding programs that can be maintained. You could also say underrepresentation of a particular continent is largely irrelevant too in a way for similar reasons.

As for your last point, why would setting up a breeding program for a Least Concern mammal from Australia in NA be in anyone's interest? It takes up space for actually endangered native species (of which you have a significant number, by the by) and wastes time and resources on a species that has very similar counterparts already all over the continent. If North America doesn't conserve their own endangered native wildlife, who will? Of course this isn't specific to NA - I've pointed out before the number of endangered freshwater fish in Europe in need of concerted ex situ efforts. There just seems to be a bit of confusion on how ultimately useful an ex situ population can be without proper management and import in sufficient numbers.
 
Evirapo said:
I didn't mean that they should reimport all phased-out mammals. In my opinion, Some threatened species like Malagasy rats, bear cuscus, Mountain tapir, and any primates deserve another chance, and it would be nice for US zoos to do with these as how Nashville Zoo did with Fanaloka
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You mean the couple of animals they keep entirely behind the scenes, unless one is in the hospital for something and is briefly viewable?
 
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