St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park St Augustine Alligator Farm

FSBlue said:
Sad news as eggs laid by their female gharial have failed to hatch

Eggs from endangered gharial fail to hatch | jacksonville.com
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Let us not be choosy here.

It is a major achievement that gharial have bred outside their range. Even though staff beforehand did not realise at least 1.1 is of breeding age and they did get their act together. And ... at least one egg did have a viable embryo.

It seems staff our now keen to alter the exhibit to make it more breeding accomodating (e.g. building a suitable nesting area).

Fingers crossed for the next stage.
 
Is breeding really necessary/wanted?

I would imagine the animals came from a breeding facility in India which is probably much more effective in producing offspring that is allready related to these animals?
 
jwer said:
Is breeding really necessary/wanted?

I would imagine the animals came from a breeding facility in India which is probably much more effective in producing offspring that is allready related to these animals?
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Considering no gharials have really bred successfully outside of India, and the only way to keep them in American zoos is the bred the few remaining in our SSP. Last year, the SSP lost a few breeding age gharials so the program is really taking a hit.
 
Otter Lord said:
...the only way to keep them in American zoos is the bred the few remaining in our SSP.
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If breeding at Indian farms is going well (and I think it is doing better and better) it should be no problem to import some more in the future. Europe succeeded in importing quite a few the last few years and there are plans for even more...

I doubt the succesful survival of Gharials lies in breeding them in the western world. Even the few that are going to be kept in western zoos can probably easier be bred in India.

That being said, it as long as they know where to go with the offspring, it can't hurt for them to pioneer ex-situ breeding just in case...
 
jwer said:
If breeding at Indian farms is going well (and I think it is doing better and better) it should be no problem to import some more in the future. Europe succeeded in importing quite a few the last few years and there are plans for even more...

I doubt the succesful survival of Gharials lies in breeding them in the western world. Even the few that are going to be kept in western zoos can probably easier be bred in India.

That being said, it as long as they know where to go with the offspring, it can't hurt for them to pioneer ex-situ breeding just in case...
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Just to clarify, it is a huge problem to import them. It takes years and tons of bureaucratic red tape. The San Diego Zoo put in a request to import several, which will probably take years.

Also, I said the survival of gharials in American zoos, not survival period. We have to breed them because the goal of the AZA is to be self sufficient, without any importing. Breeding alone will probably not take gharials off the endangered species because India has a huge problem with water pollution and habitat loss.
 
Otter Lord said:
Just to clarify, it is a huge problem to import them. It takes years and tons of bureaucratic red tape. The San Diego Zoo put in a request to import several, which will probably take years.

Also, I said the survival of gharials in American zoos, not survival period. We have to breed them because the goal of the AZA is to be self sufficient, without any importing. Breeding alone will probably not take gharials off the endangered species because India has a huge problem with water pollution and habitat loss.
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Their status in the wild is not exactly secure, in fact it is critically endangered. In fact, the past re-stocking programme on various rivers has been a resounding failure due in no large part to the failure to address the above-mentioned issues (+ loss of nesting sites).
 
The last decade or something, at least 4 zoological institutions in Europe did manage to import them, 3 of these got them from the Madras Crocodile Bank. Allthough I don't think that's many, it's still a fair number considering (I think) not that many more have tried.

Is it harder for US zoos, or where those few in Europe just lucky?

Besides all of the above, I wish st. Augustine all the best with breeding them :) apparantly the US population will benefit from it, so good luck.
 
The St. Augustine Alligator farm has hatched mugger crocodiles!! This farm is the only place in the AZA that has mugger crocodiles, and this is the first time they have had hatchlings since 1996.
 
JBZvolunteer said:
The St. Augustine Alligator farm has hatched mugger crocodiles!! This farm is the only place in the AZA that has mugger crocodiles, and this is the first time they have had hatchlings since 1996.
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Could it be that its the first time they have allowed them to hatch,since 1996 because before they didn't have somewhere to send them to!But what ever the reason its still excellent news.
 
zoogiraffe said:
Could it be that its the first time they have allowed them to hatch,since 1996 because before they didn't have somewhere to send them to!But what ever the reason its still excellent news.
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Does that mean that there is somewhere that wants muggers now? If so, can you say anymore?
 
I visited today and there were a few nice hatchlings about. For crocs there were the oh so common and expected American Alligator hatchlings, but then there were quite a few baby Saltwater Crocodiles and also a pair of baby Mugger Crocodiles were on-show by the Komodo Dragons. There were also Trimeresurus albolabris, Trimeresurus popeorum, and Golden King Cobra hatchlings on-exhibit.

~Thylo:cool:
 
We don't seem to get much coverage of this collection on ZooChat, so I thought it might be useful to list some of their 2015 breeding successes:

Siamese Crocodile - clutch hatched in June (at least 8 individuals)
Estuarine Crocodile - 8 hatched in September
Slender-snouted Crocodile - 4 hatched in August/September
Broad-nosed Caiman - clutch hatched in August (about a dozen)
Schneider's Dwarf Caiman - 6 hatched in September
 
Very excellent. Most of those are quite rare in captivity over here nowadays.

Has anyone heard any news on the questionable dwarf crocodile? Last I heard they were doing tests on it to determine what it was.

~Thylo:cool:
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Very excellent. Most of those are quite rare in captivity over here nowadays.

Has anyone heard any news on the questionable dwarf crocodile? Last I heard they were doing tests on it to determine what it was.

~Thylo:cool:
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The hatchings of Siamese and African slender-snouted Mecistops cataphractus are the most noteworthy!

As to the questionable dwarf croc ..., dunno that one. I assume you are refering to their African dwarfs (and the new genetics complex in the Osteolaemus group)? I would imagine though that if it is not the regularly exhibited O. tetraspis (from West Africa), nor an O. osborni from the Congo basin, it would quite possibly be the third - as yet undescribed / re-named third taxon from West Africa.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
The hatchings of Siamese and African slender-snouted Mecistops cataphractus are the most noteworthy!

As to the questionable dwarf croc ..., dunno that one. I assume you are refering to their African dwarfs (and the new genetics complex in the Osteolaemus group)? I would imagine though that if it is not the regularly exhibited O. tetraspis (from West Africa), nor an O. osborni from the Congo basin, it would quite possibly be the third - as yet undescribed / re-named third taxon from West Africa.
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Actually it was discovered that the type specimen for O. tetraspis belonged to the third population. As such, the regularly exhibited West African Dwarf Crocodile is the one that has yet to be named. On my visit the zoo had two dwarf crocodiles on-exhibit. One is a confirmed West African Dwarf Crocodile, the other is an unknown animal. It's possible it's one of the other species but also possible that it's a hybrid.

My photo of the animal:
http://www.zoochat.com/615/id-wanted-389569/

~Thylo:cool:
 
News of a third cryptic species of Osteolaemus was on the go when i visited this place in 2009 and a keeper told me that they had all three,possibly because at that time they touted ALL the known species of crocodilian...and she couldnt bear to be caught out!I recently saw a genuine osborni in Sweden and it would take SOME expertise to tell one apart!
 
It's not all about crocodilians....
On 1 February, a Cape Griffon Vulture (Gyps coprotheres) hatched at St Augustine.
 
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