Turning Back time: Do you think extinct animals today would be able to survive with Zoos nowadays?

Sheather said:
Passenger pigeon bred very well in captivity until affected by inbreeding depression.
Their dependence on large flocks was not apparently an issue in captive settings.
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I don't think inbreeding depression was all that much of an issue given the Knowsley collection ended up with about 77 birds being auctioned off :P the problem was nowhere was interested in them, so few places actually bothered *to* breed them until it was too late.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
I don't think inbreeding depression was all that much of an issue given the Knowsley collection ended up with about 77 birds being auctioned off :p the problem was nowhere was interested in them, so few places actually bothered *to* breed them until it was too late.
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Which is why we could hope to see better results as zoos have gotten better with breeding lesser-known or wanted species
 
TeaLovingDave said:
I don't think inbreeding depression was all that much of an issue given the Knowsley collection ended up with about 77 birds being auctioned off :p the problem was nowhere was interested in them, so few places actually bothered *to* breed them until it was too late.
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at which point it was inbreeding depression that did them in.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
I don't think inbreeding depression was all that much of an issue given the Knowsley collection ended up with about 77 birds being auctioned off :p the problem was nowhere was interested in them, so few places actually bothered *to* breed them until it was too late.
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And the irony is this problem is still alive and well in zoos today and still causing ex-situ populations to die out...:rolleyes:
 
I would love to see if we could maintain a large-enough captive population of Stellers sea cow.

Would it survive long-term in fresh water tanks? Could it adapt to higher summer temperatures? Could we develop a good affordable food protocol that woudn´t need kelp and sea algee?
 
Jana said:
I would love to see if we could maintain a large-enough captive population of Stellers sea cow.

Would it survive long-term in fresh water tanks? Could it adapt to higher summer temperatures? Could we develop a good affordable food protocol that woudn´t need kelp and sea algee?
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I imagine you could keep then in cooled water in a sorta Seaworld orca tank type setting, if you manage to provide enough kelp for a small herd
 
joe99 said:
I imagine you could keep then in cooled water in a sorta Seaworld orca tank type setting, if you manage to provide enough kelp for a small herd
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I do agree that with our knowledge of belugas and manatees we could definitely care for them but I wouldn't use Seaworld as the model exhibit as these would need more shallow open exhibits and only one exhibit at Seaworld is kind of the right exhibit but probably isn't large enough
 
Westcoastperson said:
I do agree that with our knowledge of belugas and manatees we could definitely care for them but I wouldn't use Seaworld as the model exhibit as these would need more shallow open exhibits and only one exhibit at Seaworld is kind of the right exhibit but probably isn't large enough
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a very general comparison, the sort of depth would work if not that deep since stellers may have positively buoyant and lived in shallow coastal water.
 
I'm unsure if we've mentioned those yet, but I feel that bluebucks and quaggas would be relatively easy to keep, considering how close they are to commonly kept zebra and roan and sable antelopes.
However, the Thylacine may be a bit of a headache. By what I've seen, non-macropod marsupials are delicate, fickle animals, barely ever breeding well in captivity (at least in Europe), especially opossums, quolls and tassies. Still, it would be more than worth a try to have those animals in captivity.
 
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