Yes, if someone really wanted, I'm sure a "donation" to the government could see a fresh group of wild caughts leaving the country.
I agree with you that the handling of these animals in captivity is nothing short of painful, as well. All the animals in North America are dead, most died of sleep deprivation within a few years and by the time they figured out they needed shallow water to sleep, it was to late, there were only a few left, and far from enough to make a breeding population.
In Europe, we only have one ageing male left from a group of 5. If Duisburg actually wanted they could have had several chances to acquire new stock, but for some reason they seem set on manatees. The worst part is the the Inia and Manatees require very similar conditions to thrive, and have been exhibited together in the past, and if they were managed correctly there could be have potentially been several captive populations throughout Europe at this point, living with or in place of Manatees.
In South America, they have seemingly had the most "success" despite their arguably worst conditions, with breeding success as recently as 2009, I believe. However they too messed it up, and only have three "official" animals down there now.
So as it stands, the known captive population is as follows:
- Baby, the 30+ year old wild caught male in Germany
- Dalila, the wild caught female who is at least 30 years old, in Venezuela
- Zeus, a 9 near old captive bred male living with Dalila
- Huayrurin, the rescue animal living in Peru, who reports are iffy on, but I believe is a female. She's also the youngest, at only 7 years old
There are two females related to Zeus (mother and 2009 born full sister) who I can't find any death reports on who many still be alive somewhere in South America or possibly even Asia, however it is far more likely they are deceased but without any record of it.
As for the rescue animal (Huayrurin), it is still alive in Zoológico Quistococha in Peru, and it is still in the deplorable filthy unfiltered pool.
Its so sad, the Amazon River Dolphin is a species that appears to adapt superbly to captivity given proper conditions (arguably far better so than bottlenoses or orca), however after the initial big imports back in the 80's few seem to be willing to attempt to establish a fresh captive population, and those that try don't seem to see much success. Hopefully at some point a facility or two in, perhaps Canada or Europe, will one day go through the effort to bring up animals from their home range and establish a new captive population. I'm sure if there was a source of captive bred animals, other facilities would not be opposed to displaying them.
