What can America do to get Australia to give us a platypus?

What can America do to get Australia to give us a platypus?

  • Offer to exchange Lindsay Lohan and other surplus celebrities for some platypuses.

    Votes: 5 23.8%

  • Say "pretty please" one trillion times until they go insane and just give us one to shut us up.

    Votes: 4 19.0%

  • Buy Australia, keep the platypuses (and other cool species), and sell the rest of it to New Zealand.

    Votes: 8 38.1%

  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • Total voters
    21
nanoboy said:
As I said on another thread somewhere, I think America can get a platypus if a powerful politician made the request. Obama has been planning to visit Oz for a couple years - it is safe to assume that he HAS to visit in 2013. When he does, if he did a trip to Taronga say, and fell in love with the platypus and asked for one to be sent to America, I am pretty sure that Gillard would make it happen.

We do everything to lick America's boots here, so please write to your Congressman to get platypuses in America. :D
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And then send it to the Bronx Zoo.:D
 
nanoboy said:
As I said on another thread somewhere, I think America can get a platypus if a powerful politician made the request. Obama has been planning to visit Oz for a couple years - it is safe to assume that he HAS to visit in 2013. When he does, if he did a trip to Taronga say, and fell in love with the platypus and asked for one to be sent to America, I am pretty sure that Gillard would make it happen.
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I read in the newsaper that Julia Gillard got a call from Obama the day after he was re-elected. I could just imagine her squealing like a little girl when her assistant told her that the president was on the phone.
 
PAT said:
I read in the newsaper that Julia Gillard got a call from Obama the day after he was re-elected. I could just imagine her squealing like a little girl when her assistant told her that the president was on the phone.
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Make your fun but Australia is the one with the Platypus, Tasmanian Devils, and most of what we're all drooling to see (except Chlidonias cause he just wants to see a skunk).
 
zooboy28 said:
There were 24 in 8 ZAA zoos at the start of 2012, which is certainly a higher number than many other species, but still relatively low (not a bounty - but David Brown might have been referring to wild numbers).

I think maintaining individuals in captivity has been largely successful, but not the breeding of them (sporadic at best, except maybe at Healesville?).
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Yes, I meant the wild populations of platypuses which from I read are doing well and are widespread and stable.

This thread is obviously tongue in cheek, but with the platypuses seemingly doing pretty well in Australian zoos and aquariums I guess I do hope that an ambitious zoo like San Diego, Columbus, etc. will someday undertake a serious attempt to display the species and share its wonder with the rest of the world.
 
DavidBrown said:
Yes, I meant the wild populations of platypuses which from I read are doing well and are widespread and stable.

This thread is obviously tongue in cheek, but with the platypuses seemingly doing pretty well in Australian zoos and aquariums I guess I do hope that an ambitious zoo like San Diego, Columbus, etc. will someday undertake a serious attempt to display the species and share its wonder with the rest of the world.
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Um- How about Bronx?:D
 
I just checked my mailbox and got the latest issue of San Diego ZooNooz. It is an Australia issue with the 2013 calendar enclosed featuring all Australian animals. Coincidentally, the photo for April is a platypus. (And no, that does NOT mean San Diego is getting one - at least I do not think so?).
 
nanoboy said:
As I said on another thread somewhere, I think America can get a platypus if a powerful politician made the request. Obama has been planning to visit Oz for a couple years - it is safe to assume that he HAS to visit in 2013. When he does, if he did a trip to Taronga say, and fell in love with the platypus and asked for one to be sent to America, I am pretty sure that Gillard would make it happen.

We do everything to lick America's boots here, so please write to your Congressman to get platypuses in America. :D
Click to expand...

Just tuned into this thread now. President Obama visited Canberra and Darwin in November 2011.

I'm highly skeptical about a platypus being sent overseas any time soon. Certainly not while there's adequate spaces in Australia for any progeny. If I had to nominate the first non-Australian zoo to receive captive-bred platypus (if it ever happens), I would predict it would be River Safari in Singapore. WRS is a ZAA member, so they would be remaining within the program if they went there.
 
I heard that the Bronx Zoo was the last American zoo with a Platypus (also Proboscis Monkeys). Where were they kept (I know where they kept the monkeys)?

~Thylo:cool:
 
Well, the LA Zoo has helped Australia by sending them Indian Rhinos and Komodo Dragons, so hopefully they'll return the favor with some Platypuses or Tasmanian Devils. I'll even take Bilbies or Quolls!
 
mstickmanp said:
Well, the LA Zoo has helped Australia by sending them Indian Rhinos and Komodo Dragons, so hopefully they'll return the favor with some Platypuses or Tasmanian Devils. I'll even take Bilbies or Quolls!
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I doubt there was any such quid pro quo in place.
 
CGSwans said:
I doubt there was any such quid pro quo in place.
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Actually, I think there is/was an agreement with Taronga Zoo. In one of the LA Zoo's "Zoo View" issues it mentions the LA Zoo sending 7 Komodo Dragons in return for a male Koala and several reptiles, which include Giant Snake-necked Turtle (Chelodina expansa), Rough-scaled Python, Glauert's Dwarf Monitor, Shingle-backed Skink, and Blue-tongued Skink.

Although all the animals we got/be getting are great, I do wish it would had been Platypuses or other Aussie mammals.
 
Koala makes sense. Reptiles make sense. But I would have been stunned had it involved mammals not already established in the US. For whatever reason there's a strong aversion to sending animals overseas - to the point that it was controversial to propose trapping and exporting cockatoos as an alternative to culling them a few years back. I just can't see it happening other than in special circumstances (such as LA having an existing koala program, or a girl from Tassie marrying a prince...).
 
I'm sure that if enough interest for platypus could be genrated in China they would get it! It is unfortunately only a matter of money and other benefits and Chinese are pretty good at making things happen. It has nothing to do with conservation, pride animal welfare aso. Just money. Why I'm saying that? Look at a rate of koalas being sent to Chinese zoo that is a good place because it participates in a number of conservation of endengered species like white tigers, white lions and white wallabies (authentic quote).
 
Three Words: Operation Platypus Freedom. Seal Team Six could get the extraction done neatly.

See now if we said "Its ours you can't have any" we would be called pushy arrogant Americans. But it does give a great excuse to visit Australia one day.

I don't see why its such a big deal one way or another. Lions are in nearly every medium to large zoo and people still go to Kruger and Tsavo. Same with Grizzly and Yellowstone. Any American that can afford to travel to Australia and wants to isn't not going to just because Bronx or San Diego has a breeding group.
 
tschandler71 said:
Three Words: Operation Platypus Freedom. Seal Team Six could get the extraction done neatly.

See now if we said "Its ours you can't have any" we would be called pushy arrogant Americans. But it does give a great excuse to visit Australia one day.

I don't see why its such a big deal one way or another. Lions are in nearly every medium to large zoo and people still go to Kruger and Tsavo. Same with Grizzly and Yellowstone. Any American that can afford to travel to Australia and wants to isn't not going to just because Bronx or San Diego has a breeding group.
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I think us ZooChatters are the only ones that would travel all the way to Oz just to see a Platypus (along with the other rarities over there). Despite whether or not the US gets a Platypus I still want to go to Australia!

~Thylo:cool:
 
Rhinopithecus said:
I'm sure that if enough interest for platypus could be genrated in China they would get it! It is unfortunately only a matter of money and other benefits and Chinese are pretty good at making things happen. It has nothing to do with conservation, pride animal welfare aso. Just money. Why I'm saying that? Look at a rate of koalas being sent to Chinese zoo that is a good place because it participates in a number of conservation of endengered species like white tigers, white lions and white wallabies (authentic quote).
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I'd like to see a link to this authentic quote that says the koalas were sent there because of the zoo's excellent conservation work with aberrant animals! As it happens the koalas going to Xiangjiang Safari Park was indeed basically a money deal but there were only six koalas in 2006, the zoo is just one of many zoos around the world that have received koalas from Australia in the last few decades, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese zoo breeding white tigers....
 
About sending in the military you never know some people are sensitive about that stuff I was just kidding.
 
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