Yes there are a lot of populations outside of the AZA which are managed by private keepers. In fact, there are a good number of species managed privately which aren't in public zoos at all anymore. Nilgiri Tahr, Topi, and Grey Rhebok are all examples, though I can't say I know how well those populations are doing.
Thanks!
Gladys Porter Zoo in Texas and Bergen County Zoo in New Jersey are currently the only AZA holders of brocket deer. The other two holders are non-AZA but I do not know who they are or if they are public.
Thank you! Good a good deal of time but I'm happy people are interested.
In the 2014 report, those 0.0.70 anoa all belonged to one of three private holders. I'd imagine a good deal of the current population still remains in private hands but is managing them in cooperation with the TAG.
I meant to make a note on the Gerenuk drop so thanks for reminded me! While I do not know what caused the dropped, it was a lot more sudden than my post suggests sadly. In 2017, there were 37.47 Gerenuk in the population. However, in the 2018 report there were only 22.29 left. Over the course of one year the population lost 15.18 animals... The good news is that the population has at least slightly increased between 2018 and 2019, even if only by 1.3 animals. Despite the sudden drop in numbers, the TAG still lists the species as a Yellow SSP and considers the population to be stable.
No unfortunately. I don't think the South-Central Black Rhinoceros program was ever an AZA program, but rather one managed by Fort Worth which other zoos joined on their own accord. I think the program has been deemed unsustainable now, unfortunately, and the taxa is listed for phasing out. I know Fort Worth, Disney, White Oak, and Denver(?) still hold the subspecies, though I don't know if there are any others or what their numbers are.
All the females died. LA kept breeding them right to the end but I believe all new fawns born and eventually much of the herd (possibly all of the herd by now?) succumbed to chronic wasting disease.
@ThylacineAlive I want to thank you for posting this thread, I’ve been getting more and more into ungulates in the past year due to being able to visit zoos here in California. It’s awesome to seem massive mixed species exhibit in the likes of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park mingling like it’s just a group of people out at brunchI hope to see the Calamian Deer at the LA Zoo next week, they almost always are ignored by average zoo goers but find it sad as well as @Gavialis mentioned. I’ll want to ask the hoofstock keepers if I manage to see one about their situation.
You are very welcome!
If you do manage to find Calamian Deer still at LA, please let me know how many you see, or try to find out how many are left if you do speak to a keeper. Besides LA, the only other holder will be Phoenix with either one or two males.
My pleasure
I, too, saw the pair of Royal Antelope at Lowry Park in 2013 (the only time I've seen the species). If they're still around, it's down to 1.0 kept at San Diego Zoo. I'm not entirely positive this individual is still alive, however...
Additionally, Plains Zebra are incredibly common in the private trade and as an exotic pet. I could buy one online right now if I wanted to. As such, they are a very common animals in non-AZA zoos, safari parks, and ranches. I even visited a ski resort once that kept a Plains Zebra with a camel in their horse barn. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure what the prospects of pure Plains Zebra subspecies are. I've discovered recently that a great deal of the Grant's in US zoos (including AZA) have at least a little hybridization with Burchell's in their ancestry. As for Burchell's or any others, who knows.
It's quite sad how badly captive deer populations have suffered due to CWD restrictions, though I agree it is remarkable how many programs are still surviving. The fact that the Barasingha, Pere David's Deer, Southern Pudu, and even muntjac programs have grown is excellent news overall. I know muntjac in particular are often one of the species singled out by CWD legislation which is probably a bit surprising given how common they are both in zoos and even in the private trade.
Incidentally, CWD restrictions are something I was just looking into yesterday as well. Simply put, there are only 2 US states that have no written laws specifically referring to CWD. These are Nevada and Washington*, who, in general, banned the keeping of captive deer for seemingly unrelated reasons before CWD restrictions started being implemented in 2002. Additionally, there are 32 states that have some form of regulation that restricts the importation, transfer, and/or keeping of captive cervids to varying degrees of severity. The most common regulation I found was states requiring a 5 year quarantine period of all animals planned to be moved across state lines as well as for all other animals kept in the herd. The remaining 16 states in the US have implemented a ban on the importation (and sometimes even the keeping) of captive cervids to some degree. Some states only ban certain species (native species and all Cervus and Muntiacus species tend to be the most universally banned, though sometimes muntjacs are permitted), though most states ban all cervids from moving into their state lines. Many states also require testing and permitting to even move deer within the state.
As you can imagine, all of these restrictions make it extremely difficult to manage deer programs, especially when these restrictions also pertains to simply transporting deer through states which inhibits zoos' abilities to transport animals between them for breeding. For example, I know the newest legislation passed in Louisiana has meant that the Audubon can no longer ship their Barasingha out of state, meaning the portion of the population kept between the zoo and breeding center are trapped there until further notice.
It's no surprise really that most zoos have simply given up on keeping exotic deer as a result of all this, as sad as that is. I know California and New York have particularly lax (and in my opinion very sound) regulations, both allowing animals planned for import to be tested immediately prior to transport as well as upon arrival in a quarantined setting, so this is why one will find the two major hubs of Asian deer in America to be the Bronx Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. These two zoos almost single-handedly manage multiple Asian hoofstock populations between them, including the non-AZA North Indian Muntjac program. I know Bronx alone has roughly half the Barasingha in the United States.
*Why Northwest Trek is permitted to keep Roosevelt Elk, a species high on the CWD threat list is unknown to me. Washington's ban on captive cervids was passed in 1993.
In addition to these points, many zoos building new African savannas often either do not have the space to accommodate large mixed plains with multi-species herds and therefore prioritize the most crowd-pleasing species, or simply have no interest in a wide diversity of African antelope/gazelle. Simply put, I'd imagine most zoos with more limited holding capacity will have an "any antelope will do" mentality, if they even go for any antelope species at all. While there are still some zoos with designated hoofstock exhibits, as with the small mammal house and carnivore house these exhibits are becoming increasingly endangered in their own right. This greatly reduces the space for ungulate diversity within a collection, as a zoogeographic exhibit will often include many non-ungulate species. It does seem that African hoofstock has still faired better than Asian by and large, though. I'd imagine the interest in large mixed African savannas is much greater than Asian ones. It's possible that African antelopes are seen as more charismatic than the handful of Asian ones present (apart from Arabian Oryx I suppose, but that suffers from having to compete with three other oryx programs). Seeing as deer and caprines are the most populous Asian hoofstock in captivity while also being the least popular with the average zoogoer, it's no surprise to me that large African antelopes have garnered more interest regardless of legislation.
I think the biggest contributing factor will be the inability to import additional stock, however. Much like deer, the USDA has place strict restrictions on the importation of many ungulate groups from out of country. Deer can only be imported internationally from Canada, subject to the CWD restrictions present in both the originating province and the receiving state. As far as other ungulates go, it is nearly impossible to import any ruminant ungulates from Europe, Asia, or Africa. For those unfamiliar with the term, ruminant ungulates are those which have specialized stomachs which ferment their food prior to digestion. Pronghorn, chevrotains, giraffes, musk-deer, true deer, and all of Bovidae (cattle, caprines, antelope, etc.) are ruminants, and therefore subject to importation bans. Imports from Canada are possible, as are (oddly) imports from specifically Australia and New Zealand. As we all know, however, these are not ungulate-rich countries and therefore these exceptions are of little help to US programs. These laws exist to protect the American livestock population of potential diseases transmitted by foreign ruminants. The unfortunate result of these laws is that it is nearly impossible for US zoos to import additional, and often badly needed, bloodlines to their populations. As sad truth for most zoo managed populations is that they often times have a very small founder base. American populations for species like the Slender-Horned Gazelle and North Sulawesi Babirusa, for instance, all descend from three founding animals. Some animals don't suffer from inbreeding depression too much, if at all, but in ungulates the result can often be increased infant mortality and reduced lifespans. Fertility may also be reduced, though I'm not sure if this is as large an issue for US programs as the first two are. While some species have managed to thrive relatively well on low genetic diversity (the aforementioned gazelle and babirusa for example), many others have faced difficult breeding and management challenges as a result. Often times, lack of genetic diversity and its effect on the captive population is as much a factor in determining which programs to phase-out as interest in a species is. The ungulate TAGs work very hard to overcome these challenges and import further genetics whenever possible, but unfortunately the inability to simply bring in more animals handcuffs many programs.
Thanks for all this effort! It's encouraging to see some of the increases here, like addax and pygmy hippopotamus.
An interesting thing to note: many of the species recently being pushed as "priority" by the AZA's Ungulate TAG are from these geographic areas.
Ungulate Profiles — AZA Ungulates
I don't know how much sway the TAG's recommendation to hold species has, but it's nice to see these little profiles espousing the merits of some of these animals + in-situ conversation opportunities
You are welcome
Thank you for linking those profiles, as it actually gives me figures for four more species:
Guanaco
2017: 34.36.13 in 26 AZA institutions
Domestic Bactrian Camel
2018: 46.55 in 34 AZA institutions
Ugandan Kob
2019: 12.24.2 in 2 institutions
American Bison (pure+impure)
2019: 93.186.10 in 49 AZA institutions
~Thylo
I'm doing ungulates as soon as I finish carnivores, which should be soon, ideally within a week. It'll take me a while to compile the lists and then proof them as best as possible, but if there's any particular species people would like me to do first, just ask.
