Wild Ass in North America

Saint Louis Zoo intends to import a European bred Somali Wild Ass mare:

Applicant: Saint Louis Zoo, St. Louis, MO, PRT-197642.

The applicant requests a permit to import one captive bred female
Somali wild ass (Equus asinus somalicus) from Werner Stamm-Stiftung zur
Erhaltung seltener Einhufer, Oberwil, Switzerland, for the purpose of
enhancement of the survival of the species.
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Taken from the US Federal Register.
 
Who in the U.S. has kiangs and kulan? I had visited Catskill Game Farm before they closed and they had a lot of equine species but not all were of pure stock. I know most of the AZA holdings for onager and somalia ass. Is White Oak going to breed their somalia asses? Its good to see more attention paid to these species.
 
How do you know that the equine stock from Catskill was not of pure stock? The Nubian Asses everyone seems to think are hybrids have come back as pure stock from the Munich Zoo. They are doing DNA analysis at a texas ranch who acquired them from catskill years ago who have something like 50+ head now. Only thing is it's hard to find dna to compare it to. The P horses were pure and in registered in the studbook as one of the most important blood lines in the USA. They also had Grevys and kulans but the Grevys were'nt registered but you can clearly see they are pure. The only animal there of possible impurity was a lone somali ass.
 
When I was at Catskill last they had more than a lone somali ass and compared to somali asses i have seen at accredited zoos they do not look the same. I also know that some of the other hoofstock (i.e. maral) were not pure. I also thought the place was overall kinda shady looking. If the kulan, p horse, nubian asses and onager are pure stock than it would be good to know where they ended up because it would be a shame if they ended up at a hunters ranch.
 
I have always found the situation with wild asses rather interesting, in that the number of animals in major/accredited zoos is rather low, while there are several held by private individuals and smaller (off-ISIS) zoos.

I, too, visited Catskill before they closed ... with the exception of mountain zebras, the collection of living equids was complete. There were (in order of appearance): kulan, Poitou donkeys, Grant's zebra, Przewalski's horses, Sheltand ponies, "Somali" and "Nubian" wild asses, bred-back tarpan, miniature donkeys, onager, and Grevy's zebra. The question of 'purity' (or even origin) is especially difficult in this situation, since Catskill did not send information to ISIS, making tracking information down by the usual pathways rather impossible. (FYI, the Somali wild ass at Catskill had several atypical characteristics which suggest hybridization with another ass ... the most obvious being a continuous, prominent mid-dorsal band and a very heavy shoulder stripe).
 
The US population of Somali Wild Ass is expanding this year with the addition of many institutions. The following institutions will be holding SWA in the next year (*new holder):

White Oak Conservation Center
CRC - Front Royal, VA*
Bronx Zoo*
Shadow Nursery (Winchester, TN)
St Louis Zoo
Los Angeles Zoo*
SDWAP


The Oklahoma City Zoo will no longer be holding SWA (due to Asia construction?) and are sending them to other zoos.
 
As far as Kulan and Kiang go, i know that SDWAP continues to be the only major holder of Kiang. Kulan can also be found at SDAWP, Greater Vancouver Zoo, Mtn View Conservation Center.
 
The SD-WAP's kulan are ISIS remnants; there are none left at the park. Until recently, the park did maintain several onagers, but I believe they too have all been transferred out (mainly to The Wilds), in an effort to consolidate the population in an effort to have more breeding success.
 
I was under the impression that SD picked up some Canyon Colorado kulans when that collection was liquidated.
 
loxodonta said:
When I was at Catskill last they had more than a lone somali ass and compared to somali asses i have seen at accredited zoos they do not look the same. I also know that some of the other hoofstock (i.e. maral) were not pure. I also thought the place was overall kinda shady looking. If the kulan, p horse, nubian asses and onager are pure stock than it would be good to know where they ended up because it would be a shame if they ended up at a hunters ranch.
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What is a "maral"? Something that sounds like it that were there were gayal or mithun and i assure you they are pure as the driven snow. They look like a gaur and i've personally picked up a calf after birth to get it out of the snow and the cow followed me to the barn(amazing day). That couldn't happen with a gaur. If you ever get a chance to get around them they are amazing creatures and you won't regret seeing them.
 
Yes, maral are russian elk/altai wapiti. The specimens that catskill had were half russian/half north american. I saw they were hybrid when they were auctioning of their collection and posted their animals on the auction page.
 
gayal are a domesticated form of the gaur Bos gaurus (possibly with hybridisation with domestic cattle Bos taurus). Some authors separate them as a distinct species B. frontalis (in the same way that a domestic cat is separated from a wildcat or a dog is from a wolf); alternatively some authors use B. frontalis as the scientific name for the gaur and gayal combined (under the consideration that B. frontalis is an older name than B. gaurus) but the use of B. gaurus is considered more preferable.
Safari Park said:
there were gayal or mithun and i assure you they are pure as the driven snow. They look like a gaur and i've personally picked up a calf after birth to get it out of the snow and the cow followed me to the barn(amazing day).
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given that gayal are domesticated gaur, how can they be described as "pure as the driven snow"? The reason they look like gaur is because they are derived from gaur.
 
I was just meaning that they were pure gayal and not crossed with some other cattle species. They are derived from gaur but if you've ever kept both these species(which i have) they are completley different as night and day. When working gaur it's normal to have 10-12ft corrals and made of the same material you would work rhino or something similar with gayal you can easily walk amognst them and work them like regular cattle, truly domesticated. As for the rare equids they went to a private sactuary in Tennessee.
 
Safari Park said:
I was just meaning that they were pure gayal and not crossed with some other cattle species. They are derived from gaur but if you've ever kept both these species(which i have) they are completley different as night and day. When working gaur it's normal to have 10-12ft corrals and made of the same material you would work rhino or something similar with gayal you can easily walk amognst them and work them like regular cattle, truly domesticated. As for the rare equids they went to a private sactuary in Tennessee.
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Can you divulge what institution exactly in Tennessee? :confused:
 
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