Zoologická Zahrada Jihlava ZOO Jihlava news

The Greater flamingo flock has at least 9 chicks (+1 month old).

Today morning, 3 Burchell's zebras (a breeding stalion, a mare and a young colt) managed to escape from their enclosure, did run through open main gate and entered the town. For a few hours, they traveled through busy streets, parks and later into open terrain. The zoo staff together with many other people managed to catch them all and they were returned unharmed into the zoo. Which got free PR in all main national news media.
 
The zoo will keep a lecture on 5th of January, with the title "The Pride and Fall of North American Zoos" and with following description "Since the Second World War, zoos in North America have always been one step ahead of those in Europe, which copied their development. However, since 2000, zoos in North America have been experiencing a gradual decline, which is also not visible at first glance. Will we manage to avoid this fate in Europe?"

Unfortunately, I cant get there. Will anybody attend it who could do a recap later?

Pýcha a pád severoamerických zoologických zahrad - Zoo Jihlava
 
Jana said:
The zoo will keep a lecture on 5th of January, with the title "The Pride and Fall of North American Zoos" and with following description "Since the Second World War, zoos in North America have always been one step ahead of those in Europe, which copied their development. However, since 2000, zoos in North America have been experiencing a gradual decline, which is also not visible at first glance. Will we manage to avoid this fate in Europe?"

Unfortunately, I cant get there. Will anybody attend it who could do a recap later?

Pýcha a pád severoamerických zoologických zahrad - Zoo Jihlava
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As an attendant of American zoos, I would be interested to hear what they define as our gradual decline.. :p:oops:

(Not disagreeing, but curious what they have to say)

~Thylo
 
The zoo staff has so far not seen success in recapturing of their 4-years old European lynx female that escaped its enclosure a week before Christmas. She got spooked during tree cutting done nearby and scaled the fence and power line with help of high trees. Keepers hoped she would return back to her enclosure (a place she was born), let door open, but to no awail. She left town Jihlava and is occasionally spotted in countryside nearby. The latest is a night camera trap photo provided by wild boar hunters. She looks to be in good body condition, probaly scavenging or hunting small pray.
 
ThylacineAlive said:
As an attendant of American zoos, I would be interested to hear what they define as our gradual decline.. :p:oops:

(Not disagreeing, but curious what they have to say)

~Thylo
Click to expand...

I wasn't on the lecture, however, around the same time, the person doing that lecture published essay called "What should be the purpose of zoos? Protection of species or specimens?"

In this essay, he also mentions this crisis in US Zoos so I translated the relevant part:

"What happens if the population is not adequately managed? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is all too clear and specific. In addition to EEP programs, there is a second similar system in the world. It is in North America. The zoos there have their own programs called SSP. These programs are even slightly older than the EEP. However, over the years, the SSPs have reached a crisis, which our North American colleagues have already openly admitted to us at this year's joint meeting in Los Angeles.

There are a number of reasons for this crisis, but if I briefly summarise them, there are two main ones - the prioritization of the interests of individuals over the interests of populations, and the desire to make zoos as attractive as possible in economic terms. The professional side has thus been largely suppressed in local zoos, and businessmen who do not even know the species are appointed as directors or managers.

This looks harmless from the outside. However, in its consequences, it has been a road to hell, as it has resulted in the gradual disintegration or even elimination of populations of individual species falling under SSP programs. North American zoos have lost dozens (!) of rare species over the last 30 years that will never appear there again. Thus, this zoo community has become extremely species-poor and will continue to become poorer. And now it is newly declaring that its contribution to conservation through SSP programs has become marginal. So they can't actually fulfill one of their main missions.

The second main cause is perhaps even more serious. The local zoos have "educated" their visitors to prioritize looking at individuals and not populations. By over-protecting individuals, entire species have disappeared. This sad example demonstrates why it is essential that the general public know the core mission of their favorite tourist destinations - zoos - and that they must care for whole populations and not just their attraction and economics."

In the lecture itself, I assume he went more in-depth on this and added some fancy data visualizations, but this is the basic synopsis of his opinion.
 
HOMIN96 said:
interests of individuals over the interests of populations
Click to expand...

HOMIN96 said:
The local zoos have "educated" their visitors to prioritize looking at individuals and not populations. By over-protecting individuals, entire species have disappeared.
Click to expand...

I am having a hard time on understanding what individual means in this context. Does it mean a single species over an entire taxa?
 
I tried to search for video tape from this lecture that anybody might post online - but no luck.

Instead I found a clip of the zoo director having Q@A session with general public a month ago. With snippets of useful info:
- both Persian and Snow leopards got breeding reccomendation for 2023 season
- he still hopes to get a Sumatran tiger male that should get imported from Indonesian zoo, while Brno should receive a female tiger from the same shipment (this is a joint import operation of both zoos) that would be unrelated to current animals in EEP
- an exhibit for Rolloway´s monkey is still in plans just postponed
- planned new exhibit for Red Howlers got canned due to lack of funds and is not in pipeline anymore
- the zoo hopes to recover 600.000 euro from Sberbank in autumn 2023. Sberbank (Russian state owned bank) used to have a local branch where the zoo had an account with its money collected for future investment projects. After February attack on Ukraine, the bank branch experienced bank run, called bancrupcy, lost bank licence and so the zoo lost its assets they had there.
 
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