Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Wildlife Zoo in Xining Zoo news from Xining Zoo

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Kifaru Bwana

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I was glad to see this small feature in China Daily on the Xining Zoo snow leopard program.

Link: Snow leopard cubs bred at zoo in China|In Depth|chinadaily.com.cn

It seems they have no bred snow leopards 3 times and the number of adults has risen to 8 individuals (and with counting the cubs born this June 2014 it should be somewhere around 10+ individuals). Most encouragingly, it seems the cubs are being mother-raised and nothing near the AI they did back in 1984 (from which the earliest set of cubs was raised).

Parents to the 2014 newborns are a 7- (F Er-Bao) and 5-year (M Ning-Ning) old snow leopard and they are the mothers' first born cubs!
 
I'm sorry to say that, but the cubs born June 14th had left us. The cubs were completely raised by their mother itself and they seem to be all right until September. Sadly, the younger sister died on Sept 17th after diarrhea for 12 days, and on Sept 30, the elder sister died after nose running for a month.

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Mother Er-Bao and her two daughters, August 16th, 2014

Only 11 snow leopards have been born successfully (survive for more than 2 months) in captivity in China, 2 at Beijing Zoo in 1995 and 9 at Xining Wildlife Park (Xining Zoo). However, the breeding technique is far from mature, and this zoo has economic hardship, they even don't have a veterinary hospital. In fact, they really need help, both financial and technical support, said the zoo director, Mr.Qi.
 
According to the social media account of Xining's zoo director, the zoo once again has a Chinese mountain cat (Felis bieti) on exhibit after a three-year hiatus.

The cat, an adult male, was found wounded last October on the street of Menyuan, a small city 150 kilometres north of Xining. Unfortunately he had to have one of his front legs amputated and hence could not be released back to the wild. The cat was recently put on exhibit but chose to stay in his den for most of the time. It seems no zoo visitor has ever got a good glimpse of the animal yet.

Xining once had a breeding program for Chinese mountain cats and hold as many as ten cats at its peak. Their last cat passed away in 2017.
 
The zoo rescued and released a snow leopard found walking on the wall of a primary school:
Menyuan, Qinghai: Snow Leopard "visited" farmers accidentally injured-Chinanews.com | tellerreport.com
China combines snow leopard rescue and release with scientific research monitoring for the first time-chinanews.com | tellerreport.com

On other unrelated news, the zoo's old male Przewalski's gazelle passed away last month. A new juvenile was put on exhibit, who lost one leg in the wild and came to the zoo as a rescued individual. Przewalski's gazelle - ZooChat
 
Apparently there are now more Chinese mountain cats at Xining: two one-month old cubs (a male and a female) rescued in June and one young adult formerly raised and kept as a pet. They joined the three-legged male recently, bringing the total number of cats on show to four. Another two-week old cub was rescued on September 30th and kept behind the scenes for the moment. The zoo is considering a relaunch of their Chinese mountain cat breeding program.
 
Very interesting! I wonder if there is any interest in Chinese zoos to keep the snow leopard breeding program of pure single subspecies of known origin?

Jurek7 said:
Subspecies of other big cats attracted attention, but subspecies of snow leopard didn't. There are probably three: uncia from Central Asia, Pakistan and India, uncioides from Qinghai, Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal and irbis from Mongolia and areas to the northwest. (...)
Janecka et al. Range-Wide Snow Leopard Phylogeography Supports Three Subspecies. Journal of Heredity, Volume 108, Issue 6, September 2017, Pages 597–60. Range-Wide Snow Leopard Phylogeography Supports Three Subspecies
Click to expand...

By the way, is there a list of animal species kept in Xining zoo?
 
Jurek7 said:
Very interesting! I wonder if there is any interest in Chinese zoos to keep the snow leopard breeding program of pure single subspecies of known origin?
Click to expand...
They're probably not doing that intentionally, but given 15 of the 18 snow leopards in Chinese zoos are P. u. uncioides (which includes all Xining animals) and Xining is the only facility actively breeding them, I believe this is the case for the time being. There is one 14-year-old female in Urumqi Tianshan Zoo that could either be a P. u. uncia or P. u. irbis, and Chimelong holds two additional individuals with unknown origin behind the scenes.
 
Why are snow leopards kept in so few Chinese zoos. Is it rather lack of interest or lack of available animals?
 
Jana said:
Why are snow leopards kept in so few Chinese zoos. Is it rather lack of interest or lack of available animals?
Click to expand...
I would rather say it's a lack of almost all management variables: animals, knowledge, husbandry technique and coordinated effort. There were 35 snow leopards in Chinese zoos in the early 1980s, but first successful breeding didn't occur until 1984 (also in Xining). With limited breeding success, the number inevitably dwindled after the passing of wildlife protection law in 1988, which prevented zoos from acquiring wild-caught specimens for exhibition purpose except for unreleasable rescued individuals. The situation was further worsened by the lack of coordination among holders. When Chinese zoos finally started to establish EEP-style breeding programs in 2013 (I mean for species other than giant panda and South China tiger), there were very few available animals to work with.
 
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