Bronx Zoo 1953
North Carolina Zoological Park, Ashboro, N.C.
Bronx Zoo 1953
Cleveland Metropark Zoo, Cleveland, Ohio
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Who amoung us, not counting the Gorillas, are not grateful for the changes is Gorilla Husbandry
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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11 comments:
Sadly in all but a handful of places in Africa the conservation of endangered species is a failure. Worldwide bans on the ivory trade, not protection efforts reduced elephant poaching (with certain East African/Southern African exceptions where people like Richard Leakey in Kenya virtually ended poaching until his measures became politically unpopular.) Gorillas are EXTREMELY vulnerable and live in politically unstable areas. Reproductive conservation and captive husbandry may be the only way to avoid extinction.
Ben
Ben,
Well said. I wondered where you have been. I was concerned. You must have read my mind about posting alligator pictures tomorrow, and wanted to get a front row seat. LOL
Be safe friend,
Wade
Ben,
Well said. I wondered where you have been. I was concerned. You must have read my mind about posting alligator pictures tomorrow, and wanted to get a front row seat. LOL
Be safe friend,
Wade
Paul,
There may be an answer. I clicked twice, because my internet server was running slow.
Wade
Wade-How many zoos have you been to? Is that Timmy the gorilla at the Cleveland Zoo? I wonder if there's much point in breeding gorillas in zoos since they can't be reintroduced to the wild. I guess the only real point is to maintain a supply of zoo specimens and use them to try and get people to care about gorillas in the wild.
Paul,
I could not even tell you the 100 and 100's. As I have stated, Animals have been my interest since childhood, not entertainment. So I may have a different view, and that I why I ask. I think gorilla as just as valuable in captivity as any animal. As long as they are managed/cared for properly. And as I hope you see the zoo field has done a magnificent job of that. Releasing into the wild was PR spin it the hopes of eliciting donations. It is as invalid, as the breeding of tigers in the circus, as an example of doing good. They have backed off of that once it was pointed out, that the one or two success did not warrant the releasing in the wild angle.
Wade
Wade-I thought that was the whole point of zoo conservation programs to put the animals back in the wild some day, and I guess for some animals like the Arabian oryx or the bison, there's no problem putting them back. They know how to fend for themselves. I was thinking of your friend Billy Arjan Singh reintroducing Tara the tiger.
Paul,
You have never heard me say that is the point. I haven't felt it was valid after reading the problems associated. Maybe in isolated cases, for instance the Golden Lion Tamarin
possibly, because of the small size. I never thought Billy Arjan Singh's plan was workable. Friend or no friend. If somebody has 10,000 acres and wants to think that is the wild ok, but don't ask me to validate. Are they breeding, eating with now help. Are there prey animals provided. Do we ad to, or cull that prey herd? It will never be "the wild", and if you put them on a reserve/national park and the are monitored and looked after it is not the same. I think the argument they are here because there is no place for them go a lot further in education, then the romantic notion of reintroduction.
Wade
I guess that zoo animals can still be used for artificial insemination of wild animals to reintroduce zoo animal genes back into the wild. I was also thinking of the golden lion tamarins which you mentioned. They don't all survive and it seems cruel. That was Devra Kleiman's project in Brazil when she was with the National Zoo. I quoted her on another topic once on your blog. I agree with you about reintroducing captive bred tigers. Have you heard that wild tigers in India carry Siberian genes? It's a mystery how. Maybe they're descended from Tara or from escaped circus tigers, it's been speculated.
Paul,
I hadn't heard that about Siberian blood. Where did you find it? Was Tara Siberian?
Wade
Golden Lion Tamarin
In the 1970s, there were fewer than 200 of these small monkeys left. Today there are more than 1,200 in the wild and 450 more in zoos. Their recovery is a huge success story. The National Zoo has been at the forefront of the effort to replenish wild
populations with zoo-bred animals.
source:national zoo
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