If you have to choose a single bird without an aviary which one do you choose?
- Thread starter Orque41
- Start date
But not kept in zoos at all…
The Proboscis monkey has only be successfully once, but that didn’t stop it from being added.
Currently held at Singapore Zoo and Zoorasia in Japan - both have bred them. Plus zoos in Indonesia and Malaysia and in the past at least six zoos in Europe and North America.
As markun says, that is just demonstrably not true.
I'm a New Zealander who used to work in zoos. Kakapo have never been kept in captivity and it's illegal to do so. There are so few of them that every wild individual has a name. The only captive held ones have been rescues and they are always released to the wild. You'll never see them outside of New Zealand, and in New Zealand you'll only see them under very lucky circumstances or if you belong to the Department of Conservation.
I hope one day there are thousands of them and more people get the chance to see them.
You appear to be very informed in this area. I would love to get my hands on more zoo stats. The only such source i know is zootierliste, would you recommend others? Especially for america and asia.
I googled "proboscis monkeys in zoos" and it comes up with Singapore, Zoorasia, a bunch of news articles about Indonesian zoos, and some old lists from 1997 which show there aren't any kept outside of Asia anymore (though I did see a photo of their enclosure at the Apenhaus in one of the German zoos).
I don't think that's the case for the proboscis monkey. I think it was deliberately chosen on its own merits, kind of like the Himalayan brown bear. Neither animal is widespread in zoos, but both are greatly threatened in their natural habitats. Keeping proboscis monkeys in captivity is a huge challenge, but after a bit of research it seems the biggest hurdle is ensuring they're getting enough essential nutrients in their diet. Singapore struggled at first because while they were matching the wild diet of the animals closely, for some reason they weren't getting enough protein and amino acids. Once they started supplementing their natural diet with eggs, "monkey biscuits", and other things, their troop started to flourish.
I actually don't think climate is a big issue, either. A lot of people assume that they are only successful in Singapore because it's a tropical environment, but based on everything I can find it really is just diet.
I agree to that.
I think if a European or American zoo had the opportunity and the will to keep proboscis monkeys, it would be pretty much possible nowadays because of the increase in knowledge.
A similar difficult primate species is the red-shanked douc langur, a species that a lot of zoos in Europe tried to keep and breed many years ago, but in most cases the animals died after a few months. Only Cologne in Germany was a bit more successfully and even bred the species. In the end though, even the Cologne group died out.
But this species is making a comeback in Europe, a Czech and a French zoo got some douc langurs from Thailand and are pretty successful with keeping and breeding them yet, the Czech group already got four offsprings in five years. So it seems that keeping monkeys with highly specialised diets doesn't seem to be a big problem anymore.
YES!!!!
Either the shoebill stork OR the Mandarin duck