Exotic extinction looms in zoos
Email Print Normal font Large font Andrew Darby
August 5, 2006


Under threat … a snow leopard at Taronga Zoo, which is facing a dramatic fall in its exotic animals.

SAY goodbye to the African elephant, the black rhinoceros and jaguar, for sure. Possibly to the leopard, the polar bear and hippopotamus as well. Most exotic mammals in Australia's zoos are headed for local extinction.

The number of foreign species that the public can see will start to shrink from 127 mammals to as few as 31 in years to come, a survey of the zoos has found.

Long reliant on imports rather than breeding, the institutions have hit trouble in a changing world. Tighter wildlife trade rules and stricter quarantine in the face of more virulent diseases such as bird flu are increasingly keeping animals out, and local numbers are too low to breed.

Icons such as the lion, gorilla and giraffe are currently viable, but two zoo researchers, Suzy Barlow and Chris Hibbard, warn "the Australasian regional exotic mammal collection is in crisis … and urgent action is needed to address the threats".

"While the crisis is immediately apparent in exotic mammals, these effects are being felt with exotic bird and reptile species, and will increasingly impact native collections."

Their survey, Going, Going Gone. A zoo without exotic mammals? was conducted for the Australasian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria. The alarming change it shows includes the loss of 30 out of the 46 different primates - monkeys and their relatives. There would be only eight carnivore species left out of 31 now, and even open-range zoos face a crisis in African hoofed animals such as the hippo.

"The majority of exotic mammal species in our collections are spiralling down a 'tunnel' of extinction, which, depending on the average lifespan of individual specimens is anticipated during the next five to 15 years."

The survey was conducted as Sydney and Melbourne zoos prepared to welcome eight Asian elephants in November. This controversial import survived a lengthy challenge by the Federal Government, and then animal welfare groups, to its claimed conservation benefit.

But zoos still claim a strong role in animal conservation for endangered species. "This is not just about animals in zoos for people to engage with and learn about," Guy Cooper, the director of Sydney's Taronga Zoo, said of the survey. "It's very much about keeping animals as insurance against collapse. I think this is in many ways an international challenge. It's not just something that exists in Australia."


The association's executive director, Jonathan Wilcken, said one of the most pressing problems was the length of time it took to have import risk assessments conducted by Biosecurity Australia. "There is a significant backlog of work for zoo animals that do not lack a conservation imperative,' Mr Wilcken said. "We have no problem with a very cautious approach. But what we are facing is delays of years."

A Biosecurity Australia spokesman, John Wilson, said the complexity of assessing some animals for safe import meant that the process could take months or years. "We do want to work with conservation programs," he said. "We have 130 staff and we do need to prioritise work."

The Asian elephant import ran foul of the Federal Environment Department, which said the plan fell "well short" of demonstrating enough conservation benefit.

The Humane Society International campaigns manager, Nicola Beynon, said that Australian zoos should focus on captive breeding programs for endangered native species.

"Captive breeding is best achieved in the species' home country where they can be more readily re-introduced to the wild, and kinder to the animal's welfare," Ms Beynon said.

"Only very occasionally is an ex-situ breeding program warranted, justifying the import of exotic mammals into Australia, and it should only be done when it is part of a globally agreed IUCN [International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources] action plan rather than a self-interested zoo plan."

This is very bad news.

Biosecure Australia seems to be a controdictory (carn,t spell) organisation. They seem to be keen to allow the import of food comodities which may contain damaging pests and diseases, but when it comes to animals which can be quarintened and are almost certainly safe they are against it and make it as difficult as possable. Other organitions who claim to be "animal welfare" groups also seem to have alterier motives.

hopefully these species can me maintained and increased in Australia. I have mentioned it before but maby more AI will assist.

nah monty a.s dont help any, even importanting the sperm and ova comes under the sma equarrintine laws, i once was talking to the dubbo zookeeper crew, bout warthogs, like implanting some in common swine here, but we carnt even import there sperm so its hard mate, i reakon ya idea would ease the situation

The difficulty of the importation of semen for AI is another area where Biosecurity Australia has contradictory policies.

An example of this is apples. Not meaning to upset any Kiwis but the import of apples with from countries with fireblight would likley couse the eventual introduction of this disease into Australia. Biosecurity Australia considered that the risk was worth it and the decision was latter changed by the government.

Your example of Wart Hog semen importation could be done safely but Biosecurity Australia would not concider it. If the Wart Hogs where from a captive heard with no disease history or contact it would be perfictly safe to import semen or even empbryos and put this in a suitable host which would be kept in Quarintene for the appropiate period.

The querintine laws are necessary in many areas but they should be able to provide alternative risk free ways to import.

in the end however, i can walk through the mud in the african congo and then jump on a plane to australia and unknowingly carry unwated organisms on my shoes.

that scenario, in my opinion is a much more likely sort of event that the introduction of exotic organisms from zoo animals.

i fully understand the potential damage that intoduced diseases, plants and animals can bring to australia, but honestly zoos are probably one of the last places that these sorts of things will come from. the animals are tested extensively before and after arrival, go through the strctest of quarrentine procedures and essentailly stay in a similar quarrentine-like state for the remainder of their lives.

as monty said, there are many conradictory policies (almost always dues to some sort of commmercial benifit). take aquarium fish for example. think of all the potentially devastating species that live in our aquariums at home. and what of the diseases they carry? most aquarium fish in australia are raised in outdoor ponds in SE asia, then imported and immediately sold in the shops with no quarrentine whatsoever. its rediculous! but the aquarium fish industry is worth a fortune, so we allow it.

i say given the right quarrentine procedures, let the zoos have whatever animals, be them birds or bovines that they like.

zoos then in turn need to start managing their collections better and prioritise expanding their holding capacities.

its a good thing this issue has come to light - i expect it will fuel pressure for biosecurity australia to speed up their act a bit...

patrick i agree totally. sounds like you might have read the same book as me, or 2 actually by the auther tim low? theyre titled the 'new nature' and 'feral future', and they really draw into perspective just how vulnerable our 'island' continent is, especialy now free-trade agreements are in place with so many countries & cairns has a new international airport (exotic organisms arriving in australia are more likely to escape and establish in a humid sub-tropical climate, than say in melbourne)

yeah, you got me glyn! i have read feral future

that would make sense too - what you say about a warmer climes being more attractive for most foreign organisms.

i think, faced with the prospect of really lousy animal collections in our zoos (melbourne and sydney especially are reasonably well known internationally also..) the pressure will raise on biosecurity to get their act together and start processing some of those draft impact analysis'...

however, since there is a high liklihood that we will have a wait of quite a few years before any sort of reform on that front - in the meantime i think our zoos should go ahead with breeding the animals thay have. i dare say, even if they end up inbreeding their hoofstock a little. although it is far from ideal we did it with giraffes for decades before any sort of health issues arose. when fresh genes finally arrived the offspring of the inbreds showed excellent health after just one generation of interbreeding with "new blood".

in otherwords its very far from ideal but we might be able to stall for a little longer with hoofstock (rather than phase out entirely, then re-import) if we expect change in the long run..

thats true, although i beleive we may have enough giraffe genetically diverse to maintain us a while, such as starting to rather inbreed animals, but interbreed between subspecies, we have a good genetic base of rothchilds, and the only one breed with with normal hybrid giraffes is at dubbo, which leaves a great divesity to breed other rothchilds with other hybrids.

as well, we have a limited base of animals in a frozen zoo, one of the uni, maybe monash have a large frozen genetic base, including species such as pygmy hippos and maybe other ungulates, im not sure.

i used giraffes only as an example to illustrate that in at least one species of ungulate, a highly inbred population can be almost instantly "re-juvinated" with the influx of fresh genes.

i wasn't suggesting that giraffes where going to die out in australia long-term or really even speculating on their future in australiasia. suffice to say since that since the import of rothschilds there is probably enough blood to go round for the time being.

instead i was suggesting that species such as bongo, congo buffalo, kudu or pygmy hippo that have very reduced populations, often with only one individual of a particular sex, could be inbred in our region for a generation or two if the zoos saw that in the forseeable future their may be some sort of reform in biosecurity regulations regarding zoo bovids.


so long as it may not have any long-term effects, it may be better to have a slightly inbred population rather than none at all when trying to fire-up a more serious breeding program.

whats peoples thoughts on this?

i think it is wrong, i have often seen results of this inbreeding with domestic animals , and even a single generation imbred is bad, i mean yes it can be breed out, no wong there, but the fact is then the zoo has to care for those inbred individuals, if they do have problems, and it could cost more money.

A bit of inbreeding is better than not breeding at all if there is no other options.

Many domestic animals are indred on purpose mainly in showing. It is common to join a very good roster to his daughters in breeding show stock.

I have helped in the AI of fallow deer to imported semen. Due to the difficulty of importing only two bucks are avalable. Doe fawns have been joined back to their fathers two generations before the next gereration was joined the the other buck. No negatave effects have been seen in this inbreeding.

If inbreeding causes problems it should be stopped, but not inbreeding due to the fear of possable problems, is giving in without trying.

I know in birds it is common to breed a brother sister pair from Unrelated Parents

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Howdy From Adelaide

yeah, i know in some species (such as primates) inbreeding results in the usual swathe of health problems you see in people. however the zoo world is full of inbred populations of many species. all sumatran tigers have under 10 founders, south china tigers have less than half that again. all the mountain tapirs in the US are originally from just one pair... it's a bit gross, certainly to be avoided if possible and in the long-term can be totally unviable - but still, with our zoos facing a major local extincion of hoofstock in particular (who seem pretty resiliant to health problems associated with such) we may as well breed up what we can for a generation or so if we think we can solve the problem in the future..

as ben said, birds get inbred all the time with little side-effects - how else do breeders come up with all those mutations?

The zoos are ALREADY doing this and have been for years. For example the tree roos at melb the younger breeding pair are related. But the relationship is of an acceptable level. If you inbreed at an unacceptable level thats when you start to get problems.

australia's andean condor population is also extremely inbred, as taronga's breeding pair are actually sibling produced in the 1970's.
so far the two offspring they have produced, both female, seem healthy, but to breed 4th generation would mean either pairing one of the females with their father, as he is the only male in the country.
apparently a whole heap of other exotic species desperately need fresh gene infusions-no new bolivian squirrel monkeys had been imported since 1978, and a program in the 1990s to 'purify' the australian squirrel monkey population resulted in more genetic loss as any monkeys not of bolivian origin were phased out.
in 2005 taronga zoo imported a male from emmen zoo in the netherlands, who has fathered at least one baby. other primate species needing new genes apparently include the white-ruffed lemur.