Monday, April 1, 2019

Zoo News Digest 31st March 2019 (ZooNews 1014)

Zoo News Digest 31st March 2019  (ZooNews 1014)
King Chicks - Photo by Ronald Operana



Peter Dickinson

elvinhow@gmail.com

 

Dear Colleague,


My jaw dropped. It really did when I read Shaken by 2014 tragedy, zoo to test safety cage for humans It wasn't 1st April. Could they really be serious? Apparently they are and are really serious. I fear the rest of the zoo world will be laughing at them.

I reckoned when I posted out Should We Kill Cats To Save The World's Most Endangered Island Species? that there might be a few comments and there was. The vast majority were in favor but inevitably there were a few 'catch, neuter and re-home' responses. I'm sorry but apart from that being impossible it is totally unrealistic and is a completely blinkered outlook on real life. I like cats, they give me a lot of pleasure but I have had to kill an awful lot of them over the years.

So the Joe Exotic trial is underway. I hope he gets it in the neck. He is a nasty piece of work. The really sad thing is that there is quite a large portion of the US zoo world who don't like Carole Baskin. I fear that many of them reached this state of mind because of stories put out by Joe Exotic in the first place. A little bit of online research omitting Joe Exotic (and his multiple identities) might present a different picture

The truth comes out eventually. So now we learn that Roy Horn never had a stroke. I don't believe that there was much more than 10% of the zoo world actually believed it anyway. I dislike all this circus type acts with big cats. It isn't clever. With a little bit of preparation anyone can do it. There are though those in Bad Zoos who feel they are doing good by playing Tarzan. They aren't and I have yet to see an argument presented that has convinced me otherwise.

I was delighted to read the Circuses with wild animals now banned in Madrid but what I cannot for the life of me understand is how they allow bullfighting to continue. I believe that throwing goats off church towers has been stopped only recently so lets go with finishing bullfighting because it is clearly cruel. Whenever/wherever the banning of wild animals in circuses comes up there will be the inevitable "It will be zoos next". There is actually a bit of truth there. The animal rights anarchists WILL come after zoos unless we get our own house in order. Wild animals in circuses, apart from anything else, do exactly zero for conservation and the same applies for many many zoos. If all they are doing is exhibiting animals then I will be very pleased to see the back of them. I am not in this profession or as a zoo consultant to be popular. I care dearly about the welfare of wild animals in captivity.

Once again Doc Antle gets publicity hidden away in the apparent critique THE PROBLEM WITH FOLLOWING ADORABLE EXOTIC ANIMALS ON INSTAGRAM. The problem is it isn't just him but dozens of other places too which use the same animal exploitation techniques. These are the circuses of the zoo world. These are the places that the good zoos need to be criticizing at every opportunity. It may look cute but it is not kind and hides away a nasty and often cruel story.

I was sorry to see today that Edwin Wiek is thinking of packing in his animal rescue work in Thailand. Whereas I do not always see eye to eye or agree with everything that Edwin says or does (do I with anybody?) I do admire the man. There are a lot of charlatans out there, people who constantly decry Edwin because he exposes them for what they are. Edwin has done and continues to do excellent work for the animals of Thailand and it would be a very sad loss to see him go.


"good zoos will not gain the credibility of their critics until they condemn the bad zoos wherever they are." Peter Dickinson


Lots of interest follows. 


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Did You Know?
ZooNews Digest has over 109,000+ Followers on Facebook( and over 109,000 likes) and has a weekly reach often exceeding over 350,000 people? That ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 900 Zoos in 155+ countries? That the subscriber list for the mail out reads like a 'Zoos Who's Who?'
If you are a subscriber to the email version then you probably knew this already. You would also know that ZooNews Digest pre-dates any of the others. It was there before FaceBook. It was there shortly after the internet became popular and was a 'Blog' before the word had been invented. ZooNews Digest reaches zoo people.

I remain committed to the work of GOOD zoos,
not DYSFUNCTIONAL zoos.
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Last Dolphin at Seoul Grand Park to be Handed Over to Jeju's Pacific Land
"Taeji," the last remaining dolphin at Seoul Grand Park, will belong to a company in Jeju Island that performs dolphin shows from next month.

However, the park will try to ensure that Taeji appears in as few shows as possible and will also raise public awareness on the creation of dolphin shelters.

According to Seoul City on Saturday, the Seoul Grand Park Zoo will sign an agreement with Jeju-based firm Pacific Land and related civic groups around April tenth on this transfer of ownership.

The zoo's director said the agreement will include the outcome of several rounds of discussions held so far on this issue.



Yet another shameless accusation by a radical activist group that questions the welfare of the animals in Loro Parque…
It is with utmost surprise and bewilderment that we discover yet another smear campaign move, this time on the part of the animal rights activist group, Anima, aiming to damage the worldwide known reputation of Loro Parque with their allegations about the level of welfare of the animals under our care, something that they by no means and in no measure are qualified to evaluate in the first place.

We would like to remind these self-proclaimed activists that Loro Parque has been acknowledged as the best zoo in the world twice in a row by TripAdvisor. No other zoo in the World has ever achieved this. On the other hand, Loro Parque complies with all the Spanish and European regulations for zoos; we are members of all the relevant zoological associations (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, European Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Iberian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, European Association for Aquatic Mammals and Alliance for Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums). We have been also audited by American Humane and have been certified with the Humane Conservation Standard, which is internationally acknowledged as an independent Animal Welfare Standard. Loro Parque is also certified with ISO14000, ISO9000, EMAS and Biosphere Parks Animal Embassy.



How the lion lost its strength: big cats’ survival at risk as DNA defences dwindle
For more than a century, explorers and settlers have warned about the likely impact of the hunting of lions and other wild animals in Africa. One of the most prescient, Frederick Selous, the inspiration for the character Allan Quatermain in the novels of H Rider Haggard, wrote in 1908 that “since my first arrival in 1871, I had seen game of all kinds gradually decrease and dwindle in numbers to such an extent that I thought that nowhere south of the Great Lakes could there be a corner of Africa left where the wild animals had not been very much thinned out”.

Now researchers have uncovered the impact of that predation on the lion. Lion numbers and range have plunged – but it appears their genetic fitness has also declined. An alarming new study has revealed that lions shot by colonial hunters more than 100 years ago were more genetically diverse than the ones that now populate Africa. The discovery is worrying because it indicates that the species’ fight to survive may be even more difficult than had been previously thought.



THE PROBLEM WITH FOLLOWING ADORABLE EXOTIC ANIMALS ON INSTAGRAM
Limbani is a 2.5-year-old chimpanzee who lives in Miami. He has more than half a million Instagram followers, ever eager for more pictures of him skateboarding, hanging out with other exotic species, or eating popsicles.

The comments below Limbani’s photos are almost universally positive. He is, after all, objectively adorable, and his followers have no reason to think Limbani has anything other than a nice life. And there’s a moral glow that comes with liking a Limbani post, because most of them bear a righteous-sounding hashtag: #notapet.



Only a dozen Sumatran rhinos left in East Kalimantan, experts believe
The population of the Sumatran rhinoceros in the regencies of West Kutai and Mahakam Ulu, East Kalimantan, is believed to have fallen to just 12 to 15 animals.

The head of the East Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), Sunandar Trigunajasa, said poaching and habitat fragmentation had contributed to the decreasing number of rhinos in the wild.

“Releasing rhinos in the wild is an important step to start saving the decreasing rhino population,” Sunandar said as quoted by tempo.co in West Kutai on March 20, after releasing Pahu, a female rhino, in the Kelian Rhinoceros Conservation area. Pahu was rescued after she got caught in a poacher’s trap and went through rehabilitation for three months.




Animal Rights Attorney Testifies for 'Joe Exotic' Defense
AN attorney for the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal was the first defense witness for a former Oklahoma zookeeper and gubernatorial candidate accused of trying to arrange the killing of a critic who ran an animal sanctuary in Florida.

PETA attorney Brittany Peet testified Friday in the murder-for-hire trial of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who is also known as "Joe Exotic."

Peet said Maldonado-Passage told her he wanted out of the industry and to become a bartender in Central America as the defense see



China set to lead on biodiversity
China’s embrace of an “ecological civilisation” has received comparatively little coverage, especially in developing countries, a number of whom are pursuing development strategies – backed by Chinese funding – that are environmentally problematic. The landmark biodiversity talks to be hosted by China will be a key test of this initiative, especially as biodiversity is threatened in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, where China is a key actor. Its previous models, critically of things like its “tiger parks”, have been dangerous for the species they are supposed to conserve. – eds

  

Pangolins have more problems to deal with (use Google translate if you have to).




Former Animal Park Employee Testifies In Day 4 Of Joe Exotic Trial
A former employee for G. W. Animal Park told jurors he transported around 100 animals illegally across state lines. During testimony the government's witness became emotional.

The witness told jurors he was more than just an employee. He said for 11 years he was Joe Maldonado-Passage's lover.

The government's witness told jurors he started working for Joe after graduating high school in 2003. He said in the beginning it was fun, and that he and about a dozen other employees did various jobs around the park. He said he helped feed and care for Joe’s tigers.

The witness said eventually, he and Joe begin a romantic relationship.

He said during his time at the zoo, under Joe’s direction, he transported tigers and other exotic animals he illegally across state lines. He said the animals were sold to other zoos, and that he was responsible for collecting payment for the animals. Mon



Shaken by 2014 tragedy, zoo to test safety cage for humans
Five years ago, the world watched in horror as Vijay mauled to death a man who fell into a dry moat inside the enclosure of tigers in the Delhi Zoo. Guards clapped and shooed, but the 200-kg white tiger dragged away from the hapless man by his neck.

Shaken by the tragedy, Delhi Zoo will soon get a custom-made steel cage for providing a safe place for any unfortunate intruder caught in such a dangerous situation. Guess what? One such cage will be soon placed in the enclosure of none other than Vijay as part of a pilot project.

“This human-sized cage is like an immediate safety measure so that a person can take shelter in such a situation. This attempt will be a first in the entire country,” informed Renu Singh, Director of Delhi’s National Zoological Park.

Made of stainless steel, the cage has two entrances, allowing a person to enter easily and lock it from inside. There will be a board with necessary instructions on how to react if one finds oneself in such a situation.

The cage, which is being given final touches, is designed to ensure that



The 'National Bio Parc'​ concept, and how it might be relevant to you
The ‘Bio Parc’ concept

What is the core concept?

The National Bio Parc concept envisages endowing the country in question with a new high-profile, financially sustainable visitor site dedicated to affirming and promoting everything that the environment, biology, bioscience, and nature has meant, and will mean to a given nation (and potentially a wider bio-geographic region).



Seas-ing the day
Through their documentaries, Mr Wee found himself fixated on the work of marine biologists; those unsung heroes who worked tirelessly to upkeep entire marine ecosystems, maintaining the delicate balance necessary for the survival of countless species.

“Watching their documentaries made me realise how we are damaging the ocean, and how much our species contributes to climate change,” he says.

“In time, I realised how much Singapore depended on the ocean, and how much the ocean also depends on us.”



Siegfried & Roy tiger handler says the real cause of 2003 mauling was covered up
Few will forget when a white tiger viciously attacked Roy Horn in 2003 during Siegfried & Roy's Las Vegas show.

The attack ended the careers of Horn and his partner, Siegfried Fischbacher, as an audience of 1,500 watched 400-pound tiger Mantacore bite Roy and drag him offstage.

The explanation has always been that Roy suffered a stroke, and the tiger reacted to protect him.

Now, trainer Chris  Lawrence has spoken out to The Hollywood Reporter, claiming Roy himself is to blame for the accident.

In a long interview, Lawrence says Horn was spending too little time with the tigers before shows, eroding the bond between animal and performer.



Amphibian apocalypse is twice as bad as scientists thought
There is a plague ripping through the amphibian species of the world. It’s caused by fungus that’s invisible to the naked eye and spreads easily by many means. It kills by disrupting the way these creatures breathe through their skin, essentially suffocating frogs and salamanders.

The disease is called chytridiomycosis, and according to a landmark study published Thursday in the journal Science, it’s even worse than we thought.

Scientists once estimated that about 200 species of frogs and salamanders have been harmed by the disease, but the study concludes that chytrid fungus has contributed to declines in at least 501 amphibian species. Ninety of the species are thought to have gone extinct because of it. Populations in tropical Australia, Central and South America seem to be hardest hit, though populations in Africa, Europe and North America are also affected. According to this accounting, the epidemic has caused the worst loss of biodiversity of any disease ever recorded.



A bitter divorce
It’s accurate to say that Brent Walter grew up at the Henry Vilas Zoo. His dad, Richard Walter, was a zookeeper there for more than 30 years and his godfather was a zookeeper there for 40 years.

“We were here fairly often,” remembers Brent. “Back in the ’70s, a lot of the animals were hand-raised, so we hand-raised a lot of them at our house because they had to have 24-hour care. We had tigers and racoons and bear cubs in our home. To me that was just growing up.”

During summer breaks from college, Walter worked at the zoo’s concessions, and after college, he kept working there. “I just decided this was working out,” Walter says.

Not only did he love working at the zoo, Walter says it was a growing business. When Walter began working at the zoo, there were only about 15 employees running the concessions. Today, there are roughly 75 — mostly high school and c



From a gorilla with perfect recall to lizard 'handcuffs,' these Dallas Zoo volunteers have seen it all
On top of assisting keepers, talking to guests and caring for animals, some of the Dallas Zoo's long-serving volunteers serve another important role: unofficial historians of the park.

The zoo has undergone major transformations since a couple of the volunteers started in 1987, but even recent additions to the team have seen big changes.

In the 2018 fiscal year, the zoo's 3,767 volunteers contributed a total of 89,159 hours, which is equal to more than $2 million of in-kind work, according to the zoo.

Here are the stories of three of those volunteers:



Why people (and chimps) throw temper tantrums
When people lose control, like a tantrum, and start throwing stuff around. There's a famous scene of, I think, it's Steve Ballmer, who lost two of his main engineers to Google and threw chairs around in the office or something. That kind of descriptions exist. Or Nixon when he lost his position and started beating the rug and beating his own head. These tantrums that people sometimes throw, that usually has to do with frustrations, or loss of power, or at least the threat that that power is going to be diminished by somebody else.

And so a tantrum, it's like a two-year-old, basically. Grown men who turn into two-year-olds because they don't get what they want. And that happens. And that happens in chimpanzees also. Not only the tantrums of kids, they happen all the time, especially at weaning age. That's usually, for chimpanzees, at four years of age, the mother starts to push them away from the nipple, and then they throw enormous tantrums and make an enormous amount of noise. But also in adults. And so adult males will throw these tantrums, for example, when they lose their power. So you're the alpha male, and all of a sudden,



Marvel Science: The Challenge Of Domesticating War Rhinos
Some 12,000 years ago, humans chose to domesticate much of the world that surrounds us. This intervention steered our evolution and the evolution of many plants and animals, transitioning our hunter-gatherer society into settled agriculture. Can we domesticate any animal? How does domestication work? And most importantly, can we domesticate rhinos as war mounts, as seen in the 2018 movie Black Panther?

In last year’s acclaimed Marvel movie the Border Tribe of Wakanda serves as homeland security for protecting their country from interlopers and invading forces. In addition to being charged with disguising the nation’s borders as a rural countryside, the tribe also manages part of Wakanda’s military might with its blue-caped garrison and a cavalry of white rhino.



An elephantine task
A foundation dedicated to helping pachyderms and their mahouts holds and educational open day

SITTING ON a border of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF) in Chiang Rai recently opened its camp to celebrate the National Thai Elephant Day and give local and foreign visitors a chance to experience several educational activities about elephants and mahouts.  Set up in 2006 by the five-star Anantara Hotels chain, the foundation aims to solve the problem of elephants coming to city streets and generally improve elephant welfare in Thailand. Today, all elephants in its camp are rented from different villages to conduct the exclusive mahout and trekking programmes for the guests staying at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp and Resort and Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle.



Should We Kill Cats To Save The World's Most Endangered Island Species?
Despite its relatively tiny 170-square-kilometer (66-square-mile) stature, Floreana Island in the Galapagos hosts an abundance of biodiversity that’s found nowhere else on Earth. Here, feral cats and invasive rats threaten the existence of the Floreana mockingbird like many of the island’s unique inhabitants, inspiring a global network of researchers and conservation organizations to call for the culling of such invasive species. 
 Removing non-native invasive mammals such as rats, cats, goats, and pigs is a proven conservation tool and could improve the survival rate of almost 10 percent of the Earth’s most highly threatened, land-dwelling, island vertebrates, according to research published in PLOS One. In particular, islands would especially benefit from such eradication efforts. Though they represent just a small proportion of


Suspected totoaba poachers shot by authorities in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez
Three suspected totoaba poachers were reportedly shot yesterday by Mexican marines following a confrontation over illegal gillnets that had been confiscated.

According to local news outlet Fronteras, the governor of the Mexican state of Baja California, Francisco Vega, has confirmed that three people were injured in a shootout between suspected poachers and Mexican marines early Thursday morning in San Felipe, a small fishing town on the coast of the Sea of Cortez. Fronteras reports that one of the suspected poachers, Enrique García Sandez, a 37-year-old fisherman, was transported to a hospital in Mexicali with serious injuries.



The Swinhoe's Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) Project
The critically endangered Swinhoe's Soft-shell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), a large soft-shell turtle first described in 1873 but for which little has been learned since. Now the species is listed by the Turtle Conservation Fund (TCF) in 2018 amongst the top 25 endangered turtles in the world. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the species as Critically-Endangered in their red list, 2017. Considered by many to be the world's most endangered turtle species, at present, only four animals are known in existence - two which have been brought together in China's Suzhou Zoo in the hope of breeding, one found in Vietnam's Dong Mo Lake in 2007 and the fourth was recently confirmed with eDNA evidence in Xuan Khanh Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam. Both findings were made possible thanks to the arduous work of the ATP team.



Circuses with wild animals now banned in Madrid
Circus more respectful. The Mayor of Madrid (Spain) voted on Wednesday the ban circuses with wild animals. The text adopted by elected officials amends a municipal ordinance on the protection of animals.

The group of left-wing mayor Manuel Carmena, Ahora Madrid ("Madrid now"), the Socialists and elected representatives of Ciudadanos voted in favor of the text. The conservatives of the People's Party voted against it.
https://www.archyworldys.com/circuses-with-wild-animals-now-banned-in-madrid/

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About me
After more than 50 years working in private, commercial and National zoos in the capacity of keeper, head keeper and curator Peter Dickinson started to travel. He sold house and all his possessions and hit the road. He has traveled extensively in Turkey, Southern India and much of South East Asia before settling in Thailand. In his travels he has visited well over 200 zoos and many more before 'hitting the road' (many more before that) and writes about these in his blog http://zoonewsdigest.blogspot.com/

Peter earns his living as an independent international zoo consultant, critic and writer. Previously working as Curator of Penguins in Ski Dubai. United Arab Emirates. He describes himself as an itinerant zoo keeper, one time zoo inspector, a dreamer, a traveler, an introvert, a people watcher, a lover, a storyteller, a thinker, a cosmopolitan, a writer, a hedonist, an explorer, a pantheist, a gastronome, sometime fool, a good friend to some and a pain in the butt to others.

"These are the best days of my life"



photo 
Peter Dickinson
Independent International Zoo Consultant




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