Scientific evaluation of rhino diets improves zoo

Study highlights success of changing diet for reproduction in endangered species

Date:  October 26, 2017

Source:  San Diego Zoo Global

A recently published study in the journal Pachyderm highlights the ongoing effort of accredited zoos to address challenges and improve the sustainability of endangered species populations in their care. The study, co-authored by scientists from San Diego Zoo Global and Mars Hill University, evaluated fertility issues in captive-born southern white rhinos and determined that diets including soy and alfalfa were likely contributors to breeding challenges.

"The captive southern white rhinoceros (SWR) population is not currently self-sustaining, due to the reproductive failure of captive-born females," said Christopher Tubbs Ph.D, San Diego Zoo Global and lead author of the paper. "Our research into this phenomenon points to chemicals produced by plants present in captive diets, such as soy and alfalfa, as likely causes."

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150-year-old tortoise dies at San Diego Zoo - via D R Shoop

A rare Galápagos tortoise, known affectionately as 'Speed,' has died at the San Diego Zoo — his home of more than eight decades. He was (approximately) 150.

After suffering for years from arthritis and other problems, which the zoo staff sought "to treat with medication, hydrotherapy, physical therapy, even acupuncture," according to The Los Angeles Times, "a decision was made on Friday to euthanize Speed."

Speed came to the zoo in 1933 from Isabela Island in the Galápagos chain off Ecuador as part of an early effort to preserve the endangered species. The giant tortoises reside only in the Pacific islands that were made famous for helping to inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

According to the LA Times: "For years Speed and other Galápagos tortoises resided at the Children's Zoo, where youngsters were allowed to ride them. (A practice long since abandoned)."

Later, in 2010, along with 13 other Galápagos tortoises, he was moved to a new $1-million habitat near the reptile house at the zoo.

According to the San Diego Zoo's website, males Galápagos tortoises can weigh more than 500 pounds, while females can reach about half that size. They represent a classic example of "island gigantism," a phenomenon that results from isolation. When species colonize islands and enjoy comparatively few, if any predators, they tend to evolve larger bodies.

"There are two types of Galápagos tortoises. The largest, with big, round shells, are called 'domes.' The smaller kinds of tortoises have shells that curl up in front like a saddle and are called 'saddlebacks,'" the zoo says.

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Northern white rhino's death leaves just five in the world

Rare rhinoceros dies in San Diego Zoo safari park, bringing species one step closer to extinction

Monday 15 December 2014 09.11 GMT

A northern white rhinoceros that zoo officials said was only one of six left in the world died on Sunday at the San Diego Zoo safari park.

Angalifu, who was about 44 years old, apparently died of old age.

“Angalifu’s death is a tremendous loss to all of us,” safari park curator Randy Rieches said in a statement. “Not only because he was well beloved here at the park but also because his death brings this wonderful species one step closer to extinction.”

His death leaves only one northern white rhino at the zoo — a female named Nola — one at a zoo in the Czech Republic and three in a preserve in Kenya.

Rhino horns are valued as dagger handles and are mistakenly seen as an aphrodisiac. As a result, poaching has pushed the critically endangered rhinos to the brink of extinction.

Attempts to mate Angalifu with Nola weren’t successful.

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Giant San Diego panda gets chipped tooth fixed

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Bai Yun, the San Diego Zoo's giant female panda, has been known to chew on bamboo up to 12 hours a day, so when she chipped a lower tooth, veterinarians had to fix it.

The 23-year-old panda went to the dentist Wednesday, got a shot to make her numb and got the chip repaired, a cleaning and X-rays.

The Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/1whka7u ) a dental composite was used to fill the damaged tooth.

Bamboo is chewy but to get enough nutrition out of it, a panda has to break it apart and chew a lot.

Source..

RARE WESTERN POND TURTLES IN E. COUNTY-Animals are part of conservation effort - via Herp Digest

By Karen Pearlman5:05 a.m.Aug. 7, 2014

Five rare Western pond turtles are going to be watched closely in East County for the foreseeable future.

The Western pond turtles, listed as a “Species of Special Concern” by the state, were released July 31 into the Sycuan Peak Ecological Preserve near the Cleveland National Forest.

They are part of the San Diego Zoo’s “headstart” program, which involves raising hatchlings of a large enough size and releasing them into the wild, giving them a better chance of surviving and fending off natural predators.

Since 2009, the zoo has been in a joint program with a team consisting of California Department of Fish & Wildlife, San Diego Association of Governments and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center.

Miniature radio transmitters were fitted on the shells of the five juvenile turtles released to help scientists track their whereabouts, activity levels and to regularly check on the turtles’ growth, physical health and behavior. The transmitters were applied with a silicone sealant that allows the turtles’ shells to grow and expand, even with the transmitter device attached to it.

The team in 2013 released its first group of Western pond turtles — which when hatched are no larger than a quarter. The turtles were raised away from the public at the zoo for a little more than three years before their introduction to the wild.

The Western pond turtles are California’s only native freshwater turtles, and have been around for more than 10,000 years, according to Tommy Owens, senior keeper with the San Diego Zoo’s Department of Herpetology.

Once abundant along the West Coast from Mexico to Canada, they are preyed on by largemouth bass, catfish, bullfrogs, garter snakes, herons and egrets. The shy and protective turtles have also been suffering from habitat loss. A spokesman from the Department of Fish and Wildlife said that a “lucky” pond turtle can live 70 years in the wild.

A 2003 study detected just over 120 Western pond turtles, including only 18 females in five locations in San Diego County. The cool water pond in the reserve where the turtles were released has myriad shady plants and submerged logs as well as insects for the turtles to eat. Because pond turtles are shy, females will not lay eggs if they experience stress of any kind. If they wait too long, the eggs are reabsorbed back into their bodies.

“Along with (the U.S. Geological Survey group) we’re able to monitor these turtles with their radio transmitters and check on them periodically to see how they’re doing,” Owens said. “It’s really important here at the beginning of the release, because the turtles might not stay put and we want to be able to find them easily. Through radio tracking we can see the use of habitat, their behaviors and check on their overall well being.”

The project is testing conservation strategies to help Western pond turtles and other native species, since many California ecosystems are being affected by invasive, nonnative species accidentally or intentionally introduced by humans.

Tasmanian devils have new US home

A group of Tasmanian devils have taken up residence in San Diego Zoo in California as part of a conservation programme to protect the endangered species.

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Galapagos' new star tortoise a prolific dad - via Herp Digest

By Gonzalo Solano, nzherald.co.nz

Thursday August 16, 2012 

Lonesome George's inability to reproduce made him a global symbol of efforts to halt the disappearance of species. And while his kind died with him, that doesn't mean the famed giant tortoise leaves no heir apparent.

The Galapagos Islands have another centenarian who fills a shell pretty well. He's Diego, a prolific, bossy, macho reptile.

Unlike Lonesome George, who died on June 24, Diego symbolises not a dying breed but one resurrected.

Having sired hundreds of offspring, Diego has been central to bringing the Espanola Island type of tortoise back from near extinction, rangers at Galapagos National Park say.

Diego was plucked from Espanola by expeditioners sometime between 1900 and 1930 and wound up in the San Diego Zoo in California, said the head of the park's conservation programme, Washington Tapia.

When the US zoo returned him to the Galapagos in 1975, the only other known living members of his species were two males and 12 females.

Chelonoidis hoodensis - some consider it a species, some a subspecies - had been all but destroyed, mostly by domestic animals introduced by humans that ate their eggs.

So Diego and the others were placed in a corral at the park's breeding centre on Santa Cruz, the main island in the isolated archipelago whose unique flora and fauna helped inspire Charles Darwin's work on evolution.

Diego was so dominant and aggressive, bullying other males with bites and shoves, that he had to be moved eight years later to his own pen, with five of the females. The reptiles are not monogamous.

"Diego is very territorial, including with humans," said his keeper, Fausto Llerena.

"He once bit me, and two weeks ago he tried (again) to bite me. When you enter his pen, Diego comes near and his intentions aren't friendly."

A US-based herpetologist for the Galapagos Conservancy, Linda Cayot, says Diego is the most sexually active of the bunch because he's the biggest and the oldest of the males.

"In tortoises, the biggest dominates. It's not that the others aren't active. It's just that he's dominant," she says.

Tapia says it is impossible to know Diego's age, but he is well over 100. He estimates Diego is the father of 40 to 45 per cent of the 1781 tortoises born in the breeding programme and placed on Espanola island.

At least 14 species of giant tortoise originally inhabited the islands 1000 kilometres off Ecuador's Pacific coast and 10 survive, their features developing in sync with their environment, as Darwin observed.

Espanola, which encompasses 130 square kilometres, is arid, and in order to reach vegetation high off the ground, the tortoises there developed the longest legs and necks of any tortoise species in the archipelago.

Diego is nearly 90 centimetres long, weighs 80 kilograms and has a black saddleback shell.

Llerena says tourists take to him automatically, if from a safe distance.

"I think he's going to be the successor to Lonesome George, the new favourite."

A visit to Lonesome George became de rigueur for celebrities and common folk alike among the 180,000 people who annually visit the Galapagos. Among his last visitors were Richard Gere, Prince Charles of England and Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and family.

Before humans arrived in the Galapagos, the six islands were home to tens of thousands of giant tortoises. Numbers were down to about 3000 in 1974, but the recovery programme run by the national park and the Charles Darwin Foundation has succeeded in increasing the overall population to 20,000.

The offspring of Diego and his male rivals in the corrals of Santa Cruz have themselves been reproducing in the wild on Espanola Island since 1990.

"We can now say that the reproduction of this species is guaranteed," said Tapia.

Cayot was asked whether having so many children of the same few parents interbreeding on Espanola could hurt the breed's long-term prospects.

"It could be a problem," she said.

"But it is more important to save the species."

Critically Endangered 'Tree Lobsters' Hatched at Zoo

Three critically endangered insects called Lord Howe Island stick insects, also known as tree lobsters, have been hatched at the San Diego Zoo for the first time.

The species was thought to be extinct after 1920, when the last known wild tree lobsters were devoured by rats on their native Lord Howe Island, off the coast of Australia. However, in 2001, a small group of the stick insects was discovered on Ball's Pyramid, a remnant volcano in the Pacific Ocean near the island. After discovering the rare insect, four were taken to the Melbourne Zoo, where zookeepers have successfully hatched a number of the insects in an effort to bring them back from extinction.

Eggs were shipped to San Diego to establish a new, separate colony, according to the zoo. After incubating the eggs at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), three nymphs emerged, which are now 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) long and light green.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/21268-endangered-tree-lobsters-hatched.html