Bristol Zoo supporting Endangered Species

A Visit to Bristol Zoo –How the Zoo sustains animal populations!

Extinct: (no animal population outside the zoos) 7 animals are in Bristol including the rather dull Socorro Dove, Goodical Bird, some fish and 4 varieties of snail, one of which only exists in Bristol.

The zoo acts as a safety net to keep species alive that would otherwise die out, and then with Breading Programmes tries to increase numbers that may later be released back into the wild.  The Breading Programmes are a Worldwide coordinated activity where each endangered animal species has a studbook to keep track of family history and prevents interbreeding.

Critically Endangered:  Bali starling has reduced in last 10 years to only 100 in the wild but zoos have 1000 to keep them alive.

There are 20000 African Lions, but only 350 Asiatic Lions all of which are in the Gir Forest in west India.  Gujarat gets lots of tourist  money so does not want to extend the breeding there.  100 lions exist in zoos with young being born and moved to other zoos to continue breeding – no money changes hands for  the animals.

Livingston Fruit Bat lives in the Comeros Islands off Africa.  They are the largest bat.  They are important as they eat fruit and then distribute seeds by pooing everywhere. There are 1000 in the wild.  Farmers there cut trees down to grow crops.  Heavy rains washed the crops and soil away, so further tree cutting occurred and the Bats had less area to live.  Bristol Zoo set up a programme to train the farmers to use terracing so crops are not washed away, and the bat population is improving.

Endangered: Gorilla, -are affected by miners mining for Coltan who destroy the habitat for the gorillas to live.  Coltan is used in mobile phones, so recycling phones reduces the need for coltan.  Greensource Solutions and Bristol Zoo (among others) promote recycling of ink cartridges and old mobiles to help.

Gorillas –are also in danger by the miners who hunt their delicacy of a meat as “Bush Meat”, which is sold for a high price commercially. Orphaned young gorillas are then sold.  Education programmes in Cameroon and large forest enclosures are paid by Bristol zoo and  APE action in Africa to reduce Bush Meat sales.

African Penguins- live in Cape Town on the beach. The population 100 years ago was 1 million. 10 years ago 100,000, but now it is only 40,000.  This is partly due to pollution, but mainly due to Global Warming, increasing temperature which has changed some sea currents. The penguin who hatches chicks on the beach finds it more difficult to collect fish who are further away and chicks die.  SANCCOB in South Africa has a programme to take chicks when they are born and hand rear them.  BristolZoo along with the University have developed a penguin recognition camera that films all incomings and outgoings of the penguins recognising them by their spots on the tummy, and can tell is they have found fish on the outing, and can then intervene!

A GREAT INFORMATIVE DAY OUT!!!