Re Gorillas for Ragunan Zoo

[Guest guest]

In 1993 IPPL learned that the late John Aspinall was planning to send

several gorillas to Taman Safari, a safari park in Indonesia, and I

contacted the late Mr. A to inform him of the deaths from pseudomonas

pseudomallei (meliodiosis) of four of four unwanted ( " surplus " )

male gorillas imported by Singapore Zoo (the suppliers were the Prince of

Monaco and Bristol Zoo in the UK) and to suggest that Southeast Asia was

not a suitable environment for gorillas.

Aspinall replied:

" First of all thanks for your kind interest in our gorillas. I am

delighted that you follow their fortunes so closely. I am surprised that

you have not realized that we would never send our gorillas anywhere in

the world unless we were assured that conditions were right for them,

i.e. properly kept, properly husbanded, and with an opportunity to breed.

Where we have arranged to send gorillas in the past, or our own volition,

these transfers have been remarkably successful. Where we have been

forced to send gorillas, on the orders of their owners, away from

Howletts, the results have been abysmal; several of them dying within a

few years of departure. I won't bore you with all the examples to

illustrate this point.

We have been considering an arrangement with Taman Safari Park in

Indonesia. They were going to loan us a Sumatran rhino cow to join our

pair here in the hope that an addition to the group would stimulate

breeding. We had planned to send them a pair of gorillas to be backed up

by a further female to inaugurate a new breeding colony in Asia. We have

sent our director, Dr. Chris Furley, out to Djakarta twice to advise on

their accommodation, etc. In the event of this ever taking pace we would

also have a keeper there to teach the local staff how to husband

gorillas. All this is likely to come to nothing as the Sumatran rhino cow

in question has died. You can rest assured of one thing, that we would

never voluntarily send a gorilla of our's, raised at Howletts, anywhere

in the world where we thought they would be abused, maltreated,

malhoused. "

Aspinall went on to admit that:

" No Sumatran rhino has ever conceived and given birth in captivity.

Nobody has stumbled on the secret of captive breeding with that

unfortunate species. "

The Taman Safari Park deal fell apart and now, eight years later, we see

another proposal to send gorillas to Indonesia. It is not clear if this

is a straight sale or an exchange for rare Indonesian species. My

suspicion is that, as long as they lived, the gorillas would be a

commercial attraction.

British CITES Management and Scientific Authorities may be contacted

at:

Management Authority for Fauna

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR)

Global Wildlife Division

Tollgate House

Houlton Street

BRISTOL BS2 9DJ, United Kingdom

Tel: (44117) 9878017; 9876165; 9878202 (24h)

Fax: (44117) 9878206

Email: andy_keirl

Scientific Authority for Fauna

Joint Nature Conservation Committee

Monkstone House

City Road

PETERBOROUGH PE1 1JY, United Kingdom

Tel: (441733) 866814; 866870

Fax: (441733) 555948

Email: flemin_v

Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman, International Primate Protection League

 

POB 766 Summerville SC 29484 USA

Phone: 843-871-2280 Fax: 843-871-7988

E-mail spm or ippl

Visit IPPL's award-winning web site:

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" Only after the last tree has been cut down,

only after the last river has been poisoned,

only after the last fish has been caught,

only then will you find that money can not be eaten. "

CREE INDIAN PROPHECY. "