Adventures in Enforced Monogamy

"Well there's a rose in a fisted glove, and the eagle flies with the dove,

And if you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with"

- Stephen Stills

The Andean cock-of-the-rock is a stunningly beautiful bird; it would be easy to imagine that every zoo would want a pair to shine in their aviaries.  The same could be said of the birds-of-paradise, which makes it surprising that these birds are so uncommon in zoo collections.  The reason why is quite simple - they tend to be difficult to breed.  And the reason that they are difficult to breed is that they refuse to do so on our terms.

Zoo visitors tend to look at animals through the lens of a nuclear family.  If you have two individuals in an exhibit, they immediately assume they are a male and female, and ask you if they are going to mate.  If there are three, they assume that it's a mommy, a daddy, and a baby.  Zookeepers and managers have a tendency to look at things in a similar vein.  The only problem is, that's not how it usually works in nature.

Monogamy is an exception, not a norm in nature, and even most species that we think of as monogamous often aren't really.  The Bronx Zoo once ran some DNA tests on an aviary of scarlet ibises - and after checking on the parentage of the chicks in the nests, it turned out there was a lot of funny business going on on the side among those supposedly faithful pairs.  And that's in a zoo, with relatively limited options for cheating.  You can imagine what goes on in the wild.

When we pair animals up in a zoo, we often do so with demographics or genetics in mind, but doing so sometimes takes away one of the key factors in an animal's life - mate choice.  Some animals just don't care - the male will mount any female of the species that he can get atop of, and the female will let him.  Others are quite picky.  Cheetahs, for instance, can be very selective about their mates, and females are most likely to select a male after they've been given a chance to browse the aisle and compare brands, as it were.

We're slowly starting to learn how to accommodate these behaviors, more easily in some species than others.  Gorillas were once almost impossible to breed, mostly because we assumed that they lived like people - put an "Adam" and an "Eve" together and hope for the best.  You can hope all you want - it wasn't until they started being housed in groups that breeding began.  Zoos of the future will need to start housing multiple potential pairs of some species so that males and females can find the partner that bests works for them.  This has been a large part of the inspiration behind the movement towards the Conservation Centers for Species Survival.

This approach has its drawbacks.  Having more enclosures holding more members of the same species may lead to less diversity within the collection of a zoo - you may have four pairs of clouded leopards instead of a pair of clouded leopards, a pair of snow leopards, a pair of jaguars, and a pair of pumas.  It may result in more demands on off-exhibit holding space, a resource that's already in critically short supply at many zoos.  And it may mean sacrificing some perfect genetic pairs because that's not who the animals have selected for themselves. 

It will, however, have the potential to result in more breeding success as animals form pair bonds of their choosing, and more control over their own lives and welfare.