Local Conditions

There's a story that I was told once of an aviculturalist (bird keeper) at Sylvan Heights Bird Park, who was determined to successfully breed African pygmy geese.  He'd found an article about a facility in southern Africa which had bred the species and read over it religiously, soaking up after nuance and detail in it, and then fretting about how to best replicate it.  One day, after being pestered about the minutiae of this facility's breeding program for the hundredth time, the director of Sylvan Heights, the late Mike Lubbock, finally said that he wasn't overly impressed to hear that a facility in Africa had managed to breed African pygmy geese.

"If you can't breed African pygmy geese in Africa," Lubbock said, "you probably can't breed them anywhere."

The lesson was simple.  In its native range, a captive specimen has the same temperature, humidity, light cycle, rainfall patterns, and other environmental factors as it would in the wild.  Natural food sources are much more easily obtained, including those which might be very difficult to replicate in a foreign zoo, either having to be imported at great expense or replaced with pellets or substitutes.  

I was thinking of that story when I visited the Seattle Aquarium and marveling at its collection of wildlife from the waters of Puget Sound, which the facility literally abuts.   Specifically, I thought of it as I read that the Aquarium was the first to breed giant Pacific octopus - literally being able to pump water from the natural habitat outside would be an asset.  Facilities with an emphasis on native wildlife, such as Seattle Aquarium (pre-Ocean Pavilion expansion) - or, plugging down the coast, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, or Cabrillo Marine Aquarium - may not have all of the most popular species that aquarium visitors might flock to, but they do have a unique ability to study and specialize in creatures that are found locally, in some cases species that aren't able to successfully or practically be kept outside of their native range.  At each of the aforementioned aquariums (except Oregon Coast, which I haven't been to yet), I've seen fishes that I haven't seen elsewhere.

The same can be true for some terrestrial animals to an extent.  While I do still see a specimen or two out east, pronghorn, for example, are much more common in zoos that are within their natural range, being more tolerant of that temperature/humidity/other factors.  Same could be said for moose and wolverine.  Eucalyptus can be shipped, it's true, but it's a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to keep koalas in places where the tree is already growing.

None of this is to say that I think that zoos and aquariums should only keep native species - a major part of the joy of going to a zoo is the chance to see and experience wildlife from all over the world, including places that are very different from the world that immediately surrounds us.  For a small child in, let's say, Minnesota, a trip to a tropical rainforest, or to a coral reef (both within the same building at the Minnesota Zoo) can be a magical experience that encourages further growth and discovery.  Somethings, however, are best done locally, taking advantage of local environmental conditions, and there's always room for developing a local specialty.