# First captive breeding of 'Geochelone' sulcata



## cdmay (Nov 4, 2013)

After some of the other discussions here regarding the earlier captive breeding of sulcata, I got to wondering about when they were first being recorded as captive bred. 
The 1979 edition of the International Zoo Yearbook has some photos of (but no actual article that I can find) of captive breeding, nesting and young of the African tortoise, _'Geochelone' sulcata_ at the Budapest Zoo.
The photo captions says that the zoo has raised the young to seven months so I would then assume that they were produced in either 1978 or even 1977 depending on how long before publication the article was submitted. 
Although the photos are in b/w the adult animals shown look really nice.


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## Kapidolo Farms (Nov 23, 2013)

cdmay said:


> After some of the other discussions here regarding the earlier captive breeding of sulcata, I got to wondering about when they were first being recorded as captive bred.
> The 1979 edition of the International Zoo Yearbook has some photos of (but no actual article that I can find) of captive breeding, nesting and young of the African tortoise, _'Geochelone' sulcata_ at the Budapest Zoo.
> The photo captions says that the zoo has raised the young to seven months so I would then assume that they were produced in either 1978 or even 1977 depending on how long before publication the article was submitted.
> Although the photos are in b/w the adult animals shown look really nice.



Hey Carl, this is interesting.


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## Tom (Nov 23, 2013)

http://media.longnow.org/files/2/REVIVE/Sulcata-6.pdf

About halfway down the article Look for the heading "Sulcatization..." It gives a pretty detailed history of the sulcata in the US including the origins and timeframes of the first breeders. Bill Zovickian, John Behler and Eric Goode all had a hand in it... Bill was in CT at the time he got his first and they came to him from Hawaii.

Apparently they were here in Southern CA in the 60's.

They list the first actual known breeding in San Antonio in 1979, so Budapest would have them beat by a year or two if all this is accurate.


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## cdmay (Nov 23, 2013)

Thanks Tom. 
Really interesting stuff. Man, James Juvik must 200 years old by now!


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## N2TORTS (Nov 23, 2013)

Great thread indeedâ€¦interesting to learn about the Sullies and timelines. There was a keeper , Mr. Randy Gallagher of Sunset Beach, NC â€¦who has had a Sullie since the 60â€™s.
On an interesting note and time frame with another large species, the San Diego Zoo received itâ€™s first Galapagos Tortoise in 1928 , with itâ€™s first successful â€œ in houseâ€ hatching in 1959.


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