STUDBOOKS
- Thread starter ALDABRAMAN
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2012
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- 5,222
- Location (City and/or State)
- South of Southern California, but not Mexico
What a big bunch of single sentence questions.
Studbooks in North America are maintained through the American Zoo Association in cooperation with a global effort to monitor the breeding and movement of animals in the IUCN Captive Breeding Specialist Group or some other equally musical name of a committee of people interested in maintaining captive gene diversity with the limited resource of Zoo Space. Many. not all animals in studbook are 'permanently' marked with tattoos, bands, or PIT tags, many animals have such unique individual pattern of color that just a photo will work..
There is usually one studbook keeper for a species or in some cases a genus. There is special software to track all of it, at one time called SPARKS, some species have associated Population Management Plans PMP and other have corresponding active conservation programs and tend to be species with good appeal, they are in an SSP species Survival Plan which often incorporate a in the wild component.
The studbook keeper collates data collected from everyone who has the species, and basically has to believe what they are told, some zoos have rocket science quality data others, not so much so. Then this when this data is collected it will include Founder Animals, these are individuals that came from the wild, they are founders of the captive population. Their first offspring (cohort) are F1, founders plus one generation. This goes on with F2, F3 etc.
Many animals in a studbook may never breed or contribute offspring, they are still valuable individuals, but not for breeding, so a studbook is accomplishing a few things, it's a registry as well, just a big list of animals in that species in a the geographic area of concern. Even after an animal dies it's identity will be maintained in the studbook.
Some animals will be listed as having both multiple Paternity and Maternity. Say, for example you are a group of @ALDABRAMAN tortoises, and there are 3 males and five females, You find some neonates walking around one day-what to do? You list all the males and all the females as possible parents. Say one of those neonates is sold, and the person says they don't care about the studbook. Ten years later they sell that tortoise and the new owner learns it came from ALDABRAMAN and hatched in 2013. The first entry the studbook keeper would have entered into SPARKS would be LTF, for all the individuals that Greg sold that year, but the customers did not care to participate in the studbook. Those would be given a studbook number, and the designation LTF. So that new customer gets in contact with the studbook keeper and says they have a 2013 tortoise from Greg. The studbook keeper would then assign the next in sequence LTF number to that tortoise, and back into that animal's record that the male and female that produced it were any of all the adult viable animals in the heard from 2013.
Just to drive you crazy, rumor has it at least some collections of cyclura lizards that had been PIT tag, had tags removed and put into other individuals, to create something, I don't know what, but a careful scrutiny of other records and an inquiring vet sorted it out. That vet then implanted the PIT tags into the femur of some other large lizards thereafter.
As @keepergale mentioned much of the decision making is done by committees of people who offer different expertise. The actual studbook keeping work itself is an often not so rewarding headache of a task.
There are populations of animals that are not in PMPs and then the studbook keeper gets tasked with requests from zoo curators to reach out and ask about moving this animal or that. @HermanniChris keeps a studbook for his site specific Hermann's tortoises, I would like to hear about his management system.
Studbooks in North America are maintained through the American Zoo Association in cooperation with a global effort to monitor the breeding and movement of animals in the IUCN Captive Breeding Specialist Group or some other equally musical name of a committee of people interested in maintaining captive gene diversity with the limited resource of Zoo Space. Many. not all animals in studbook are 'permanently' marked with tattoos, bands, or PIT tags, many animals have such unique individual pattern of color that just a photo will work..
There is usually one studbook keeper for a species or in some cases a genus. There is special software to track all of it, at one time called SPARKS, some species have associated Population Management Plans PMP and other have corresponding active conservation programs and tend to be species with good appeal, they are in an SSP species Survival Plan which often incorporate a in the wild component.
The studbook keeper collates data collected from everyone who has the species, and basically has to believe what they are told, some zoos have rocket science quality data others, not so much so. Then this when this data is collected it will include Founder Animals, these are individuals that came from the wild, they are founders of the captive population. Their first offspring (cohort) are F1, founders plus one generation. This goes on with F2, F3 etc.
Many animals in a studbook may never breed or contribute offspring, they are still valuable individuals, but not for breeding, so a studbook is accomplishing a few things, it's a registry as well, just a big list of animals in that species in a the geographic area of concern. Even after an animal dies it's identity will be maintained in the studbook.
Some animals will be listed as having both multiple Paternity and Maternity. Say, for example you are a group of @ALDABRAMAN tortoises, and there are 3 males and five females, You find some neonates walking around one day-what to do? You list all the males and all the females as possible parents. Say one of those neonates is sold, and the person says they don't care about the studbook. Ten years later they sell that tortoise and the new owner learns it came from ALDABRAMAN and hatched in 2013. The first entry the studbook keeper would have entered into SPARKS would be LTF, for all the individuals that Greg sold that year, but the customers did not care to participate in the studbook. Those would be given a studbook number, and the designation LTF. So that new customer gets in contact with the studbook keeper and says they have a 2013 tortoise from Greg. The studbook keeper would then assign the next in sequence LTF number to that tortoise, and back into that animal's record that the male and female that produced it were any of all the adult viable animals in the heard from 2013.
Just to drive you crazy, rumor has it at least some collections of cyclura lizards that had been PIT tag, had tags removed and put into other individuals, to create something, I don't know what, but a careful scrutiny of other records and an inquiring vet sorted it out. That vet then implanted the PIT tags into the femur of some other large lizards thereafter.
As @keepergale mentioned much of the decision making is done by committees of people who offer different expertise. The actual studbook keeping work itself is an often not so rewarding headache of a task.
There are populations of animals that are not in PMPs and then the studbook keeper gets tasked with requests from zoo curators to reach out and ask about moving this animal or that. @HermanniChris keeps a studbook for his site specific Hermann's tortoises, I would like to hear about his management system.
We'd love to answer questions about Chris' studbook. He and Steve have worked so hard on it, and in it's third year, tons of kinks have already been worked out.
One thing that makes Chirs' studbook possible is the genetic and locality data he has compiled on each group he has. All are separated and a lot of care has to be taken not to let things get jumbled up. This is why a lot of what has happened in captivity with Galapagos Tortoises is difficult to make sense of. Many of those tortoises are of muddied lineage. It's tough to have an animal as part of a conservation effort without knowing the exact lineage.
We are involved in roughly 10 studbooks and SSPs. I can tell you, each one is different. Some keepers of books are very wary of working with the private sector, while others bend over backwards to collaborate with private hobbyists. The radiata keeper is an example of a super collaborative person, but that book is very large and might not be listing new founders. Worth looking into, but don't hold your breath, simply because it already has like 2000 animals. Let me know if you need his contact info.
Ant
One thing that makes Chirs' studbook possible is the genetic and locality data he has compiled on each group he has. All are separated and a lot of care has to be taken not to let things get jumbled up. This is why a lot of what has happened in captivity with Galapagos Tortoises is difficult to make sense of. Many of those tortoises are of muddied lineage. It's tough to have an animal as part of a conservation effort without knowing the exact lineage.
We are involved in roughly 10 studbooks and SSPs. I can tell you, each one is different. Some keepers of books are very wary of working with the private sector, while others bend over backwards to collaborate with private hobbyists. The radiata keeper is an example of a super collaborative person, but that book is very large and might not be listing new founders. Worth looking into, but don't hold your breath, simply because it already has like 2000 animals. Let me know if you need his contact info.
Ant
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2012
- Messages
- 5,222
- Location (City and/or State)
- South of Southern California, but not Mexico
So, there's an AZA Hermann's studbook? Glad to hear you'll are working with both the easy going and intractable studbook keepers in the AZA. Tell us about the one you are running via Chris, please.
Thanks all. A very interesting and informative thread.
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