Conservation

When the European Parliament amended the Zoo Licensing Act a few years ago it put an obligation on all zoos in Great Britain to make efforts to encourage conservation and to work in education. Tropiquaria takes these obligations seriously and, despite its small size, it regularly breeds endangered animals and assists other zoos in maintaining populations of such animals.

Ultimately it is intended that suitable representatives from such captive groups of animals will be used to either repopulate the wild or to bolster depleted wild population simply with numbers or by adding genetic variety to dwindling populations. Such intentions though can normally only be achieved when the reasons for an animals decline in the wild have been established and either controlled or reversed.

At present Tropiquaria has a number of animals whose wild populations are causing concern. These include Cotton-top Tamarins, Scottish Wildcats and Northern Helmeted Curassows. With the latter species it is thought that Tropiquaria has the only breeding pair being currently exhibited in the UK. The stories of these animals, and why the wild populations are in the predicament that they are, each lend themselves to student project work, which can be undertaken at a number of levels.

Our Aquarium has a number of Endangered Species breeding projects and is a member of the international “Goodeid Working Group”, helping to conserve these rare livebearing fish. Further details can be found on our Aquarium pages.