Since the early 1970’s the Welsh Mountain Zoo, in response to the needs of wildlife conservation, has been reassessing the nature of its animal collection.
This has enabled the Zoo to join some of the developing inter-Zoo co-operative breeding programmes that cover a wide range of species such as the Red Panda and the Snow Leopard.
Other species managed co-operatively include:
- Przewalski’s Wild Horse
- Andean Condor
- Chimpanzee
- Lar Gibbon
- Cotton Top Tamarin
- Humboldt Penguin
- California Sea Lion
- Ring-tailed Lemur
- Margay
- Snow Leopard
- Sumatran Tiger
- Red Panda
- Red-faced Spider Monkey
- Goeldi's Monkeys
- Red-fronted Macaw
- Asian Small Clawed Otter
- Darwin's Rhea
- Azara's Agouti
- Eurasian Brown Bear
- Swamp Wallabies
- Also, the native British species:
- Red Squirrel
- Pine Marten
- White-tailed Sea Eagle
More and more of these breeding programmes are being instigated and guided by the Conservation Planning Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union’s Species Survival Commission.
Animal Records
One of the most important elements in the coordinated breeding programmes is record keeping. At the Welsh Mountain Zoo, records are kept on the Zoological Information Management System or ZIMS as it is known and all data is sent to their international database in Minnesota.
These increasingly sophisticated systems of record keeping are proving to be vital to the success of nationally and internationally co-ordinated breeding programmes. In addition to this, they are also used for advances in husbandry and veterinary care along with genetic management.