I'm at the San Diego zoo right now. The have a habitat with Russians, Marginateds, and Euro pond turtles.
I've always heard mixing was bad. If so why is a zoo doing it?
I've always heard mixing was bad. If so why is a zoo doing it?
I do have a question if species naturally overlap is it bad...like having Eastern Box with say a Wood turtle?
Since joining this forum, I have learned that Zoos don't do the best for the animals or know as much about them as I thought they did. I used to think they were the ones to know everything about the animals they keep and to feed and house them they proper way. Since joining this forum, so not true, at least with tortoises. It's sad, but true. Of course not all Zoos, but I would have to guess most.
I'm at the San Diego zoo right now. The have a habitat with Russians, Marginateds, and Euro pond turtles.
I've always heard mixing was bad. If so why is a zoo doing it?
I can back that up I have close friends and family who work in zoos one even specializes in the quarantine zone at zoo miami. They do extensive testing, but they still get things wrong husbandry wise at times but this could also be because of monetary reasons.Zoos have very strict quarantine protocols. The new animals are tested and re-tested before they are put out in the enclosures. Unless an individual tests for Viruses, Mycoplasma, and Coccidia , etc. mixing species should not be done.
I would consider that to be less of a risk than animals from different continents or entirely different regions within a continent.
Personally I don't know if an eastern box turtle would ever come into contact with a wood turtle in the wild. Would they?
In addition to disease factor, there is also the behavioral incompatibility factor. Russians are scrappy. Margies less so.
I'm finding this out for myself.…and some tortoises diseases are not easy to spot and are nearly impossible to diagnose in a live tortoise even with a battery of expensive tests.
Ask me how I know this...
Did you say crypto?…and some tortoises diseases are not easy to spot and are nearly impossible to diagnose in a live tortoise even with a battery of expensive tests.
Ask me how I know this...
The picture you may have had in your mind's eye is a 2 x 3 foot box behind glass. It just isn't like that. The OP did not mention the enclosure it outside bathed in UV all day, is cleaned regularly, has several lizards and is larger than many people's backyards. It's huge, an oval, but I would guesstimate 50 feet by 25 feet. There is a smallish pond at one end with the aquatics, the land area is +/- 90% of it.
That and the quarantine that zoos use makes this okay-ish.