- Joined
- Nov 7, 2012
- Messages
- 5,167
- Location (City and/or State)
- South of Southern California, but not Mexico
A. Taggert the guy who came to the zoo, was full of passion for his project, which focused more on cats, primates, and other mammals at the zoo. I can't say he did not care about the tortoises, but they were not a primary interest to him. At that time he was trying to create the NGO in Peru itself, but there were some legal issues frustrating that, so in the end he founded the NGO, that persists to today in Australia.
After his talk he was focused on the zoo's VP of animal affairs prospecting funding and organization logistis help. Talking about the tortoises that had been eaten subsequent to the photo did not inspire much conversation from him.
Later follow-up via email has not gotten any response.
Based on the idea that the tortouses are consumed for lent as fish, I imagine it is an annual accumulation. Then the question of how far did people carry them for the accumulation comes up, and I have no idea.
On this whole idea of giants in the Amazon basin, you have to keep in mind that a great deal of that large area is not suitable for terrestrial, non arboreal animals, it floods each year. So there are likely many localized populations with high mixing from one population to the next from smaller individuals able to persist in trees during floods, or giants that can float.
One conversation I had with a tamarin/marmoset expert, who also liked tortoises, suggested that their had been "unique" yellow foots in the Atlantic forest of Brazil, he had seen some in the 1970's.
But I saw no pictures nor do I recal any mention in the literature of unique yellowfoots there. If you look at the NGO's working in this area now, the talk about such a high degree of fragmentation and bushmeat exploitation, I doubt even a really good survey would turn up tortoises.
In the late 1990's a buddy working at the St. Louis zoo, who is obsesed with accuracy of information tried to sort out via the zoo's historical records some evidence about the appelation of those giants. He felt no strong conclusion could be made. They are very cool tortoises, and "dog" tame. Before digital cameras in my life, I have misplaced the images I took at that time.
Ron Tremper, the famous leopard gecko man, has a shell of one of two gianrs that had been owned by a couple in Fresno, way back when he curated the Fresno zoo herp building. That shell is maybe 24 inches long. It was sitting ontop of a full size refrigerator at CRAP when I saw it, and it extended out on both sides of the frig.
I don't think they are rare so much, as rarely get past local consumption. It's a hunter's thing to always get the biggest.
Will
On another note, this is one of the most interesting threads I've read here on TFO.
Will
After his talk he was focused on the zoo's VP of animal affairs prospecting funding and organization logistis help. Talking about the tortoises that had been eaten subsequent to the photo did not inspire much conversation from him.
Later follow-up via email has not gotten any response.
Based on the idea that the tortouses are consumed for lent as fish, I imagine it is an annual accumulation. Then the question of how far did people carry them for the accumulation comes up, and I have no idea.
On this whole idea of giants in the Amazon basin, you have to keep in mind that a great deal of that large area is not suitable for terrestrial, non arboreal animals, it floods each year. So there are likely many localized populations with high mixing from one population to the next from smaller individuals able to persist in trees during floods, or giants that can float.
One conversation I had with a tamarin/marmoset expert, who also liked tortoises, suggested that their had been "unique" yellow foots in the Atlantic forest of Brazil, he had seen some in the 1970's.
But I saw no pictures nor do I recal any mention in the literature of unique yellowfoots there. If you look at the NGO's working in this area now, the talk about such a high degree of fragmentation and bushmeat exploitation, I doubt even a really good survey would turn up tortoises.
In the late 1990's a buddy working at the St. Louis zoo, who is obsesed with accuracy of information tried to sort out via the zoo's historical records some evidence about the appelation of those giants. He felt no strong conclusion could be made. They are very cool tortoises, and "dog" tame. Before digital cameras in my life, I have misplaced the images I took at that time.
Ron Tremper, the famous leopard gecko man, has a shell of one of two gianrs that had been owned by a couple in Fresno, way back when he curated the Fresno zoo herp building. That shell is maybe 24 inches long. It was sitting ontop of a full size refrigerator at CRAP when I saw it, and it extended out on both sides of the frig.
I don't think they are rare so much, as rarely get past local consumption. It's a hunter's thing to always get the biggest.
Will
On another note, this is one of the most interesting threads I've read here on TFO.
Will