Training in zoo biology: two approaches to enhance the conservation role of zoos in the tropics

Abstract

Twenty years ago, at the First World Conference on Breeding Endangered Species in Captivity, Gerald Durrell made a particular observation about the need to institutionalize training of zoo personnel so as to cultivate higher standards and create a world-wide professionalism in the management of captive animals (Martin, 1975). His observation was made truly in the spirit of wanting to transfer resources from the ‘haves’ to the ‘have-nots’ in the common interest of preventing extinctions and maintaining global biodiversity. Its genesis lay in Durrell’s many years’ experience of the virtual absence of any goals in the keeping of wild animals in captivity in less-developed countries. It should be emphasized that inadequate standards of captive animal management in any part of the world would not have been spared his criticism. However, Durrell did keenly sense that zoos in developing nations were handicapped, not just by lack of funds but, as importantly, because they were isolated from the accumulated knowledge forming the foundation of an emerging professionalism across the zoo community of the developed countries.