Japanese Salamanders exported to American Zoo

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Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009

 

U.S. zoo takes Japanese salamanders

 

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Six rare and highly protected Japanese giant salamanders

bred and raised at the

Asa<http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20031016a9.html>Zoological

Park in the city of Hiroshima were sent last week to the

Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, according to officials

of the two zoos.

 

**

 

The two 19-year-old females and four 11-year-olds — two males and two

females — were all born at Asa, the only zoo in the world where the species

has been successfully bred on a regular basis.

 

It marks the first time that Japan has sent any of the river-dwelling

creatures, regarded here as a national treasure, to overseas zoos in more

than a decade. A detailed contract was concluded between the two zoos in

2006 for the six salamanders.

 

" We're very excited about it, " said Edward Bronikowski, the U.S. zoo's

senior curator in animal programs, who visited Asa on Thursday with a

Smithsonian veterinarian and observed the slimy animals as they underwent

predeparture health checks.

 

The biggest is a 19-year-old female that is 93 cm long and weighs 5.8 kg.

Japanese giant salamanders can grow to up to 150 cm in length and weigh more

than 40 kg.

 

" We have a lovely exhibit set up for them right across from the giant

pandas, " Bronikowski said, referring to the zoo's centerpiece attraction.

 

Two of the six giant salamanders will be on public display in a large

aquarium, set into rocks, which forms part of Asia Trail, a series of

naturalistic exhibits that is also home to red pandas, sloth bears and

clouded leopards.

 

The other four will be housed elsewhere in the zoo and utilized in a captive

breeding

program<http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?mode=getarticle & file=n\

n20090321f3.html>for

Japanese giant salamanders, one of the first in the United States.

 

Bronikowski said the breeding facilities set up in the zoo's Reptile

Discovery Center will be modeled on those at Asa, which in 1979 became the

first Japanese zoo to breed the species in captivity.

 

Asa has bred them almost every year since then, using artificial facilities

that imitate the natural habitat of the salamanders, with streams and

nesting burrows hidden in the riverbank.

 

But the Smithsonian curator said one important distinction will be that the

U.S. zoo will attempt to breed them indoors in a closed system. Asa's

breeding aquariums are outdoors and utilize water supplied from a natural

stream.

 

At the Washington zoo, the water in the enclosures will be kept below 15

degrees year-round and will mimic seasonal variations in river water

temperature in Japan.

 

Bronikowski admitted this posed some " engineering challenges " for the zoo,

especially when it came to keeping such a large volume of water as cool as a

Japanese river in wintertime, but he said those challenges have been

overcome.

 

" We are optimistic about breeding them, " he said, noting that the zoo has

already had considerable success in breeding other rare amphibians like the

critically endangered Panamanian golden frog.

 

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