Every attempt to keep a platypus in a zoo seems to have failed with rare exception. My question is why? They don’t seem like they need anything special that another animal wouldn’t need.
The Sidney aquarium has some. I didn’t realize there was anything hard about keeping them.
I’m looking into it, but I haven’t found a clear answer yet. Most platypuses die within one year of captivity (~80%), and most of those within the first month. The animals did not appear to have any illness.
There has been some limited success with a program in Australia that builds an enclosure that includes a stream. The’ve had playtypus breed and give birth. Some of those individuals have now given birth as well.
Generally, however, it looks like they don’t do well in captivity and Australia no longer permits them to leave the country to go to other zoos.
To be honest, I suspect the main issue is that, outside of Australia, very few places have tried for decades, mostly pre-1960s. Back then, maintaining any sensitive animal with a tricky diet was a crapshoot at best, and simply transporting an animal that requires something crazy like 20% of its bodyweight in live food per day was a logistical nightmare, and they probably rarely arrived in very good condition. The average time they’re surviving in captivity is steadily increasing, now people aren’t doing daft stuff like sending Churchill one during WWII. It’s tricky to find recent data, but it looks like in recent years, captive individuals have a similar life expectancy to wild ones, which is pretty good as the reason many now wind up in captivity is due to injury or other problem.
I also suspect the main reason Australia isn’t letting them out isn’t because no-one else could maintain 'em, it’s because they’d rather people came to Australia to see them and pay a lot more in tourist $. They’re pretty reluctant to allow any native wildlife out now, it’s a big (and often hugely expensive) deal for a zoo to be allowed anything like koalas, Tassie devils or the like.
Another factor would be that it’s very difficult to breed platypuses in captivity. I took a tour of a platypus enclosure set up for breeding at Warrawong Sanctuary in SA once, and the setup was quite intricate - invloving separate pools for males and females, and just the right amount of connection so that they can actually mate, then retreat back to their favoured environments. The wildlife sanctuary over here, at Healesville, spent a big bunch of money on getting their platypus environment just right too. Platypuses only live about 15 years, so if you can’t breed them, you’d have to keep requesting them from Australia … possibly after spending a big bunch of money designing an environment that’s just right for them
Another factor is that zoos are more careful and more thoughtful about accepting animals now. They try to work together to get the best outcomes, and that means speciallizing with different animals and different areas.
Last I knew, there was one (1) African elephent in Aus, when that one dies / died, it was not going to be replaced. Aus has Indian elephants, which are smaller and less impressive, and has an Indian Elephant program. African elephants cary a disease which is fatal to Indian elephants. Zoos in other parts of the world work with African elephants: zoos in Aus work with Indian elephants. Do paltypodes carry diseases which might be fatal to other populations? Animals carry all kinds of unexpected and undocumented diseases. Zoos understand this kind of thing, and sample animal populations are handled more carefully now.