Healesville Sanctuary & Taronga Zoo diets

[Rhianna]

Well then, good luck to both you and your gliders.

[Marie]

Anyone that knows about gliders knows what 'he' says is inaccurate, lets hope mat_worrell does some more research for his gliders sake!!  

Lets face it, it's not like we slag off anyone and anything is it?  People just don't like 'him'.  When M was on about fathers and siblings not breeding with their offspring the customer was actually in the shop (I saw Stu and got it from the horses mouth!), this customer told M that he saw dad mating with his daughter but M wouldn't have any of it!  The customer tried to argue but M wouldn't listen, just shouted him down! Maybe gliders are the only animals on the planet (other than humans) that won't breed with offspring, unless anyone can think of any others? 

[roxyandboys]

think you'll find humans are more than capable of breeding with their offsprings also, it's just not the 'done thing'

I think the majority of animals would avoid inbreeding given the choice, but captive animals are not really given that choice, so it's a case of get it where they can, their instinct to reproduce far outweighs their instinct to mix up the gene pool

[Marie]

I never said humans weren't capable Rox, I said they won't - should have clarified maybe.

 

[munshkin]

Hi All,

As far as I am aware lots of wild animals will breed with their own offspring, it’s usually not a problem and can often benefit that species as only the “Best” sires breed so therefore have great quality genes which are strengthened by mating with a close relative.

This is not the case with captive animals, people can inbreed to create colour changes or change in shape or size of gliders etc, but this can result in poor quality animals.
Pets are given special care if poorly which is as it should be but this may be because of faulty genes so we have the responsibility of in most cases outbreed and avoiding inbreeding unless we have a fantastic animal and even then we have to be very very carful and knowledgeable about what we are doing.