On Tuesday, 27 May, aquarists at Burgers' Ocean publicly introduced a rare cartilaginous fish into the Arnhem coral reef aquarium. The bowmouth guitarfish is critically endangered in the wild: this young male was bred at the Okinawa aquarium (Japan) and travelled to Arnhem via the Valencia aquarium (Spain). Burgers' Zoo participates in an international breeding programme and plans to breed with this ray species in the near future.
Burgers' Zoo has been the largest breeder of spotted eagle rays in the world for many years and has made great strides with the breeding of grey and blue-spotted stingrays and blackchin guitarfish. Burgers' Zoo is a key contributor to international breeding programmes for these four ray species. The Arnhem zoo is keen to put its knowledge and expertise to use in an international breeding programme for the bowmouth guitarfish, which is classified as critically endangered by IUCN.
As part of the international cooperation, several juvenile bowmouth guitarfish—bred at the Okinawa aquarium—were transported to Valencia a few weeks ago. One of these young animals continued on to Arnhem. During a quarantine period that lasted several weeks, the bowmouth guitarfish received special training to recognise a sound signal as a trigger to swim to the feeding area. The time has now come to introduce the animal to the public in the aquarium. Meanwhile, the search for a potential future partner for the young male is still ongoing.
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