• FREE ARTICLE ACCESS

Journal Home Page on Wiley InterScience

This special issue (Zoo Biology, Vol. 21(2), 2002) grew from the proceedings of the International Duiker Workshop held at the St. Catherines Wildlife Survival Center, Georgia, in March 2002. Hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Society and sponsored by the St. Catherine's Island Foundation, the workshop brought together duiker experts from all over the world to discuss the health, husbandry, and nutrition of captive duikers. The captive propagation of duikers is a timely concern given the accelerating bushmeat trade and habitat destruction within the range of most duiker species. However, the captive management of duikers presents a host of challenges to zoological institutions because of the diversity of behavior, physiology, and dietary requirements among the various species.

By bringing together duiker experts from all three branches of zoological management, the goals of this workshop were to identify problems in the current captive management of duikers, to develop specific plans for addressing these problems, and to forward a list of research priorities to the Antelope Taxon Advisory Group. In order to meet these goals, participants developed ideas in specialized working groups and then came together as a whole to integrate input from across the range of zoological expertise. The need for prompt action was a recurrent theme throughout the proceedings. In many zoological institutions duikers are in trouble, and a lack of quantitative data and published studies is compromising the husbandry, nutrition, and health of these often overlooked species. Thus, the results of the International Duiker Workshop should have a significant impact on duiker propagation for years to come.

These articles are provided free online by Wiley-Liss, Inc., the publishers of Zoo Biology as a service to the zoological community.