Chester Zoo, UK

Our con­tact with Chest Zooe goes back to 2014, when The Parosphromenus Project was con­tacted by the Aquar­ium Team man­age­ment, because they had become aware of our work in con­nec­tion with their at the time, planned, now fully oper­at­ing, — Island Project. In this project Chester Zoo are focus­ing on five dif­fer­ent island in South East Asia, their habi­tat and ani­mals. Chester Zoo is known world­wide for their exten­sive and good work with con­ser­va­tion pro­grammes, and in this project with South East Asia, they had found the tiny lit­tle fish species, liv­ing in the same area.

This has led to now a num­ber of years of coop­er­a­tion, and we are at the Parosphromenus Project very happy and proud about this. We have reg­u­lar con­tact with the Aquar­ium Team now.

• Chester Zoo had for some years a big dis­play tank, with more than 100 P. linkei. Unfor­tu­nately this tank was destroyed in the big fire which hit Chester Zoo in 2018.
• Chester Zoo breed sev­eral species, among these P. linkei and P. paludicola
• Chester Zoo con­tributes to our Census
• The Parosphromenus Project and Chester Zoo are work­ing together on cre­at­ing «Hus­bandry guide­lines» for the parosphromenus species for EAZA (Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Zoos and Aquaria), — this will be an impor­tant tool for Zoo’s in Europe, if keep­ing paros, — a man­ual in which as much as pos­si­ble should be described of the opti­mal guide­lines for keep­ing paros.
• In 2018 The Parosphromenus Project held our 3. Inter­na­tional meet­ing in Chester Zoo
• The PP is in par­tic­u­larly help­ing Chester Zoo to mon­i­tor the devel­op­ment of the two threa­thened (IUCN Crit­i­cally endan­gered species) P. alfredi and P. tweed­iei through the Core Con­ser­va­tion Programme.
• We are along the way talk­ing to Chester Zoo about what pos­si­bilies there are for sup­port­ing con­se­va­tion work — ex-​situ or per­haps even in-​situ.