Building up of keeping facilities and breeding projects for frogs, newts and lizards at the Me Linh Station for Biodiversity in northern Vietnam, including improvement of housing conditions for confiscated reptiles and primates

The Me Linh Station for Biodiversity in northern Vietnam, which borders Tam Dao National Park, was established in 1999 by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology for the purpose of rescuing, keeping, studying and breeding Vietnamese plant and wildlife species in an in-country ex situ facility. The Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, which runs the station, has pleased the Cologne Zoo to improve existing facilities at the Me Linh Station and to develop new ones, in particular for amphibians and reptiles, for the keeping and breeding of confiscated, endangered and selected rare or poorly known species from Vietnam for studying husbandry parameters and natural history, to build up captive assurance populations for potential future release or restocking programs, and to improve services for environmental and conservation education for visitors, school children and students. This report summarizes our joint efforts at the Me Linh Station for Biodiversity from 2012 until today. Focus is laid on the construction of indoor and outdoor amphibian facilities, but we also report about the development and buildup of crocodile lizard, monitor lizard, python and turtle enclosures, as well as of primate facilities. We also built up offspring enclosures for amphibians and reptiles, a feeder animal breeding, and created a quarantine section. Preliminary recommendations for a veterinary management are provided. Furthermore we document our joint approaches in improving the station management, developing research programmes, and report about first public awareness measures. With this article we also aim to show how facilities, breeding programs and husbandry systems can be improved and built up in a tropical country within the framework of an international cooperation.