YOUR 2016

kiang

kiang

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
3 LITTLE QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ON YOUR 2016

1. PERSONAL ZOO VISIT HIGHLIGHT

2. FAVOURITE PIECE OF ZOO NEWS

3. BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

To which I will answer;

1. Meeting up with @TeaLovingDave & @ThylacineAlive for a totally enjoyable day at HWP

2. The return of Siberian musk deer to Edinburgh zoo, hopefully a new dawn (we will see),
honourable mentions for the multiple aye aye births in the UK, 2 okapi calves born at Wild place,
Douc langurs import by Chleby and the return of North island brown kiwi to the UK.


3. The death of the last Nilgiri langur at Erfurt, all the negativity coming out of Belfast city council.

Over to you.............
 
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1. Having the Brookfield zoo pretty much all to my self and full of active animals. The Amur leopard cub was pouncing all over the place, All the pachyderms where romping around in there indoor stalls, and I had the entire tropic world building to my self (There where 3 other people in South America but thats it)

2. Learning Brookfield zoo has received white bellied tree pangolins:). Which was great to hear after San Diegos passing away.

3. Learning the passing of the much beloved Cookie the cockatoo. To make it worse I was at the zoo the day he passed away:(:(:(.
 
1. This is a tough one, as there are many very enjoyable moments from my UK trip! After much thought, I think I'll have to narrow it down to a tie between visiting the amazing Chester Zoo for the first time while in the company of zoogiraffe, bongorob, nisha, GentleLemur, and a few others, and my second visit to London Zoo where I managed to convince a very nice keeper to take me bts to see their pair of Panay Cloud Rats.

2. Probably the continuous string of pangolin news.

3. Visiting Edinburgh Zoo to find that the Bawean Deer pair (along with a good number of other species and even parts of the zoo) were gone and most likely pts.

~Thylo
 
1. Visiting Paignton Zoo, the 2016 mammal walk and talk at Chester Zoo & meeting zoogiraffe and bongorob. Also doing the UK ZooChat challenge which has taken me to new place like Crocodiles of the World today.

2. Finding out about the pregnancy of the Bornean Orangutan female, Sarikei on Secret Life of the Zoo

3. On the day before my visit, Harry the silverback Gorilla at Dublin Zoo passed away and I spent some of the day looking for him. I found out in my hotel on Facebook that he had died, but I did visit the zoo again the day after and spoke to the ape keepers about Harry and the other apes of Dublin.
 
1. In the middle of the summer I had a fantastic 2 week program at the Bronx Zoo- Keeper work, learning, visiting some behind the scenes, etc.. ;)

2. As thylo said, the pangolins

3. Getting confirmation from keepers in said summer program of the eventual disappearance of Asian Elephants
 
So I'm pretty sure that most of us can agree that the pangolins where the best news of this year. :D:D:D(At least for America)
 
pachyderm pro said:
So I'm pretty sure that most of us can agree that the pangolins where the best news of this year. :D:D:D(At least for America)
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I wouldn't count on that!

1. A private tour of the San Antonio Zoo with the bird curator. I saw incubation rooms, behind the scenes holdings, and nearly got pecked by both a whooping crane and a Guam kingfisher (whose aviaries I got to go in!). I also saw a Malay peacock-pheasant (the only one in the AZA at the time of my visit) and my first painted stork.

2. The first successful hatching of an Indian gharial outside of their native range (Saint Augustine). Pangolins are a close second, but they've been in the US for a while at the Pangolin Conservation center. A third (if I am permitted to post three :p) is the arrival of Lord Howe Island stick insects in a few zoos (Toronto, San Diego, and Bristol?).

3. The extinction of Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog. Not only is the extinction devastating, but I was planning to email Atlanta Botanical Gardens and see if I could get clearance to go behind the scenes and see the individual!
 
@jayjds2 I can personal confirm for you that Bristol does have Lord Howe Stick Insects! :D

Oh man the treefrog is more devastating than the deer. I had always wanted to go and see him, too. Not to mention I had talked about the species before he died in a paper on cloning for my bio class and then by the time I presented it he was gone...

~Thylo
 
1. Seeing Kiangs at Knowsley S.P. and/or Bukhara and White-lipped Deer at HWP (or my visit to the latter overall).

2. Successful fostering of baby Gorilla 'Afia' to adult female 'Romina' at Bristol Zoo (afaik the first of its kind in Europe) or the second of two recent Okapi births at Wild Place, or the recent Golden-bellied Mangabey birth at AfricaAlive- the first for UK?

3. Continued failure to see Spanish Wolves at Howletts- I shall look elsewhere next year.
 
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@ThylacineAlive thanks for the confirmation on Bristol. I'd read it on some article but but it off because I knew there wasn't a chance of me visiting the U.K. soon.

I hadn't heard about the deer, so thanks for posting that. I'd be been holding off on the hope that I may eventually have gotten to Edinburgh to see them... it seems that my last hope is the Nowe Zoo in Poland (if ZTL is correct), or to visit Asia.
 
jayjds2 said:
I hadn't heard about the deer, so thanks for posting that. I'd be been holding off on the hope that I may eventually have gotten to Edinburgh to see them... it seems that my last hope is the Nowe Zoo in Poland (if ZTL is correct), or to visit Asia.
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I'd rather visit Nowe Zoo than Edinburgh if I were you;)

~Thylo
 
1) unfortunately I've not visited any collections this year which is upsetting, but I plan on changing this next year.

2)Practically any news that came out of Chester this year was brilliant, World and UK first births, New species like Aye Aye on show and of course my personal favourite, the birth of the newest Asian elephant in the Hi-Way family.

3) For me it's the death of one of Chester's zebra calves. To have two in one year was special for the zoo and breeding programs, but to loose one, and a female at that, was a blow to the collection and it made me somewhat sad.
 
Upon pleasant reflection…

1) Zurich: I visited lots of favourites in 2016, but this really is an outstanding zoo. Honourable mentions to Belfast, whose staff made it a highlight, and AquaDom Berlin, because I can now say I've walked up a flight of stairs inside an elevator. Bizarre.

2) Epidemiological Investigations of North American Zoo Elephant Welfare: These papers were a major milestone not just for elephant husbandry but for zoos generally, I think. The work also positively influenced my opinion of Zurich's exhibit, which contributed to 1).

3) Death of San Diego's Pangolin: Because sometimes it pays to be contrary, this scuppered a major 2017 goal to join @Vision's Three Pangolin Club. It wasn't great news for the pangolin, either. Biggest disappointment visit-wise was discovering Colchester's lockers were out-of-service. Lugging a 70-litre rucksack through the Essex hordes to the tune of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' is not my idea of a good time.

On the topic of 2016's zoo-related highlights, I suppose I should also mention joining ZooChat. You guys realize you owe $1 million to the Chinese now, right?
 
1.As you guys know, I went to Tokyo.And choosing from that four zoo/aquarium is tough.I will probably say Tama zoo though,which was one of the best zoo in asia in term of quality.
2.First tasmanian devil in Asia.Really exciting news.
3.For me,its the oldest giant panda,Jia Jia ,that leaves in HK Ocean Park.
 
1. Honestly, I don't even know where to start (or stop!) for this one. Meeting @devilfish unexpectedly in Jurong, going on a journey to most of Europe's best zoos with @GerbenElzinga and @KevinVar , revisiting all of Singapore's zoos, visiting the behind-the-scenes area in Plzen, seeing marsh mongoose at ZieZoo, unexpectedly seeing highlights like Maleo and Sunda clouded leopard, creating my own 3 pangolin club... :)It'll be hard to have such a wonderful zoo year again next year!

2. The fact that Planckendael, one of my home zoos, will be getting Tasmanian devils soon really excites me. Also very exciting to learn about the increasing trend of pangolins (everyone rightfully mentions US, but Europe's population has also doubled since this year!), of course.

3. The death of Victoria, one of Antwerp's 2 remaining eastern gorillas.
 
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