Species you hate to see in zoos

I agree totally with Thylo. A child coming to the zoo is hardly going to be disappointed just because a zoo doesn't have farm animals. I must admit, Bronx really manages to slip a fair number of endangered and exotic animals in there with the goats, so they're essentially growing the caring conservationist of tomorrow.

My complaint is not necessarily with zoo farms; for the little petting zoo down the road, fine and dandy. But with other ways for kids to experience pretty pedestrian animals, our larger zoos with breeding expertise and research programs should be devoting their space to animals we can't see anywhere else, or one day those animals won't be around to see any more.
 
TinoPup said:
For all of you hating domestics/farms, spend some time hanging out in one. It is one of the highlights for nearly every kid that visits a zoo, and gives them an opportunity to interact with animals that they wouldn't otherwise see, especially in city zoos. To them, a goat or a domestic camel is as foreign as a koala or sea otter. Farm areas also promote healthy interactions with animals in general, ways to help the environment, and other important education opportunities that kids are more likely to remember because they're interactive. Kids also friggin LOVE meerkats.These animals are not taking up space that could be used for endangered species, because the zoos likely wouldn't be able to afford those species at all without the funds brought in.
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Huge zoos with enormous collections can easily 'manage' without popular species as the whole is more important than any of its parts. Smaller zoos dont have that luxury and to a degree all species have to earn their place. We all know how impatient modern visitors are and how short their attention spans, and the oft repeated complaints that enclosures are 'empty' and there 'are no animals', when actually the problem is that the viewer has just not bothered to look.

I can assure you that (in one case at least) without the white tigers, camels, birds of prey, pygmy goats, meerkats and donkeys, play area and train; there would simply be no wombats, or quolls, or possums, or grison...
 
TinoPup said:
For all of you hating domestics/farms, spend some time hanging out in one. It is one of the highlights for nearly every kid that visits a zoo, and gives them an opportunity to interact with animals that they wouldn't otherwise see, especially in city zoos. To them, a goat or a domestic camel is as foreign as a koala or sea otter.
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I don't have a problem with domestics as such. I'm always pleased to zoos contributing to breeding programmes for genuinely endangered rare breeds (as ZSL did with the Norfolk Horn Sheep and as Hamerton does with a variety of rare Donkey breeds). What gets my - ha ha - goat is domesticated relatives of endangered taxa (usually Bactrian Camels) being exhibited as though they were the genuine article.
 
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One of my problems is the use of the same species to represent a larger group of animals.
Otter = Asiatic small-clawed otter
Marsupial = Red-necked wallaby
Mongoose = Meerkat
Lemur = Ring-tailed lemur
Cat = Lions and tigers

I understand that some animals are more popular than animals, but how many visitors want to see the same species in several exhibits on a zoo visit, especially when other species are kept behind the scenes?
 
birdsandbats said:
I don't like it when Ankhole Cattle are exhibited in an African savanna, but that is basically my only complaint about any type of zoo animal.
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To some extent it depends on the zoo. I don't want to see, say, Fallow Deer at large wealthy zoos which could be making better use of resources but I have no problem with seeing them in privately owned collections, so I'd rather they weren't in the Passage to Asia paddock at Whipsnade but I'm fine with the ones at the British Wildlife Centre.
 
This may be a bit beside the topic, but so many carousels and pay play areas like ziplines are popping up, and I'm curious how you all feel about those. I'm very much a student of old carousels, i.e. Mangels-Ilion 120+ years ago, so I am not displeased and do see children interacting with anthropomorphized versions of exotics to entice them toward conservation later, but they are ultimately just cash cows that take up space. I'm not at all in favor of the ziplines, etc, but I'm on the fence with these now near-universal carousels.
 
Andrew Swales said:
Huge zoos with enormous collections can easily 'manage' without popular species as the whole is more important than any of its parts. Smaller zoos dont have that luxury and to a degree all species have to earn their place. We all know how impatient modern visitors are and how short their attention spans, and the oft repeated complaints that enclosures are 'empty' and there 'are no animals', when actually the problem is that the viewer has just not bothered to look.

I can assure you that (in one case at least) without the white tigers, camels, birds of prey, pygmy goats, meerkats and donkeys, play area and train; there would simply be no wombats, or quolls, or possums, or grison...
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Very good case made there, from someone who knows what he's talking about. Looks like those domestics pay their way!
 
I'm going to mount a defense of pygmy goats.
One of the primary justifications of zoos is for education and a portal to bring an appreciation
of nature to urban and suburban peoples. And that "hook" almost invariably starts at an early age.
I would doubt more than a handful of us zoo nerds did not cultivate a love of zoos from an early age. And that hook started for most of us at the children's zoo/farm etc and pygmy goats are
a bedrock of that. What endangered species is going to replace hardy pygmy goats to be chased and harassed and cuddled and marveled at with the physical contact of the lowly pygmy goat?
In fact I will go as far to say the pygmy goat over the last 60 years has been the most important
critter at the zoo. Gentlemen (and ladies) who is wit me????????????:eek:
 
AmbikaFan said:
This may be a bit beside the topic, but so many carousels and pay play areas like ziplines are popping up, and I'm curious how you all feel about those. I'm very much a student of old carousels, i.e. Mangels-Ilion 120+ years ago, so I am not displeased and do see children interacting with anthropomorphized versions of exotics to entice them toward conservation later, but they are ultimately just cash cows that take up space. I'm not at all in favor of the ziplines, etc, but I'm on the fence with these now near-universal carousels.
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I think many zoos rely on them to survive nowadays unfortunately. It's always a shame when animal spaces are converted into playgrounds, 4-D theaters, robosaur safari, or other similar attractions, but I think they are often a necessary evil. Some zoos definitely go overboard with them, however. I'm very lucky in that Bronx uses currently unused exhibit space for their robosaur safari and built their zipline course in a section of the zoo that could never be used for exhibiting animals anyhow.

~Thylo
 
Yes, kids like the reptiles, cats, etc., too. But spend some time really listening to them and seeing their behavior. One example: When I was at Virginia Zoo, there were a bunch of field trips there, along with many young kids with parents (it's a program they do). The oldest kids I saw were middle schoolers. I took frequent breaks to wait for crowds to move along so spent a lot of time observing the humans. I lost track of the number of kids who said the meerkats were their favorite, and while I was watching them kids kept running up, skipping right past the lions; one dad joked that they come all the time just to see the meerkats. A big group "wow"ed at the tiger, and then after a beat someone asked if they could go back to pet the cows again, with several agreeing with that idea. A couple of boys really liked the cassowarys, but each one got told by their chaperone to come watch the bears next door instead. In the reptile house, the kids who were genuinely interested in the animals seemed particularly fascinated by the frog eggs (like I was!)

We as adults tend to assume kids will be most interested in XYZ, but if you pay attention to the kids, that rarely seems to be the case.
 
wally war eagle said:
loose geese and peacocks **** all over sidewalks.
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I have to laugh at this, because there can be a lot of it, and it can be very large. I teach at a college on the shore, and the campus features seagulls large enough to look like they could eat a small child. They're amazing. Well the school also has a feral cat population that seems to grow exponentially, and for years, I really objected to these large green poops everywhere, poops as large as those made by the 15-20-pound dogs I bred. It didn't take my then-young daughter that long. She couldn't have been more than 6 and said to me, exasperatedly, "Mommy, those poops are green, from an herbivore. Those are Seagull poops.". She rolled her eyes and raced ahead, dodging the huge green piles on her way.
 
I don't like seeing animals that aren't very hot tolerant in a mostly hot climate. The Jacksonville Zoo has Amur Leopards and in my opinion they should switch them out with Africans because the poor things are always panting and trying to stay cool in the heat.
 
zooman64 said:
cetaceans of any kind (what is basically a large swimming pool can never be a replication of the North Atlantic)
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As it has been stated numerous times on ZC: not all of the 90-odd cetacean species have the same husbandry requirements, and not all of them live in the North Atlantic. I'm well aware that keeping cetacea is quite an emotional topic for many people, but sweeping generalisations all too often miss the mark here.
As for the necessity of farm animals in zoos: I tend to agree with Youssarian. One shouldn't forget that the ongoing global urbanisation often goes along with a growing alienation of urban children from agriculture and farm animals (or animals in general). Since most zoos are located in or close to metropolitan areas, their petting farms are often the first (and sometimes only) access of city slicker kids to farm animals. And to be allowed to get close, feed and touch some of them (unlike the aforementioned big cats, bears, otters, elephants, rhinos, monkeys, etc.) makes them a very popular attraction for families with young children, who form the majority of zoo visitors.
However, one shouldn't forget to mention the negative aspects as well. And I do not mean the "They takin' away our space" aspect frequently mentioned before.
All too often, the "farm/barn" exhibits in most western zoos are generic, boring and unoriginal, portray modern agriculture in a very idealistic way far from today's reality and fail to raise public awareness in a proper way. The husbandry requirements of farm animals frequently rank behind visitor expectations and other, "more valuable" animals; after all, they are "just" domestic animals. Just think of all the cattle, donkeys or ponies in their small barren zoo enclosures or the rabbits in outdated wooden rabbit boxes that you've quickly walked past on your way to the latest great ape or elephant exhibit. Thankfully, at least some European zoos have started to improve their situation, but it's still an exception from the rule. Modern zoos should be public role models for modern husbandry standards. In the case of domestic / farm animals, they all too often fail to live up to that, as various dedicated private keepers never tire to point out.
Then there's the aspect of public health, hygiene and animal welfare. As for the latter: for every kept dolphin, there are hundreds if not thousands of petting zoo animals that have been molested, injured, mutilated and killed, often due to feeding them illegally. Dying of gastrointestinal bloating or foreign body obstipation is a horrible way to go.
So should zoos get rid of all farm and domestic animals and leave them to special petting zoos, teaching farms and visitor / model farmsteads? I somehow doubt that despite the aforementioned aspects, any zoo director in his / her right mind would do so and thus eliminate one the respective zoo's most popular attractions.
 
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zooman64 said:
Bactrian camels (always the domestic species). Zoos often mislead the public by saying Bactrian camels are highly endangered, but fail to make any distinction between the domestic and the endangered wild camel. I would love to see wild Bactrian camels making an appearance in our zoos, as there is a conservation imperative there.
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Since no wild camels are currently kept in any zoo worldwide and there's no contemporary Carl Hagenbeck able and willing to obtain wild specimens for an ex-situ breeding program, what else should they exhibit? And most zoos I know clearly state that the wild camel is endangered, not its domestic form.

lowland anoa said:
Maybe not featured in zoos, but I absolutely hate reptile morphs.
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With a few exceptions (like white American alligators), most western zoos have started to steer away from deliberately obtaining reptile "designer" morphs. The ones you see nowadays (like amelanistic burmese pythons) are often former pets that somehow ended up in the zoo.

AmbikaFan said:
This may be a bit beside the topic, but so many carousels and pay play areas like ziplines are popping up, and I'm curious how you all feel about those.
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Similar to how I feel about the poor highly brachycephalic pug you have as an avatar - they shouldn't exist in the first place. However, I do understand that they appeal to some people, and maybe I can do my part to change the public perception of them to make them obsolete (the senseless attractions and brachycephalic pugs, not their fans).
 
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There are no species I hate or dislike to see in zoos, of course I have my own preferences like everybody, but if a zoo have areas that are not interesing for me (like farms), I simply don´t stop there. Also, an animal can be more or less interesting depending on how the zoo present each species.

About the debate about farms / domestic animals, I think are valuable as "money makers", and maybe even as "food makers" if they use the animals raised there for feed carnivores at the zoo. For us, as zoo nerds, are usually boring places, but families with children loves them, and they are a big part of zoo visitors. I don´t think those enclosures takes so much space either.

I find more controversial the keeping of aberrant animals, like white tigers. I´d prefer that, if a zoo have a tiger enclosure, to use it for one of the endangered subespecies, but again, I wouldn´t judge without know the situation of the zoo, since those animals are also important to attrack visitors, and maybe the benefit they bring compensate the money and work inverted on them.
 
Merintia said:
I find more controversial the keeping of aberrant animals, like white tigers. I´d prefer that, if a zoo have a tiger enclosure, to use it for one of the endangered subespecies, but again, I wouldn´t judge without know the situation of the zoo, since those animals are also important to attrack visitors, and maybe the benefit they bring compensate the money and work inverted on them.
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If many zoos keep endangered subspecies of animals, whether they be tigers or Asiatic small-clawed otters, which are not part of a reintroduction programme, the 'conservation value' is somewhat limited. Some visitors pay more money to see white tigers, rather than Sumatran tigers. Surely this is a similar argument to zoos keeping domestic animals and meerkats and 'enables zoos to keep XYZ' species for zoo nerds.'
 
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