ZooChat Cup Group C: Columbus vs Plzen

Miscellaneous mammals

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
C

CGSwans

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I always feel for Plzen’s opponents when this happens. The topic? Miscellaneous mammals.

The rules:
  • You have three votes to award. If you think it's a tight match, award 2 votes to the stronger zoo and 1 to the weaker one. But if you think it's a wider margin than that, award all 3 votes to the winner.
  • Your criteria for how you make your decision is entirely up to you, *except* that you must stay only within the given category. That includes ignoring the results of the other match: no strategic voting.
  • All votes are public, and all votes can be changed. The purpose of the game is to provoke debate, so make your case for why people should vote the same way as you do. Be open to reconsidering your vote.

Pinging @birdsandbats , @TheGerenuk , @mweb08 , @TeaLovingDave , @HOMIN96 . Oh, and @lintworm , I believe you have some thoughts too.
 
Sorry Columbus, but you just drew the worst possible category against your opponent. I'm not saying Columbus' collection is horrible. It's good, but Plzen is way better. I'll vote 2-1 for Plzen for now. I'm still open to other's thoughts.
 
Ugh, this is the frustrating aspect of this cup. While I (very unfortunately) have not been to Columbus, it is undoubtedly the better zoo, but in this category Plzen has a clear win on the massive collection and diversity alone-- despite the sometimes rather substandard husbandry... Looks like we're going to have another upset as with Berlin v Detroit.

2-1 Plzen with a point loss for exhibitry.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Ugh, this is the frustrating aspect of this cup. While I (very unfortunately) have not been to Columbus, it is undoubtedly the better zoo, but in this category Plzen has a clear win on the massive collection and diversity alone-- despite the sometimes rather substandard husbandry... Looks like we're going to have another upset as with Berlin v Detroit.

2-1 Plzen with a point loss for exhibitry.

~Thylo
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You say it’s frustrating, I say it’s the explicit purpose of the game design. :)

I don’t think a knockout competition simply asking people what they think the ‘better’ zoo overall is would be particularly interesting. This game is designed to dig one level further down.

Edit: I will add, though, that the 3 point scale allows for more nuance. People can, as @nczoofan did a few days ago, concede the two points but make a strong argument for the third point, which with the percentage tie-breakers could make the difference between advancing or not.
 
CGSwans said:
You say it’s frustrating, I say it’s the explicit purpose of the game design. :)

I don’t think a knockout competition simply asking people what they think the ‘better’ zoo overall is would be particularly interesting. This game is designed to dig one level further down.

Edit: I will add, though, that the 3 point scale allows for more nuance. People can, as @nczoofan did a few days ago, concede the two points but make a strong argument for the third point, which with the percentage tie-breakers could make the difference between advancing or not.
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Oh I agree with you entirely, pretty much any other system would just be people yelling about which zoo they think is better for x,y,z while ignoring a,b,c for the most part. This format allows for much more nuanced discussions and debates. It is, nonetheless, frustrating still :p

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Oh I agree with you entirely, pretty much any other system would just be people yelling about which zoo they think is better for x,y,z while ignoring a,b,c for the most part. This format allows for much more nuanced discussions and debates. It is, nonetheless, frustrating still :p

~Thylo
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I offer my most insincere apologies for your discomfort. ;)
 
A list of Columbus species that qualify for this category:

Red Kangaroo
Black-tailed Prairie Dog
American Beaver
Aardvark
Large Flying Fox
Golden-mantled Flying Fox
West Indian Manatee
Matschie's Tree Kangaroo
Feathertail Glider
Koala
Tasmanian Devil
Woylie/Brush-tailed Bettong
Eastern Gray Kangaroo
Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat

Not sure if I'll vote in this one yet, but I will say that Columbus has more than a few choice species: aardvark, koala, Tasmanian devil, wombat, manatees, both bat species, and maybe the tree kangaroo are not ubiquitous by European or American standards.
 
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@CGSwans You knew this would be coming ;)

While Plzen has an immensely diverse collection that is mouthwatering when just scrolling through zootierliste, this huge collection is in my opinion also its downfall. The problem is that the zoo hardly has the space for such a huge collection and though on show quite some of the rodent and marsupial enclosures are ok there are some really bad ones out there as well (though not as bad as for primates and smaller carnivores). My biggest problem is that this zoo just randomly seems to import new species, most of which disappear after a few years because they do not breed. Some of the rodent species are bred successfully, but there are just too many where there doesn't seem to be any idea behind acquiring them, except for increasing diversity for diversity's sake, which I do not think is what a good zoo should do in the 21st century. Regardless of the potential issue of using wild caught individuals.

I know I am in the minority, but can anyone give me examples of species that Plzen has brought in to Europe, successfully started breeding them and is now distributing across Europe. To my mind come Cactus mouse, Hispid cotton rat and Palawan porcupine. But against that stand so many failed imports that were doomed from the start as often onl 1.1 animals were acquired....
 
Coelacanth18 said:
A list of Columbus species that qualify for this category:

Red Kangaroo
Matschie's Tree Kangaroo
Feathertail Glider
Koala
Tasmanian Devil
Woylie/Brush-tailed Bettong
Eastern Gray Kangaroo
Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat

.
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Allowing for the absence of echidnas, this is a line up of Australian mammals that wouldn’t look far out of place at some Australian zoos. It’s very comparable to Melbourne, for instance.

lintworm said:
@CGSwans You knew this would be coming ;)
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I did, yes. :D
 
Some interesting comparisons on species:

Neither zoo has even one species of anteater or sloth, which is quite unusual. Plzen does have xenarthrans in the form of two armadillo species.

Non-placentals are a mostly easy win for Columbus I think. Plzen has echidnas and ground cuscus, while Columbus has koala, Tasmanian devil, and tree kangaroo.

Columbus has aardvark, and Plzen has hyrax.

Plzen has several species of fruit bats: straw-colored, Egyptian, Rodrigues, false spear-nosed, Seba's, Gambian epauletted, southern long-nosed, Pallas's long-tongued... maybe one or two others. And Columbus's bat exhibit is (IMO) quite ugly and doesn't seem that functional.

I don't think a rodent comparison is all that necessary...

@CGSwans do elephants count in this category or in hoofstock? Because Columbus also has elephants.
 
Oh boy...does anyone know what is the word limit on Zoochat? So I know with how much space can I work cause this one is going to be big... I'm already trying to sort my thoughts since I saw this thread in the morning, but you know, there are still so many cages to clean, so many animals to feed...so I'm going to post it in the late afternoon/evening. There are already some very good posts and hopefully, my experince will send this to a whole new level so we can maybe even top the Berlin-Detroit discussion. :)
 
Coelacanth18 said:
aardvark, koala, Tasmanian devil, wombat, manatees, both bat species, and maybe the tree kangaroo are not ubiquitous by European or American standards.
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Aardvark are pretty common over here, actually - according to ZTL a total of 25 collections hold them.

On another note, this is the total list of non-placental mammals at Plzen:

New Guinea Shortbeaked Echidna
Mainland Western grey kangaroo
Brushtail possum
Dusky pademelon
Eastern grey kangaroo
Long-nosed potoroo
Narrow-toed Feather-tailed Glider
New Guinea ground cuscus
Parma wallaby
Red kangaroo
Sugar glider
Swamp wallaby
Tasmanian red-necked wallaby
Western Brush-tailed bettong

So nowhere near as one-sided against Plzen as you claim - and this is a list minus several species lost in the last year or so :p
 
@CGSwans Thank you for the great format!
Since the previous maches created very interesting and challenging debate, I feel obliged to explain my vote here.
I have visited only 9 of the European contestants (Berlins, Antwerp, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Pairi Daiza, Prague and Beauval) and probably have Eurocentric opinion. Nevertheless very much appreciated the reviews of North Carolina and Detroit, which opened my eyes for North America's zoos beyond Bronx and San Diego. And I am looking forward to the next ones.

When it comes to the current debate my vote is 2-1 for Plzen, because of the enormous diversity of small mammals in it's collection. Obviously from the comments, Columbus has better husbandry and some extraordinary marsupials, but I will stay behind Plzens's passion for rodents, for now .
 
TeaLovingDave said:
A few errors and omissions in that list, including a number of omitted marsupial species for Plzen and at least one bat no longer kept. Also worth noting Plzen have bred their echidnas!
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I missed sugar glider and long-nosed potoroo somehow, but I purposely skipped kangaroos and wallabies because, while some species are rare, in general those animals are ubiquitous... and also I was tired :p

Which bat species is no longer there?
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Aardvark are pretty common over here, actually - according to ZTL a total of 25 collections hold them.
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I guess 25 is a lot, although compared to the number of European zoos as a whole it's still a pretty small number. They aren't hard to find in the US, but I've probably only seen them at a handful of zoos. In any case, it's a taxonomically unique and fascinating species.

TeaLovingDave said:
On another note, this is the total list of non-placental mammals at Plzen:

New Guinea Shortbeaked Echidna
Mainland Western grey kangaroo
Brushtail possum
Dusky pademelon
Eastern grey kangaroo
Long-nosed potoroo
Narrow-toed Feather-tailed Glider
New Guinea ground cuscus
Parma wallaby
Red kangaroo
Sugar glider
Swamp wallaby
Tasmanian red-necked wallaby
Western Brush-tailed bettong

So nowhere near as one-sided against Plzen as you claim - and this is a list minus several species lost in the last year or so :p
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That's a solid list of marsupials, but here we would get into the argument of "weight" (which admittedly I didn't talk about in that post). In a simple species count match-up they might be about equal, but would most of us (or most visitors) prefer seeing brushtail possums to koalas, or potoroo to wombats? Of course it's subjective, but I think it's also a consideration relating to collecting for collection's sake (an ideology being ascribed to Plzen) versus choosing a number of popular animals from a wide range of taxonomy.
 
Personally I'd rather see possums and pademelons over Koalas and Wombats ;) The pademelons in particular are just super cool. Pretty sure Plzen have had a lot of breeding success with them, too. I believe the UK population all comes from Plzen-bred animals.

EDIT: The pademelon is also more endangered than the possum, Koala, and wombat so surely that counts for something.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Personally I'd rather see possums and pademelons over Koalas and Wombats ;) The pademelons in particular are just super cool. Pretty sure Plzen have had a lot of breeding success with them, too. I believe the UK population all comes from Plzen-bred animals.

EDIT: The pademelon is also more endangered than the possum, Koala, and wombat so surely that counts for something.
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I feel similarly about seeing koalas as I do about pandas, so I'll just say that my interest in wombats is higher than for any others mentioned in our posts.

Also, not to split hairs but I said...

Coelacanth18 said:
potoroo
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Not pademelon ;)
 
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