ZooChat Cup Biomes Practice Round: San Diego vs Berlin

[CGSwans]

Practice round? Biomes? Eliminated zoos? What is this? See here: ZooChat Cup - rebooted

The topic is... savannah.

This thread doesn't count towards any qualification and is intended to help with grasping the new format for our final group stage. It's also a nice chance to return to two zoos that we lost all too soon from the game. Have fun!

edit: You know what? Both cities have two eliminated zoos. While we're playing a little loose with the rules, let's make this one 'San Diego' vs 'Berlin'. Both San Diegos and both Berlins count this time.

 

[CGSwans]

Further point of clarification. I may change the name of this category to 'grasslands' as it shouldn't be interpreted as referring only to African savannahs.

 

[amur leopard]

Species lists - again, there are ones I am not sure about, but this is going to be one massive list.

Team San Diego:

• South American coati
• Slender tailed meerkat
• Cape porcupine
• Common warthog
• Cavendish's dik-dik
• Four-toed hedgehog
• Lesser hedgehog tenrec
• Black footed cat
• Kenya impala
• Grant's gazelle
• Uganda kob
• Bontebok
• Eastern giant eland
• Sudan red fronted gaelle
• Southern gerenuk
• Southern steenbok
• Red-flanked duiker
• South-African bat-eared fox
• South African cheetah
• East African sitatunga
• Southern white rhinoceros
• Gemsbok
• Grevy's zebra
• Reticulated giraffe
• Sable antelope
• South African springbok
• Thomson's gazelle
• Nile lechwe
• Soemmering's gazelle
• Greater kudu
• Red-fronted gazelle
• Rothschild's giraffe
• Blesbok
• DeFassa waterbuck
• Red lechwe
• Cape buffalo
• Roan antelope
• Ellipsen waterbuck
• Fringe-eared oryx
• African lion
• African elephant
• Western gray kangaroo
• Red necked wallaby
• Przewalski's horse
• Javan banteng
• Greater one-horned rhinoceros
• Blackbuck
• Nilgai
• Indian gaur
• Bactrian wapiti
• Eld's deer
• Barasingha deer
• Mandarin sika deer
• Bactrian camel
• Hippopotamus
• Lesser kudu
• Speke's gazelle
• Eastern yellow-backed duiker
• Chacoan peccary
• Giant anteater
• Patagonian mara
• Cougar
• Maned wolf
• Siberian reindeer
• Kirk's dik-dik
• Jaguar
• Guanaco
• Rock hyrax
• Bush hyrax
• Serval
• Dwarf mongoose
• Vervet monkey
• Red kangaroo
• Masai giraffe
• Parma wallaby
• Tasmanian devil
• Woylie

Species I am not sure about include Western lowland gorillas, Ring tailed lemurs, Scimitar horned oryx and Raccoon.

Team Berlin list coming later but I think Team San Diego has a grand total of 77 mammal grassland species.

 

[amur leopard]

Team Berlin:

• Addra gazelle
• Altai maral
• Bactrian deer
• Barren Ground musk ox
• Western grey kangaroo
• Black-tailed prairie dog
• Bobcat
• Bush dog
• Cape buffalo
• Central African ratel
• Central Asian lynx
• Chacoan mara
• Chacoan peccary
• Chapman's zebra
• Chinese dhole
• Chinese water deer
• Common hog deer
• Common waterbuck
• Daurian pika
• Degu
• Dongola small-spotted genet
• East African banded mongoose
• East African bush elephant
• Eastern kiang
• Eastern wallaroo
• European genet
• European mouflon
• Giraffe
• Grevy's zebra
• Guanaco
• Hartmann's mountain zebra
• Iberian wolf
• Indian crested porcupine
• Indian sambar deer
• Indochinese clouded leopard
• Javan rusa
• Kulan
• Levant vole
• Lowland paca
• Maned wolf
• Manitoba elk
• Marco Polo sheep
• Naked mole rat
• Neumann's grass-rat
• Nilgai
• Northern yellow-throated marten
• Patagonian mara
• Pere David's deer
• Persian fallow deer
• Przewalski's horse
• Round-eared elephant shrew
• Serval
• Siberian Pallas' cat
• South African bat-eared fox
• Southern mountain reedbuck
• Southern three-banded armadillo
• Spotted hyena
• Sudan cheetah
• Taiga musk deer
• Transcapian urial
• Vicuna
• White-lipped deer
• Yellow footed rock wallaby
• Yellow spotted rock hyrax
• Aardvark
• African brush-tailed porcupine
• African wild dog
• Ansell's mole-rat
• Asiatic black bear
• Black sable antelope
• Blackbuck
• Blesbok
• Cape porcupine
• Common eland
• Defassa waterbuck
• Dwarf mongoose
• Eastern black rhinoceros
• Gemsbok
• Giant anteater
• Grant's zebra
• Greater kudu
• Greater one-horned rhinoceros
• Hippopotamus
• Indian gaur
• Indian sloth bear
• Indian swamp deer
• Kafue lechwe
• Kirk's dik dik
• Lesser hedgehog tenrec
• Lion
• Lowland anoa
• Meerkat
• Nyala
• Parma wallaby
• Patagonian mara
• Plains buffalo
• Przewalski's horse
• Red duiker
• Red kangaroo
• Six-banded armadillo
• Asian elephant
• Southern gerenuk
• Southern springhare
• Southern white-lipped peccary
• Springbok
• Sub-Saharan pygmy mouse
• White-tailed deer
• Wolf

That means Team Berlin have I think 107 species. Again, questionable ones include Scimitar horned oryx, White-nosed coati and South American tapir.

Therefore Team Berlin win 107-77 in mammals. On the other hand, I think Team San Diego might have a good go at beating Berlin in birds due to the Scripps Aviary and the large African aviary in Africa Rocks.

 

[FunkyGibbon]

But to what extent do the zoos do a good job of actually representing the biomes themselves, rather than the individual species within them?
(spoiler alert: for Berlin, not so well)

 

[amur leopard]

I think that SDSP certainly does a very good job of representing an African savanna. However, some of the antelope exhibits in SDZ are poor and need work. On the other hand, they also have a nice Outback exhibit, a nice hippo exhibit, and functional albeit not very aesthetically pleasing elephant exhibit. The SP has a large Asian hoofstock exhibit as well and a new Australian exhibit that would only add echidnas and cassowaries to the species list, as well as of course platypus if it counts.

 

[Malawi]

San Diego must be much better than Berlin, where there is little effort at depicting anything savannah-like. And I would include the SD kopje exhibits here, rather than in the "mountain" category. 2-1 to SD.

 

[ThylacineAlive]

I'd argue that SDZSP actually doesn't do a good job of representing a savanna with the massive concrete structures and crisscrossing dirt roads that run through the center of their main mixed grassland enclosure, however I would say that they have the best enclosures for African hoofstock which I'd imagine are the animals people think of first when they think of a savanna. The safari park also has the best elephant enclosure out of all four zoos.

~Thylo

 

[amur leopard]

I'd argue that SDZSP actually doesn't do a good job of representing a savanna with the massive concrete structures and crisscrossing dirt roads that run through the center of their main mixed grassland enclosure, however I would say that they have the best enclosures for African hoofstock which I'd imagine are the animals people think of first when they think of a savanna. The safari park also has the best elephant enclosure out of all four zoos.

Actually, that makes it a good representation because with all those safaris in Africa...

 

[amur leopard]

On another note, I think this biomes idea is fantastic and works well. The only real problem that could arise would be the species allowed for each round and no problems seem to have been raised on that, perhaps due to the non-existing stakes in this practise round, so I really like it

 

[FunkyGibbon]

On another note, I think this biomes idea is fantastic and works well. The only real problem that could arise would be the species allowed for each round and no problems seem to have been raised on that, perhaps due to the non-existing stakes in this practise round, so I really like it

It would be much better if we would move away from species counting altogether and actually take a more holistic view of what biome representation looks like. Unless there is something to take the visitor further, just have a species is going to be worth very little in my evaluation.

 

[amur leopard]

It would be much better if we would move away from species counting altogether and actually take a more holistic view of what biome representation looks like. Unless there is something to take the visitor further, just have a species is going to be worth very little in my evaluation.

I was just commenting on how the idea seems to work well and the species applicable seem to be pretty clear cut.

 

[FunkyGibbon]

I was just commenting on how the idea seems to work well and the species applicable seem to be pretty clear cut.

My point was that I disagree with the whole framing of your comment.
Let's take the example of Burgers. Mangroves is one of the best exhibits I have ever seen. It probably has around 30 species, including butterflies and fish. No doubt we could find various examples of zoos with much higher numbers of 'mangrove species', but even if a zoo has 300 such, unless they do something as impressive or interesting as Burgers' Mangrove with them I literally don't care.

What I would like to see for this final round is people actually engaging with the concept. In round one where the categories were taxonomic it is reasonable to make a case that having more species from a certain group allows a zoo to 'show' that group better. I actually think we missed the boat somewhat in round two by focusing so much of the animals of the continents and less on the actual continents themselves, but at least we still explored variety. But species counts for biomes alone tells you absolutely nothing about whether the zoo is doing a good job of representing that biome. We should instead be talking about whether exhibits actually look like the biome, whether they allow animals to display behaviours that relate to the biome, and whether signage and interpretation reinforce or even introduce these concepts.