ZooChat Cup finals: Chester vs Zurich *match extension*

[Brum]

I think the implicit assumption in this post is that including them would be ridiculous

Indeed, that's exactly my point.

 

[antonmuster]

Elephants, Gelada, Andean Bear, lions! Really??!!

To clarify: Nowhere am I suggesting that these species are 'freshwater species' nor that these species should 'count' for this match. I can however see how one could read this into my post if the way one approaches these matches pivots on species lists.This however, is not how I approach these categories and matches. Instead, I ask myself 'how does zoo xyz feature freshwater habitats - and how do I like this?'. Hence, I was discussing the freshwater features within 'non-freshwater' species enclosures as they relate to the larger picture of how the zoo thematises freshwater 'biomes':

Since the topic is freshwater, I think it is worth mentioning, that the zoo prominently and effectively includes freshwater features such as ponds or waterfalls in many of its enclosures (spectacled bears, lions, tigers, elephants, geladas, etc.)

Freshwater habitats such as rivers, ponds, or lakes traverse and permeate other terrestrial biomes. That is an important part of their nature, as is the fact that many 'non-freshwater' species interact with these habitats in important ways - be that as predators (e.g. a big cat fishing) or as 'gardeners' (e.g. elephants bathing and defecating into the water). I find it commendable, that the zoo attempts to design enclosures that are suggestive of such relationships. Hence my comment.

Furthermore: The gelada enclosure also houses blue-winged geese, the carnivore ponds, as well as the elephant pools, house fish, and the lions share their enclosure with small-clawed otters (though temporally separated) in addition to the fish. Hence, even from a perspective that pivots entirely on species (which is not my perspective), the freshwater features in those enclosures arguably should count.

Finally,

In my case for Chester I was tempted to point out all the waterways within the zoo, and was going to point to Islands as an exhibit complex that revolved around freshwater, especially since you can transverse it by boat. I elected not to mention these factors as the species displayed around the water features do not specifically feature animals that one thinks of when they think aquatic. I also didn't mention any water features that don't include animals, even though the sunken garden is one of my favourite places in Chester.

Personally, I would absolutely be interested in such a discussion. Indeed, that is part of the reason, for my freshwater feature comment: How does Chester present and illustrate freshwater habitats throughout the zoo and beyond individual enclosures? Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts and I agree with @HOMIN96 that such discussions can help get a feel for the zoos in question.
As I have said, I think what Zurich attempts in this regard is commendable. To me it feels that the freshwater features throughout the zoo are not merely visitor props, but instead they often (also) serve a behavioral, enrichment, horticultural, or educational function in addition to looking nice and (often) very natural.

 

[CGSwans]

To clarify: Nowhere am I suggesting that these species are 'freshwater species' nor that these species should 'count' for this match. I can however see how one could read this into my post if the way one approaches these matches pivots on species lists.This however, is not how I approach these categories and matches. Instead, I ask myself 'how does zoo xyz feature freshwater habitats - and how do I like this?'. Hence, I was discussing the freshwater features within 'non-freshwater' species enclosures as they relate to the larger picture of how the zoo thematises freshwater 'biomes':

Freshwater habitats such as rivers, ponds, or lakes traverse and permeate other terrestrial biomes. That is an important part of their nature, as is the fact that many 'non-freshwater' species interact with these habitats in important ways - be that as predators (e.g. a big cat fishing) or as 'gardeners' (e.g. elephants bathing and defecating into the water). I find it commendable, that the zoo attempts to design enclosures that are suggestive of such relationships. Hence my comment.

Furthermore: The gelada enclosure also houses blue-winged geese, the carnivore ponds, as well as the elephant pools, house fish, and the lions share their enclosure with small-clawed otters (though temporally separated) in addition to the fish. Hence, even from a perspective that pivots entirely on species (which is not my perspective), the freshwater features in those enclosures arguably should count.

Finally,

Personally, I would absolutely be interested in such a discussion. Indeed, that is part of the reason, for my freshwater feature comment: How does Chester present and illustrate freshwater habitats throughout the zoo and beyond individual enclosures? Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts and I agree with @HOMIN96 that such discussions can help get a feel for the zoos in question.
As I have said, I think what Zurich attempts in this regard is commendable. To me it feels that the freshwater features throughout the zoo are not merely visitor props, but instead they often (also) serve a behavioral, enrichment, horticultural, or educational function in addition to looking nice and (often) very natural.

You do make good arguments and I have failed to adequately consider how doing things like having fish in big cat moats influences the game. I’m sorry about that, but I have been open in the past that sometimes issues aren’t ‘issues’ until they arise, and so sometimes I have to work out what to do as we go along. Please do bear in mind that nobody has ever attempted to create a zoo fantasy league format before!

My instinct is to fall back on the fundamental point that these categories are supposed to facilitate the game itself, and where a certain interpretation of them undermines the function of the game it is the category, not the game that needs to give ground. A category that becomes so expansive that it could theoretically encompass the whole zoo is undermining the game.

In this case, it is clear to me that the geese and fish are at best adjunct features of those exhibits: it’s not for nothing that we refer to ‘the gelada enclosure’ rather than the ‘geese enclosure’, and likewise for the fish in the lion pool. Acknowledging the imperfection that it causes, I think we do need to apply a common sense test to whether their presence means the exhibit as a whole becomes relevant to the theme under discussion. My common sense tells me that a zoo could put fish in a moat for just about anything, and that it - for want of a better word - ‘breaks’ the category to take such an expansive view.

By all means, if you are a species-counter, factor the presence of geese and fish at the zoo into your overall thinking. But the exhibits in which they appear should not count. I also believe it will be fairly intuitive to identify when such a judgment should be made in future.

 

[antonmuster]

By all means, if you are a species-counter, factor the presence of geese and fish at the zoo into your overall thinking. But the exhibits in which they appear should not count.

I basically agree with this (besides the fact that it is your rules that count). Just to clarify a second time: It was neither my intention to make 'non-freshwater' species 'count', nor to make 'non-freshwater' exhibits 'count'. Instead, I made a side remark regarding freshwater features in otherwise terrestrial exhibits, because, across the entire zoo, I do feel they add something relevant to how the zoo presents the topic of freshwater habitats and their interconnectedness with other habitats.

 

[CGSwans]

This match is being extended to bring it into line with changes to the category. The debate up until now has revolved around ‘freshwater’, but you can now also discuss marine and polar species and exhibits as part of the expanded Aquatics category.

I’ve added an additional day, more or less, to give time to discuss how the new elements should affect your votes. If you vote in this poll, it supersedes your previous vote. Otherwise, your vote stands.

For more info:

I think you’re both partly right. I’m going to do a pretty big shake-up of how this final group stage will be conducted, before it’s too late to reverse course. It’s annoying and inelegant, but I think it will be better.

Bear with me, this is a long post but I want to be as transparent as possible about how I’m approaching this. There will be a TL: DR summary at the end.

I originally chose to go with biomes for a few reasons. I wanted to keep the game fresh, rather than endlessly repeating the same basic discussions. I wanted to challenge people to come up with new perspectives. And without ever quite explaining it thus, I quietly echoed what I think are the three basic organising structures zoos tend to choose from when developing a master plan: taxonomic arrangements (out of fashion, perhaps, but still interesting), geographic and biomes.

I really like the biome concept and I intend to keep it, for all the above reasons. At the same time, Thylo has correctly identified a problem with the existing structure that I don’t think has *quite* yet been realised, as Anton argues, but which soon will be. I don’t want what I think has so far been a successful Cup to end on a dull note with a series of lopsided, narrowly-focused contests. And looking ahead at the schedule, I think that’s what would happen.

The biome categories don’t really suit the roster of zoos that we have in our final eight. I should have considered this more carefully. When I mapped out the eight-zoo, seven biomes structure I tested it with a couple of hypothetical groups of eight zoos, but I’m obviously a poor predictor of outcomes and the roster we have is particularly light on for zoos with strong marine, desert and montane/polar collections, particularly. At the same time, as Thylo says, grasslands and the two forest categories are fairly robust.

So here’s step one in my restructure plan. We will collapse the existing seven categories into four:

• Tropical forests remains as it is.
• ‘Temperate Forests’ gains the ‘mountains’ component of the ‘mountains and poles’ category. I am open for suggestions for a pithy name for this one. This new category will inherit the draw that previously applied to ‘temperate forests’.
• ‘Grasslands’ becomes ‘grasslands and deserts’. Again, if you have a better name hit me up. Otherwise it will do. This category inherits the former ‘grasslands’ draw.
• Freshwater is merged with marine and the ‘poles’ component of the former mountain and poles category. This category will be known as Aquatics, and it will inherit the former freshwater draw.

When I say that a category ‘inherits a draw’ what I mean is that a match that was previously slated to be held on ‘freshwater’ will instead take place on Aquatics. That raises the question of what to do about the Zurich-Chester and Omaha-Vienna matches that have already been held or are underway. I’ll return to that below.

These four categories work well together, I feel. No zoo is overwhelmingly strong in all of them, but all are good in at least two or three. Across the four of them they will catch the vast majority of species, exhibits and themes that exist in the eight surviving zoos.

That leaves the problem of having seven matches per zoo, and only four categories. I do not want to have a zoo playing twice on the same category, and so my solution for the 12 matches that were to be played on one of Deserts, Marine or Mountains and Poles is that we will partially return to taxonomic and geographic categories. Each zoo will still play once on all four biome categories, and then they will have three matches on taxonomic or geographic categories.

It took a little bit of work with a pen and pencil, but I have identified a set of match-ups that meets the following criteria I wanted to achieve:

• No zoo will draw a category that it has previously competed in during the first or second rounds. This criteria was why I didn’t simply do another random draw: two of the 12 matches literally only had one possible category without repeats, and so I had to start with those two and work outwards.

• No recycled category will be used more than twice. As an aside, this was actually trickier than it sounds, because I was interested to discover that drawing certain categories proved much less predictive of whether a zoo would reach the final round than others.

• There is no material impact on what I will call the ‘expected wins’, compared to what I estimate might have happened if we used the now-discarded biomes instead. In other words, I don’t believe any zoo gains or loses as a result of this retrospective change. Obviously it’s possible that my predictions on how those biomes would play out are wrong, but this is unknown and unknowable. I can honestly say, with a clear conscience, that I don’t think making this change has altered the prospects of any competing zoo.

I won’t lie, this is a messier solution than I would like, but I think it has some compensating benefits too. The winning zoo will ultimately have been tested on 13 out of 15 categories across the three themes: there really isn’t much chance for zoos to hide their flaws or to miss out on flaunting their strengths. Zoos that had to overcome weaknesses to get this far will benefit now, whereas those that rode their luck here will have their work cut out for them.

One final piece of the puzzle is the afore-mentioned matches that have been held on now-rejected categories. I don’t think it’s fair for Zurich and Chester to have competed on only half of the aquatics category, or for Vienna and Omaha to have done the same for ‘temperates’.

As such, here’s the messiest bit of all: these two matches will be reopened. I will post new polls and a moderator will merge the new and existing threads. If people vote in the new poll, that vote supersedes the previous one, otherwise the existing vote will count. The third match, in which Bronx faced Wroclaw on tropical forests, is unaffected and will not be extended.

So, to summarise:

• Seven biome categories will become four: tropical forests, temperates, grasslands&deserts and aquatics
• The remaining slots will use taxonomic or geographic categories that the respective zoos have not previously drawn.
• Two matches, between Omaha and Vienna, and Zurich and Chester, will be extended to account for the changed terms of reference.

 

[antonmuster]

Zurich: Marine
In addition to the already discussed sweetwater (and one brackish) aquaria, Zurich has three large and deep, beautiful coral reef aquaria, two in the exotarium, one in the Masoala visitor center. The exotarium houses a third aquarium for, amongst others, garden eels and seahorses. Overall, Zurich's aquarium is comparatively small, with a small number of large aquaria (just 8 in total), but consistent with the zoo's philosophy, everything is designed to very high standards. For a more detailed documentation of the aquarium, refer to this link: L3P Architekten ETH FH SIA AG, 8158 Regensberg Schweiz Switzerland

Exotarium

(image of the new aquarium shortly after construction)

Masoala

Poles
Zurich houses Humboldt and king penguins, which share their indoor enclosures: During summers, the kings are in the refrigerated indoors, while the Humboldts are out, and during winters, the Humboldts are in the warm indoors, while the kings are out. The indoors is smallish (especially the pool) though probably adequate, while the outdoors is adequate though rather bland and unspectacular. Widely popular especially with kids is the daily king penguin parade, whenever daily temperatures do not exceed 10 degrees. Imo a nice touch for both the penguins and the visitors. Another imo nice feature from an educational, enrichment, and visitor perspective are live fish, which are occasionally placed in the penguin pools for hunting. Finally, (on a sidenote) the zoo entrance square features every extant penguin species on the planet in the form of realistic, life-sized statues - a feature also wildly popular with toddlers and small children.

Penguins

Similar to the penguins, the harbour seals live in an adequate but somewhat outdated exhibit. The circular underwater viewing windows have been enjoying cult status with toddlers for many generations.

Harbour seal

 

[FunkyGibbon]

Just a note on the seals:
It's not adequate IMO, much too small (and I say that as the person who took the photos above)
What's worse, Chester get extra points for turning their own pinniped exhibit into such a fantastic giant otter enclosure.

 

[antonmuster]

such a fantastic giant otter enclosure

This has been emphasized multiple times. I am curious. A more detailed discussion in word or image would be really helpful and interesting. Furthermore: What else does Chester have to offer, in addition to the giant otter enclosure?

high count of freshwater fish in the aquarium (with serious breeding attempts behind the scenes), the very nice aquarium in the jaguar house, a variety of waders and waterfowl spread across the zoo

I understand that many on this site are intimately familiar with Chester. However, there are also many that aren't. Discussion of what Chester has to offer for this match, so far, has been based on vague references at best. For someone not familiar with the zoo, this is rather frustrating.

I would be interested: How do Chester's aquaria and waterfowl ponds compare to Zurich's?

 

[Brum]

A more detailed discussion in word or image would be really helpful and interesting.

Here are some images of the giant otter exhibit.

Photo by @MagpieGoose

Photo by @twilighter

Indoor holding, note there is also underwater viewing as well.

Photo by @gulogulogulo

 

[TeaLovingDave]

This has been emphasized multiple times. I am curious. A more detailed discussion in word or image would be really helpful and interesting. Furthermore: What else does Chester have to offer, in addition to the giant otter enclosure?

I replicate my post about this exhibit from earlier in the cup:

Giant Otter

And *this* is one of the two biggest gems at Chester, in terms of exhibit size and quality. It is without a shadow of a doubt the best exhibit for Giant Otters I have seen, with a massive and lushly-vegetated outdoor exhibit accompanied by a large interior exhibit (itself larger than a good few exhibits for this species) containing a heated pool, and a second offshow interior enclosure. This exhibit is one of the key reasons why Chester deserves to win this round - I would argue that excellent though Prague is, as far as carnivore species go it currently has nothing which approaches this exhibit in terms of design and quality, nor the next one I will discuss.

 

[antonmuster]

...that indeed looks marvelous! Thank you @Brum & @TeaLovingDave . It appears to me that this enclosure would arguably match e.g. the freshwater habitats in Masoala in quality (?), and likely excell the Pantanal, problematic as such direct comparisons are.

 

[Fallax]

I'm quite pleased the final is between two zoos I have been to. It's quite a hard choice honestly but I'm going to give 2 to Zurich.

Edit: I said Chester by accident...

 

[FunkyGibbon]

@antonmuster I think for me Pantanal is still better, if only for the theming and interpretation. It is so far ahead of any other South American exhibit I have seen.

 

[CGSwans]

FYI all - the correct score for this match, including votes in the previous poll that weren't superseded by votes in this one, is Zurich 68, Chester 43.