As I said earlier it comes down to a personal definition of 'best'. The title is best not biggest, otherwise these threads are pointless! All of the enclosures have their good and not so good points but all are OK sizewise
Best UK Wolverine enclosure
- Thread starter britishzoofan
- Start date
I've only seen two of the exhibits (Whipsnade and HWP) and as @britishzoofan says they are all of extremely high quality. For me, it is really difficult to decide between Wild Place, Whipsnade and HWP. I think I like the first two better than HWP, but more because of the potential HWP has to make their wolverine exhibit world-class than anything else given the terrain and climate. Whipsnade has done extremely well to create a great exhibit and Wild Place even more so. I'm really stuck, but I think I'll keep my vote where it is for now given it counts for more as it is.
So, you like HWP less because it has more potential, and is better in terms of terrain and climate?
You do realise that sounds awfully like tactical voting?
But surely a bigger enclosure is better. Especially for wolverines, which have huge territories and have been recorded covering great distances over a relatively short amount of time.
And then there's all the other bullet points too.
Let's flip it around then
disregarding size for a moment, let's look at the criteria which Benosaurus cited:- All exhibits have pretty good viewing, with Wild Place possibly being marginally behind the other three.
- HWP is the only exhibit to provide the wolverines with any swimming opportunities.
- HWP is the seemingly the only exhibit to allow the wolverines access to the trees within the exhibit - note the active measures visible in photographs of the other exhibits being taken to prevent this being possible elsewhere. Whipsnade does have dead trees scattered through the exhibit to allow some level of climbing however.
- Wild Place and HWP are very densely vegetated, Whipsnade and CWP more sparsely so *
- Wild Place and HWP provide multiple exhibits for separation, Whipsnade and CWP do not.
- HWP has the geographic, climate and terrain edge.
So the question that must be posed is - what are the features that make Whipsnade *better* than HWP?
* I have visited Whipsnade twice, in 2012 and 2017, and as such have seen the exhibit in the "more thickly vegetated" state alleged by @Panthera1981 - it really isn't all that thickly vegetated from memory, and this photograph of the Whipsnade exhibit from earlier this year doesn't show much of this nature:
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
If you are not going to re-name these threads, then surely you should only allow votes from people who've actually seen what they are voting for.
If they have haven't actually seen it - then they are voting for a photo...
Well, to be fair until you posted those images just now, it was represented in the thread by a single unflattering photograph
and it is also the exhibit which, I suspect, the fewest members of the site have seen given how new it is.
I am surprised it has less than Cotswold
Well, it does somewhat depend on the quality of the arguments and insights provided by those members who *have* visited the collections, too. I suspect there are no members of this forum who have seen all four exhibits in question this time round, given the one at Wild Place is only 9 months old and the one at HWP is pretty far from most of us.
I have seen 3/4 myself for the record:
HWP - 2013 and 2016
Whipsnade - 2012 and 2017
CWP - 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 (from memory, not 100% certain of these dates offhand)
That photo is one tiny corner of the exhibit as you well know!!Let's flip it around then
- All exhibits have pretty good viewing, with Wild Place possibly being marginally behind the other three.
- HWP is the only exhibit to provide the wolverines with any swimming opportunities.
- HWP is the seemingly the only exhibit to allow the wolverines access to the trees within the exhibit - note the active measures visible in photographs of the other exhibits being taken to prevent this being possible elsewhere. Whipsnade does have dead trees scattered through the exhibit to allow some level of climbing however.
- Wild Place and HWP are very densely vegetated, Whipsnade and CWP more sparsely so *
- Wild Place and HWP provide multiple exhibits for separation, Whipsnade and CWP do not.
- HWP has the geographic, climate and terrain edge.
So the question that must be posed is - what are the features that make Whipsnade *better* than HWP?
* I have visited Whipsnade twice, in 2012 and 2017, and as such have seen the exhibit in the "more thickly vegetated" state alleged by @Panthera1981 - it really isn't all that thickly vegetated from memory, and this photograph of the Whipsnade exhibit from earlier this year doesn't show much of this nature:
It does illustrate one point though, you always get good views of the wolverines!
Yes, but it's still literally the only enclosure shot newer than 10 years old
and therefore the only insight into the "very much overgrown" exhibit mentioned!Searching on Youtube for recent videos of the exhibit, I found this one from a year ago which demonstrates not all that much difference to the 2010 status quo:
Both the photo and the video tally with my recollections from 2017 in terms of exhibit vegetation.
If exhibit size can be disregarded because "the title is best not biggest" and all the exhibits are reasonably large, I think you can surely agree that "getting good views" can also be disregarded given the title is "best" not "most visible", and all three exhibits I have seen contain very showy animals
The_melford_manatee
Well-Known Member
I have never seen the Wild Place exhibit and I was just basing it of the image.I now think which the image was of the worst of the three exhibits.I think this photo gives a much better perspective.To further support my vote for Wild Place, here are some images of the larger and densely wooded exhibit:
Wolverines do have massive territories in the wild but they are around 130-260 square kilometres.2.5 acres(what you stated the Highland enclosure was)is around 0.01 square kilometres.That is so far off that to the animal it (probably) makes little difference wether it is 0.1 or 2.5 acres.Either way it is essentially a shrunken version if their habitat in the wild.Naturalism,in which I would say either Whipsnade or Wild Place wins,is the only thing which makes these enclosures comparable to the animal’s natural habitat!
That may be the case for some, but not all, in which I include myself. If I haven't seen an exhibit, or don't know what factors constitute a good enclosure for a particular species, then I'll ask questions or wait for others to post more info. I'll then make my final decision by comparing facts and information, which I think is the approach everyone should take when deciding.
So, you like HWP less because it has more potential, and is better in terms of terrain and climate?
You do realise that sounds awfully like tactical voting?
No, I like it less because it could look like their Amur tiger exhibit but instead looks like Whipsnade's exhibit, a place that is far less similar to the Wolverine's natural habitat of Scandinavian-type evergreen forests! In my opinion they should have done a better job. And yes, I do think that a grassy field in an exhibit for a rainforest monkey species in London for example is better than a grassy field in an exhibit for the same species in Guatemala or Colombia, because one is located in the species' natural habitat while the other is far from it!
As for the voting, I don't think HWP should win, and I'm stuck between Whipsnade and Wild Place, so one could call it laziness or having an opinion depending on your outlook of things.
And yet I (repeatedly) note that the video and photographs provided do tally with my own recollections of the exhibit as of 3 years ago - so your argument seems to come down to "all the bits which people both on-and-off the forum have photographed and recorded video of are misleading, as are your own memories, but I don't actually have any counter-evidence to show a "true reflection" of the exhibit"
You still haven't actually addressed the query from myself and others regarding what factors make Whipsnade superior to other collections in your eyes, either.... merely nit-picking the quality of the media used to illustrate the collection as if this is an argument in and of itself.
Again, HWP is far more naturalistic than the Whipsnade exhibit in all metrics which have been mentioned so far - not merely the factor of size, which everyone seems to agree is more or less irrelevant in this case. Wild Place has more to offer in this regard, given the thick vegetation, but still falls short where climbing opportunities, climate and terrain, and swimming opportunities are concerned.
But you've voted for Whipsnade's exhibit
so if the fact it looks like Whipsnade's exhibit to your eyes (which it does not) is a negative factor, you shouldn't vote for Whipsnade either.
Would @pipaluk or any other Whipsnade voter like to answer TLD's question by writing down a few bullet points of what specific factors make it a better enclosure than the others?