Bold of you to assume any Indian has invertebrate exhibits, or plans to install any.
What was the biggest lie that you ever heard from anti-zoo people?
- Thread starter HungarianBison
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Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
This article just came out in the Guardian that you might find interesting on this topic :
ChimpanZoom? Primates at Czech zoo go wild for video calls
In Australia, at the Melbourne Zoo, they actually had their Orangutans go on Zoom calls with other Orangutans from the Perth and Adelaide Zoos respectively. It was pretty cool!
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
It's fascinating to see their reactions to these experiences isn't it ?
It’s a great idea and something they should continue beyond lockdown.
What would be truly fascinating is to compare the reactions of a troop of chimps to another troop which contains individuals they’re familiar with. A handraised female at Hamilton Zoo recognised the lady who raised her decades ago, so it’s not hard to imagine Sacha (1980) at Taronga for example would recognise her sister, Sally (1985), at Wellington; or her son, Sandali (1996) at Monarto if the video/audio quality was there.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
That would indeed be an amazing experiment and I wonder what their reactions would be.
Given how intelligent they are I am sure there would be recognition of relatives.
It could potentially help debunk the myth/lie that anti-zoo people perpetuate by claiming zoos force animals to live in unnatural social structures.
Chimpanzees live in a fission-fusion society, where females emigrate but then return periodically throughout their lives. This could be replicated via Zoom if chimpanzees have the capacity to perceive such a concept. If the screen is life size, it’d theoretically be comparable to seeing a family member through a Perspex barrier.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Yes it's an interesting concept and hopefully a Zoo or researcher may pick up on it and formulate an experiment.
Would be very interesting to see what the findings would be.
At the very least, I’d expect the chimpanzees to react to the auditory signals they received.
Auckland Zoo used to have three aging tea party chimps that lived seperate from the main troop. They were described as “speaking a different language” and attempts at integration were unsuccessful. However, if they were stressed (e.g. when given a blow dart by the vet), they would give off an alarm call; which the other troop would recognise and respond to.
Regarding animals displaying certain behaviours without visitors, I have noticed on multiple occasions that on the tiger cam on the Edinburgh zoo website the male tiger can be seen pacing from time to time, what I find interesting however is where he paces, it’s where the visitors would usually enter the exhibit which I’ve found rather interesting, it’s almost a sign of anticipation, I also think that it’s partially due to the female possibly being visible from this part of the enclosure providing she is at the window to her enclosure. I think these two factors put together could indicate that it’s more a case of him keeping tabs on things rather than stress/boredom etc.
On a similar note, I read somewhere that when certain animals pace, like tigers, leopards and lions, it is due to an instinctual need to patrol the edge of their "territory". I'm not saying pacing isn't an actual issue but I'm pointing out that in many species this may be what's actually happening.
Yes, I think it’s very important to analyse why an animal is pacing before jumping to conclusions as there is quite often a good reason.
Elephants don’t belong in zoos. Easily the worst lie ever.
They are not like orcas where many holdings fail to give them adequate spacing and perform tricks, elephants do just fine in captivity with the right enrichments and enough of their own species to socialize with. They need captivity more than ever with how badly the populations of certain species dropped over the years.
They are not like orcas where many holdings fail to give them adequate spacing and perform tricks, elephants do just fine in captivity with the right enrichments and enough of their own species to socialize with. They need captivity more than ever with how badly the populations of certain species dropped over the years.
Although many of the city zoos in Australasia are phasing elephants out (if they haven’t already), I heard at keeper at Wellington Zoo once say that although the elephants had a small house/night quarters, the whole zoo was their exhibit as they’d be walked all through it. Perth and Auckland Zoo still do this today; as did Taronga before they went no contact. There’s no better enrichment for elephants than exploring the empty exhibits of other species; who in turn smelt the elephant’s scent when let back out on exhibit.
I do personally really like the idea of this, I think Woburn safari park in the UK do a similar thing and I think I’ve read that on hot days they have permission to go into the neighbouring private woodland which is owned by a duke or something like that.
The Detroit Zoo is doing a study on the effect of no visitors. I will post when more information is available.
Similar to how humans have universal kind of instinctual behaviors. Every person will recognize a scream as a cry of distress despite the language, culture or nationality. I find it another fascinating trait that show the similarity between Chimpanzees and humans.
Ztlabraptor211
Well-Known Member
When I was in grade school I was pretty vocal about my dream to work in a zoo one day, and most of my teachers encouraged that but one would always parrot the narrative that zoos steal animals from their homes in the wild and separate from their families and all that, ignoring the fact that most animals are bred in captivity, or in captivity for conservation reasons
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Thanks Alex ! That would be really interesting to see
Sophie Brugmann
Active Member
It's also one of the worst lies I know: Elephants in captivity die at 40 years old,while they reach up to 70 years in the wild.
It's a PETA slogan and it's super dangerous, because it refers to scientific studies. So it looks super real, but only if you look up both studies you will find out that the 70 years is an anecdote of a single wild African elephant and the 40 years is the combined mean of all elephants ever on record in America. From 1800 something on. Stillborn and suspected(!) pregnancies included with 0 years. Of course people fall for that...