Slender Lorises, Duct Tape, and Whataburger: A Fish on Dry Land

[Coelacanth18]

Fast Food Review of the Day: Taco Bell

Tacos: America’s favorite food.

Taco Bell is probably one of the most widespread fast food joints in the US that doesn't seem to be particularly common elsewhere. I can’t say I find that fact surprising, as it’s about as American a take on Mexican food as you can get. To get an idea of what they serve, imagine a 19 year-old “gamer bro” making improvised meals with the food and drinks he has in his dorm room and then deciding, “I could build a billion-dollar restaurant company out of this”. It’s a chain where the signature drink is an exclusive flavor of Mountain Dew and where they try to incorporate Doritos into as many of their menu items as possible, in ways that sometimes make even less sense than the general concept of Doritos being food to begin with. The menu is awash with a dizzying list of 50 slight variations of the same basic meal: a tortilla stuffed with ground meat product and (un)healthy doses of nacho cheese and sour cream.

Sounds like a scathing critique so far, right? But let me finish. I eat Taco Bell *frequently* on road trips. It’s generally my go-to for lunches and dinners when a particular favorite like Popeyes isn’t around. For one thing, nobody who’s this deep in reading the thread so far should be surprised that a quickly-made tortilla thing stuffed with meat and cheese is something I’d object to (although a taco made with a Dorito shell *definitely* is). Along with McDonald’s, it’s also the cheapest fast food money can buy; a filling burrito can be had for only a little more than $1, and a satisfying meal with two or three somewhat distinct flavors can be created by only spending $3 or $4. The same money can’t buy you quality items at Mickey D’s, nor indeed at almost any fast food joint.

If you’re not into the whole Mountain Dew and chips-as-fake-Mexican-food vibe, there are some regional chains that are similar but with less obnoxious choices: Del Taco, Taco Time, and Taco John’s to name a few. A nationwide chain is Chipotle, which takes an assembly-line style of ordering that is common with sandwich joints like Subway and applies it to burritos. If you’d like to eschew fast food altogether, Mexican food is also one of the most common types of fast-casual and sit-down restaurants you’ll find across most of the country. And then of course there’s the taco trucks of Los Angeles and other cities... no better food to be had at 3 AM, I promise you. Maybe that’ll work its way in to a Southern California zoo review in the future?

 

[pachyderm pro]

Fast Food Review of the Day: Taco Bell

Tacos: America’s favorite food.

Taco Bell is probably one of the most widespread fast food joints in the US that doesn't seem to be particularly common elsewhere. I can’t say I find that fact surprising, as it’s about as American a take on Mexican food as you can get. To get an idea of what they serve, imagine a 19 year-old “gamer bro” making improvised meals with the food and drinks he has in his dorm room and then deciding, “I could build a billion-dollar restaurant company out of this”. It’s a chain where the signature drink is an exclusive flavor of Mountain Dew and where they try to incorporate Doritos into as many of their menu items as possible, in ways that sometimes make even less sense than the general concept of Doritos being food to begin with. The menu is awash with a dizzying list of 50 slight variations of the same basic meal: a tortilla stuffed with ground meat product and (un)healthy doses of nacho cheese and sour cream.

Sounds like a scathing critique so far, right? But let me finish. I eat Taco Bell *frequently* on road trips. It’s generally my go-to for lunches and dinners when a particular favorite like Popeyes isn’t around. For one thing, nobody who’s this deep in reading the thread so far should be surprised that a quickly-made tortilla thing stuffed with meat and cheese is something I’d object to (although a taco made with a Dorito shell *definitely* is). Along with McDonald’s, it’s also the cheapest fast food money can buy; a filling burrito can be had for only a little more than $1, and a satisfying meal with two or three somewhat distinct flavors can be created by only spending $3 or $4. The same money can’t buy you quality items at Mickey D’s, nor indeed at almost any fast food joint.

If you’re not into the whole Mountain Dew and chips-as-fake-Mexican-food vibe, there are some regional chains that are similar but with less obnoxious choices: Del Taco, Taco Time, and Taco John’s to name a few. A nationwide chain is Chipotle, which takes an assembly-line style of ordering that is common with sandwich joints like Subway and applies it to burritos. If you’d like to eschew fast food altogether, Mexican food is also one of the most common types of fast-casual and sit-down restaurants you’ll find across most of the country. And then of course there’s the taco trucks of Los Angeles and other cities... no better food to be had at 3 AM, I promise you. Maybe that’ll work its way in to a Southern California zoo review in the future?

I've found myself nodding in agreement with your fast food reviews for the most part up to this point, but this is where I draw the line. I don't care if it's cheap, Taco Bell is a disgrace to American society and I will stand on this hill till the day I die. It's genuinely one of the worst fast food meals I ever had and I will gladly fork up a few extra bucks to get something literally anywhere else. I love tacos, but whatever tacos or burritos Taco Bell serves just aren't right.

Funny you chose today to post this. There was a guy working on my heater earlier this afternoon and asked to use my restroom because he had Taco Bell during his break and it "wasn't sitting right." There's nothing significant about this story, but if I had to hear that you all do too.

 

[TNT]

Taco Bell is a disgrace to American society and I will stand on this hill till the day I die. It's genuinely one of the worst fast food meals I ever had and I will gladly fork up a few extra bucks to get something literally anywhere else. I love tacos, but whatever tacos or burritos Taco Bell serves just aren't right.

I quite like Taco Bell... But saying that, I've only eaten it here in the UK.

 

[Coelacanth18]

There was a guy working on my heater earlier this afternoon and asked to use my restroom because he had Taco Bell during his break and it "wasn't sitting right."

It's not a food adventure for the faint of GI tract - but with food names like "Volcano Quesarito" I'm not sure how much clearer their marketing team could make that for everyone.

I quite like Taco Bell... But saying that, I've only eaten it here in the UK.

I can't begin to imagine how a Taco Bell works in Britain. Can you even say "Volcano Quesarito" with your accent, or do you have to write it out on something and show it to the cashier?

 

[MRJ]

It's not a food adventure for the faint of GI tract - but with food names like "Volcano Quesarito" I'm not sure how much clearer their marketing team could make that for everyone.



I can't begin to imagine how a Taco Bell works in Britain. Can you even say "Volcano Quesarito" with your accent, or do you have to write it out on something and show it to the cashier?

When travelling I like to sample the indigenous cuisine and on a road trip a few years ago I had gone through Yelp looking for interesting but basic places to eat. What I didn't know is that Americans like to rate fast food chain outlets, as if the Big Mac in New York is going to be different from the Big Mac in LA. I'd never heard about Taco Bell, and for our first night I'd read a review that made out this place in San Bernardino was really special as the first of the chain and a special menu. When we got there I don't think I have ever been in such a low-rent fast food outlet. McDonalds would have been infinitely preferable. Have to say though, one of the best meals in my life was in a Mexican restaurant in San Diego.

 

[Coelacanth18]

What I didn't know is that Americans like to rate fast food chain outlets, as if the Big Mac in New York is going to be different from the Big Mac in LA. I'd never heard about Taco Bell, and for our first night I'd read a review that made out this place in San Bernardino was really special as the first of the chain and a special menu.

Interesting. Having grown up in the culture, it's never even occurred to me to look for fast food outlet reviews - nor even that people would write one - but for a visitor coming here it would make logical sense.

Have to say though, one of the best meals in my life was in a Mexican restaurant in San Diego.

We do have some very good Mexican food in the US, particularly in California and other parts of the Southwest with long traditions of Mexican settlement.

 

[TinoPup]

Oh, no worries; as long as it's not taking up multiple pages, a little bit of side discussion is great in my opinion. Keeps people engaged with the thread even more


Chapter 7 (Part II): Charting the Uncharted: A First Glimpse at Two Appalachian Zoo Outposts [Mill Mtn]

Several hours north of the small South Carolina zoo, another zoological outpost stands atop a mountain overlooking the small Appalachian city of Roanoke, Virginia. Greenville Zoo might be small, but when it comes to zoos there’s two kinds of small. There’s Greenville Zoo small, where it only takes an hour or so to casually stroll the grounds... and then there’s Mill Mountain Zoo small, where you don’t need a map because standing in the right spot lets you see close to every enclosure in the whole zoo. I can’t remember what the acreage was listed at, but it *definitely* was including service and off-display areas at least. Mill Mountain is one of the smallest zoos both in physical size and in collection I’ve ever been to, being close in size to the tiny Charles Paddock and Micke Grove zoos in California. Despite this, it had a few surprises up its sleeve...

Mill Mountain Zoo

Location: Roanoke, Virginia
Size: ~2.5 acres*
Species Count: 37
Closed Areas: Walk-through Aviary (seasonal); path down to Red Wolves & Screech Owl
Noteworthy Finds: Eurasian Lynx, Pallas’s Cat, Indian Crested Porcupine
Price: $7 admission
Recommended Time: 1 hour or less

Species List: Mill Mountain Zoo Species List - Dec 2021
Media Gallery: Mill Mountain Zoo - ZooChat

[*Note for those interested: I use an online Google Maps area calculator tool created by Daft Logic to estimate the acreage of the areas taken up by enclosures and visitor areas; these numbers should give fairly accurate ideas of how large the zoo is for a visitor, even though it may not be how large the zoo’s property actually is. This is the link for that tool: Google Maps Area Calculator Tool ]

Unlike all of my previous zoo visits thus far – which featured relatively fantastic weather, even into December – it was lightly drizzling when I arrived on the slopes of Mill Mountain and would continue to rain on and off during my hour or so visiting. After stretching my legs in the parking lot, I surveyed my path to the zoo. In a bit of an odd situation, the parking lot used for the zoo is not actually where the entrance to the zoo is located; it’s a 2-minute walk past the park’s visitor center, with the entrance just past the point of visibility around a curve.

After a cheap $7 ticket, I took survey of the map and the zoo standing before me. It’s a different vibe from Greenville; while the former had the construction and design of a larger zoo shrunk down, Mill Mountain reminds me more of other small off-the-beaten facilities I’ve visited; lots of DIY-looking enclosures make up the fairly dense infrastructure of the roughly 2.5 acre place. The setting of the zoo is of interest: located on the edge of a densely forested mountain, it’s surrounded on one side by a wall of nature and on the other side by a steep drop. These features gives the small collection a feeling of being sort of a zoo island in the sky; Pileated Woodpeckers stood guard on the perimeter, and an observation deck by the sandhill crane offered a fantastic view of the bustling city far below.

One thing I will say about this zoo is that it’s not a cold or bad-weather zoo; I only saw 20 of the 37 species signed, with nearly all of the zoo’s avian collection housed elsewhere for the winter and several other animals hiding from the rain and cool weather in their heated dens. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to come back and experience this place in its primer warm seasons; for now however, the photos I’ve taken will give people an idea of what the place generally looks like and has to offer.

The entrance building has two exhibits attached to it: a small grassy yard for Tufted Deer (unseen) and a tiny circular dirt enclosure for Sulcata Tortoise (off-exhibit). Nearby cages hold Virginia Opossum (unseen) and White-crested Laughingthrush (off-exhibit), with a hard-to-notice path winding down past the laughingthrush cage to a small dead-end cove at the zoo train station. Here a Barn Owl shared its wood-and-wire cage with an Eastern Gray Squirrel that I doubt had been invited in.

On the other side of the laughingthrushes is a small domestic barn and dusty, rocky yard the goats and pigs share; the tiny pig outside squealed with delight at the sight of me and immediately come toddling over for snacks.

The cage seen on the other side of the domestic yard was home to a Pallas’s Cat, an animal that always looks to me like it’s perpetually pissed off. A Sandhill Crane yard was situated below it next to the observation deck... and on the other side of that is a surprise marquee animal:

Unperturbed by the weather – balmy by the standards of its native habitat, no doubt – the beautiful snow leopard dozed out in the open of its small mesh exhibit. It reminded me of the Micke Grove Zoo, which also has a lone snow leopard as its biggest draw. Opposite the snow leopard was a wood-and-wire cage for other crowd favorite Red Panda, while a nearby building has viewing windows for two indoor exhibits holding Asian Small-clawed Otters and an Indian Crested Porcupine. Across from this is the zoo’s seasonal walk-through aviary; signed for nearly a dozen species during the warmer months, the December drizzle was braved only by a pair of Red-billed Blue Magpies and a flock of unsigned Wood Ducks the zoo apparently acquired only a week before my arrival. Just past this was a North American rarity and a lifer for me – a Eurasian Lynx, rubbing on scents left for them and casually eating meatballs strewn about the enclosure.

At the back of the zoo was a yard for Red Wolves and a cage for Eastern Screech Owl, neither of which I saw; the path to them was blocked off for maintenance (fortunately there is another Red Wolf yard along the perimeter of the zoo – it’s impossible to get a good look at the exhibit, but I was able to see the wolves through the fence just fine). Just past that was an exhibit for a pair of Bald Eagles and a large grassy yard for American Black Bear – dozing the winter away unseen in a warm den. Should I have been a bear? Some days sleeping through months when snow happens seems like a better idea than what us humans do.

By the time I rounded back over to a couple exhibits for Red Foxes and Northern Raccoons, the rain had started coming down in earnest; fortunately, the last part of the zoo was the “House of Scales and Tails” – in layman’s terms, the reptile house. It certainly looked like an actual house, though I haven’t seen many with this particular color scheme:

I donned my mask to enter the tiny building, only to find that I was the only one in there (during my entire hour-plus visit I only saw maybe 5 or 6 visitors). That was a good thing too; forget about social distancing, two people could scarcely pass each other in the hallway without playing a game of Twister. The single tiny hallway was home to a grand total of 6 reptile species – unsigned Veiled Chameleon, Eastern Box Turtle, Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtle, Burmese Python, Tentacled Snake, and unsigned Boa Constrictor. The interior certainly looked like a small home with herps stashed in it, with the Christmas lights and decorations adding to the small-zoo-on-the-block aesthetic.

Other than a small glass-fronted exhibit outside for a single Wood Turtle, the small yellow reptile house concluded my tour of Mill Mountain. Perhaps it’s inevitable that such a small off-the-path zoo will remain a minor blip on the zoological landscape – but every blip deserves its 15 minutes of fame and a permanent collection in the photo gallery. It’s also not too far off I-81, so it’s worth a visit if you’re ever traveling up or down the Appalachians. Consider coming not in winter and checking the weather though!

Next review will come up either tomorrow or Thursday. Fast food review will be up in a couple hours as it needs editing and I have to rush out for an appointment now.

I didn't know there was a path along the road to get there, as well. This was the way I was going:



The Discovery Center with a few herps is just to the left of this, next to another gray building.

The exhibits look about how I was expecting, maybe a little nicer given the location. They're clearly still trying to keep up with sticking to the lower/smaller end of AZA standards. It's a cute zoo in a really neat location.

Bonus image of the reason I didn't get to go in the zoo With the entrance being far enough from the parking lot that I couldn't see it after walking a bit, I wasn't comfortable leaving my new puppy in the car alone. He wasn't as amazed by the views from the overlooks as I was.

 

[Chlidonias]

Taco Bell is probably one of the most widespread fast food joints in the US that doesn't seem to be particularly common elsewhere.

I'd never heard about Taco Bell

I saw Demolition Man (the 1993 Sylvester Stallone movie) at the cinema when it came out. There's a scene where the rich overlord invites Stallone to a fancy dinner at Taco Bell, which he is confused about. While watching I thought his confusion was because it was a future restaurant he had never heard of (i.e. one made up for the movie), and then Sandra Bullock tells him that it was the only restaurant that survived the Franchise Wars - "Now all restaurants are Taco Bell". So I was like "oh, okay, it's a combined name made up of other fast food places".

It was years before I even knew this was a real place.

 

[Batto]

It was years before I even knew this was a real place.

You were not the only one - that's why the Taco Bell references were changed to Pizza Hut (both owned by PepsiCo at that time) for the movie release in Europe.

For me, Taco Bell has always been the "plan B" (or C-F) fast food place whenever other dining options didn't work out. I once attended an AAZV / AAWV conference in which the food ran out during the social dinner. So me and and a bunch of colleagues had to storm the local Taco Bell store afterwards just to get at least one bite to eat...I'm surprised to read that Taco Bell exists in the UK.

As for "Chinese" restaurants outside of China: same situation here in Europe. Most buffet / menu items have been adopted and standardized to local European preferences, so that it can be pretty difficult to get genuinely Chinese food that also acknowledges local Chinese culinary differences. Funny enough, there are even local peculiarities: for whatever reason, Chinese (or rather Asian) buffet restaurants in NE Germany always offer roasted chicken livers, which is uncommon in the rest of Germany. Apparently, NE Germans seem to have a special craving for this dish. *shrugs*

 

[TNT]

I can't begin to imagine how a Taco Bell works in Britain. Can you even say "Volcano Quesarito" with your accent, or do you have to write it out on something and show it to the cashier?

Quite frankly, I've not a clue how to even attempt saying that... Our menu is very limited compared to yours, we really only have 4 or 5 main meal options with a small number of different combinations.

 

[birdsandbats]

Quite frankly, I've not a clue how to even attempt saying that... Our menu is very limited compared to yours, we really only have 4 or 5 main meal options with a small number of different combinations.

"Kay-sa-ree-toe" Please attach a recording of you trying to say it in a British accent.

 

[Chlidonias]

I had a Google and, somewhat bizarrely (to me), Taco Bell is actually in New Zealand now! The first store opened in Auckland in 2019. There are already five stores in Auckland now, two in Christchurch, and one each in Dunedin, Rotorua, and Taupiri.
Taco Bell New Zealand Menu — Taco Bell NZ

The Taco Bell brand is owned by Nasdaq-listed Yum! Brands, but the New Zealand restaurants are operated by New Zealand sharemarket-listed Restaurant Brands, which also owns the New Zealand rights to the KFC, Pizza Hut, and Carl’s Jr.
Taco Bell restaurant coming to Wellington's Cuba St
I didn't know Carl's Jr was in New Zealand either. I'm not a fast food sort of guy.

 

[Coelacanth18]

Chapter 8: Coelacanth Bueller’s Day Off: Farming Likes By Recycling Old Material

Hope you’re all having a super-relaxing Thursday! With a lot of work still to be done on some of the remaining reviews – namely, that none of them have technically be written yet – I decided to give myself a bit of a “cheat day” and re-review a facility I reported on a couple years ago. The title is more a joke than admission of guilt, however; after re-visiting in roughly the same timeframe as the previous two zoos, I thought it would be a good comparison as a small Appalachian zoo that has chosen a different focus and approach to the other two. Also, the first review I did was bare-bones and didn’t include any media embeds... and everybody is liking those, right? I’ve gotten zero feedback on it, but as usual I’m sure I’m right.

Western North Carolina Nature Center
Location: Asheville, North Carolina
Size: ~5 acres
Species Count: 38
Closed Areas: none
Noteworthy Species: none
Price: $14 admission
Recommended Time: 1 hour or less

Species List (updated from Jan 2020): Species List and Review (Jan 2020) [Western North Carolina Nature Center]
Media Gallery: Western North Carolina Nature Center - ZooChat

Asheville is an interesting little city located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians, arguably one of the most picturesque parts of the mountain range; the famous Blue Ridge Parkway runs through here, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park is 90 minutes away. The city itself has a bustling downtown area, stocked with one of America’s largest collections of Art Deco architecture (protected from redevelopment by 50 years of financial stagnation after the regional banking economy collapsed in 1929). The city is one of both tourism and the arts: local art galleries and live music fill the storefronts and the streets, while organic restaurants abound alongside Western mystic shops selling crystals and dreamcatchers. Coffee is served out of a renovated red double-decker bus while microbreweries around the corner fill countless growlers with craft grog. And on the outskirts of this place is the third and final small Appalachian zoo I’ll be reviewing – the Western North Carolina Nature Center.

The W-Double-NC is – like everything in the Appalachians – surrounded by and within dense woods, and feels very much like a “center of nature” while you weave along the fairly short path through the forest and past enclosures for almost entirely native species. In the spirit of @lintworm's “Europe’s 50 must see zoos” (which is well on track to win a title for Best Thread of All Time – if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best!), I like highlighting this place because it feels like a prime example of what a small, well-done zoo for local species looks like in the US of A. On a personal note, it’s also one of my favorite small zoos I’ve been to and I’m enthusiastic about the developments they have in the pipeline for the new future.

1st photo credit: @Chili

Par for the course compared to last time, don’t expect anything big from this place; the entire zoo has roughly the same number of non-domestic species as Mill Mountain, and more than half are located in one building. The remaining animals include 12 wild mammals, 4 wild birds, and a farm area with chickens and various barnyard hoofstock. In a rare twist for an American zoo (at least in my experience), one has to walk through the red farmyard barn and around the petting area to even *get* to the rest of the exhibits – there’s no ignoring the goats and pigs here! On the opposite side of the barn from humanity’s best food friends, a Striped Skunk was dozing the winter away in a wooden barn-themed exhibit.

Past that is the main loop. A string quartet of raptors live in a row of small aviaries – Barn Owl, Great Horned Owl, Red-tailed Hawk and Turkey Vulture. I’d make a joke about which one plays the cello and why, but I’m not well-versed enough in classical music to make a good quip about it. The raptors look across a large meadow with a boardwalk going across it, which is where the Black Bear and White-tailed Deer habitats are located. The bear yard is nothing special but is an appreciable size with some climbing opportunities, while the deer have more room than some zoos’ giraffe herds get. Fun fact: one of the deer is a movie star! Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri? When Frances McDormand is talking to the deer that wanders up to her? What a natural.

The path continues on towards the rest of the zoo’s carnivore collection – and a fairly comprehensive one at that. A pair of exhibits are shared first by a Bobcat and a Puma; this is followed by two fantastic yards for Gray Wolf and Red Wolf. The gray wolves are on a slope right before the loop turns back towards itself and goes uphill, so glass viewing windows are located upslope and downslope. The two exhibits give great views of the majestic wild dogs, while another chain enclosure nearby rounds out the large American dog trio with Coyote. In my experience, wolf enclosures in American zoos tend to be very good – but the excellent viewing angles are not usually a given, especially for smaller facilities that often rely on cheap chain-link.

The next exhibit is fairly new, and houses a pair of every American’s favorite cuddly red carnivores: Red Pandas. For all of you who are already furiously typing up a snarky remark like “Wow, I must’ve missed Red Panda being an American species ” or some diatribe about blatant crowd pandering or something like that, take your carpal tunnel braces off and let me explain. About an hour north of Asheville in the Tennessee Appalachians, a Miocene fossil deposit contained a very large relative of the red panda (dubbed “Bristol’s Panda”), so at one point a kind of panda *was*, in fact, a North American native. In an Elephant Odyssey-esque idea, the Nature Center decided to bring in Red Pandas as part of a planned exhibit expansion showcasing living species alongside their extinct American relatives. It’s unclear how much of that idea is still on the drawing board – none of the Nature Center’s plans for the next few years involve expanding on the concept any further – but for now the pandas are here and everybody can just deal with it. The panda exhibit itself is a small and basic affair, but does have a glass-fronted indoor shelter giving a view of a very modern and sleek holding area equipped for a breeding pair.

A trio of (native) fox enclosures follow; while one was home to Raccoon during my early 2020 visit, now a pair of Gray Foxes live separately while Red Fox inhabits the other. A cool feature about these fox enclosures is a simple but effective detail, also found in the Red Panda habitat: boards attached horizontally to the enclosure wall – some with small tunnels – give the foxes vertical space as well as places to hide from the weather and the people-peeping. Nearby, a pair of rocky enclosures for crowd-pleasing River Otters rounds out the outdoor exhibits – one with a built-in pool and underwater viewing.

The final part of the zoo is Appalachian Station – a rustic-looking wood-and-stone building housing the zoo’s ectotherm collection (and for a time recently – though unfortunately no longer it seems – a Least Weasel). The building has 22 species split across two rooms, with some very nice displays for a comprehensive collection of eastern American herptiles. Though none of them are particularly rare, a few species are not common among larger zoos that focus more on exotic species and “popular” natives like rattlesnakes.

Spoiler: Appalachian Station Species

Species List: Eastern Garter Snake, Rough Green Snake, Black Rat Snake, Northern Pine Snake, Timber Rattler, Copperhead, Carolina Anole, Eastern Box Turtle, Eastern Mud Turtle, Eastern Musk Turtle, Painted Turtle, Spotted Turtle, Common Snapping Turtle, Hellbender, Marbled Salamander, Spotted Salamander, Eastern Red-spotted Newt, Gray Tree Frog, American Green Tree Frog, Spring Peeper, American Toad, Brook Trout

With some recent construction projects done, the zoo’s plans for the next 4-5 years include adding a boardwalk extension with new raptor aviaries and a native songbird aviary, both of which will expand the zoo’s currently meager bird collection. While again the WNC Nature Center is a blip on the landscape and will likely always be out of the way even for most American ZooChatters, it’s a must-see if you’re ever in the area and serves as a model for what a lot of small zoos could look like if they turned to focus on the wild animals in their backyard. Mill Mountain Zoo has expressed a desire to move their collection towards a similar Appalachian/Virginia-focused collection, so I believe the interest could exist.

Fast Food Review of the Day: Sonic

While Sonic’s food is underwhelming and not really worth the trouble IMO, there’s one very close to the WNC Nature Center and I felt there were a couple reasons to give it a paragraph or two. Sonic is a reminder of a past era in American dining that has largely been disappeared by early versions and progenitors of the very restaurants I’ve been reviewing so far. Back in the early post-war era of the 1950’s, the common model were drive-in restaurants: you park your car at a menu, order over a speaker, and then the food is delivered out on a tray to you by a carhop. If any of you have seen The Founder with Michael Keaton, you’ll remember it as the restaurant style Ray Kroc thought sucked and should be replaced nationwide with rapid-fast chains like McDonald’s. He eventually got his wish... almost. In the 21st century, Sonic is the primary chain still employing this style across the American heartland; its carhops roller-skating out to your vehicle with hot dogs and popcorn chicken in tow is a hearkening back to an era myself and the majority of others on this forum were not alive for.

There is one aspect in which Sonic remains notable besides its dining style, and that’s its drink menu. Offering over 40 different individual beverages, its main claims to fame are its slushes (for those unfamiliar: like shaved ice with drink consistency) and various flavors of limeade. I’ve known people who frequent Sonic solely for the drinks, and I can’t blame them; if you want to break out of the mold of Cokes and milkshakes, finding a sweet fruity beverage to enjoy at Sonic is easier than accepting free tickets to the San Diegos.

Aside
If today’s review felt a bit brief or slightly less clever than usual, my apologies; I slammed this out last night and this morning so that I’d have something done before half the forum scatters for the weekend (where do you all go, anyway? It’s like you have families or other hobbies or something, it’s weird). That being said, I’ll start working on Monday’s review tomorrow and I’m very excited about it. Unlike the semi-recycling I did today, the next review will cover a brand-new, undocumented exhibit complex that flew under most people’s radar last year... and yet having seen it for myself, I’m confident in saying it’s now one of the best of its kind I've seen and might be enough to put the zoo on the map for a lot of you. Anyway, go enjoy your weekend, doing whatever it is you all do then. You’re not all hanging out without me or something, right?

... Right?

 

[TNT]

the first review I did was bare-bones and didn’t include any media embeds... and everybody is liking those, right?

Hell yeah we are!!

 

[birdsandbats]

Chapter 8: Coelacanth Bueller’s Day Off: Farming Likes By Recycling Old Material

Hope you’re all having a super-relaxing Thursday! With a lot of work still to be done on some of the remaining reviews – namely, that none of them have technically be written yet – I decided to give myself a bit of a “cheat day” and re-review a facility I reported on a couple years ago. The title is more a joke than admission of guilt, however; after re-visiting in roughly the same timeframe as the previous two zoos, I thought it would be a good comparison as a small Appalachian zoo that has chosen a different focus and approach to the other two. Also, the first review I did was bare-bones and didn’t include any media embeds... and everybody is liking those, right? I’ve gotten zero feedback on it, but as usual I’m sure I’m right.

Western North Carolina Nature Center
Location: Asheville, North Carolina
Size: ~5 acres
Species Count: 38
Closed Areas: none
Noteworthy Species: none
Price: $14 admission
Recommended Time: 1 hour or less

Species List (updated from Jan 2020): Species List and Review (Jan 2020) [Western North Carolina Nature Center]
Media Gallery: Western North Carolina Nature Center - ZooChat

Asheville is an interesting little city located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians, arguably one of the most picturesque parts of the mountain range; the famous Blue Ridge Parkway runs through here, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park is 90 minutes away. The city itself has a bustling downtown area, stocked with one of America’s largest collections of Art Deco architecture (protected from redevelopment by 50 years of financial stagnation after the regional banking economy collapsed in 1929). The city is one of both tourism and the arts: local art galleries and live music fill the storefronts and the streets, while organic restaurants abound alongside Western mystic shops selling crystals and dreamcatchers. Coffee is served out of a renovated red double-decker bus while microbreweries around the corner fill countless growlers with craft grog. And on the outskirts of this place is the third and final small Appalachian zoo I’ll be reviewing – the Western North Carolina Nature Center.

The W-Double-NC is – like everything in the Appalachians – surrounded by and within dense woods, and feels very much like a “center of nature” while you weave along the fairly short path through the forest and past enclosures for almost entirely native species. In the spirit of @lintworm's “Europe’s 50 must see zoos” (which is well on track to win a title for Best Thread of All Time – if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best!), I like highlighting this place because it feels like a prime example of what a small, well-done zoo for local species looks like in the US of A. On a personal note, it’s also one of my favorite small zoos I’ve been to and I’m enthusiastic about the developments they have in the pipeline for the new future.

1st photo credit: @Chili

Par for the course compared to last time, don’t expect anything big from this place; the entire zoo has roughly the same number of non-domestic species as Mill Mountain, and more than half are located in one building. The remaining animals include 12 wild mammals, 4 wild birds, and a farm area with chickens and various barnyard hoofstock. In a rare twist for an American zoo (at least in my experience), one has to walk through the red farmyard barn and around the petting area to even *get* to the rest of the exhibits – there’s no ignoring the goats and pigs here! On the opposite side of the barn from humanity’s best food friends, a Striped Skunk was dozing the winter away in a wooden barn-themed exhibit.

Past that is the main loop. A string quartet of raptors live in a row of small aviaries – Barn Owl, Great Horned Owl, Red-tailed Hawk and Turkey Vulture. I’d make a joke about which one plays the cello and why, but I’m not well-versed enough in classical music to make a good quip about it. The raptors look across a large meadow with a boardwalk going across it, which is where the Black Bear and White-tailed Deer habitats are located. The bear yard is nothing special but is an appreciable size with some climbing opportunities, while the deer have more room than some zoos’ giraffe herds get. Fun fact: one of the deer is a movie star! Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri? When Frances McDormand is talking to the deer that wanders up to her? What a natural.

The path continues on towards the rest of the zoo’s carnivore collection – and a fairly comprehensive one at that. A pair of exhibits are shared first by a Bobcat and a Puma; this is followed by two fantastic yards for Gray Wolf and Red Wolf. The gray wolves are on a slope right before the loop turns back towards itself and goes uphill, so glass viewing windows are located upslope and downslope. The two exhibits give great views of the majestic wild dogs, while another chain enclosure nearby rounds out the large American dog trio with Coyote. In my experience, wolf enclosures in American zoos tend to be very good – but the excellent viewing angles are not usually a given, especially for smaller facilities that often rely on cheap chain-link.

The next exhibit is fairly new, and houses a pair of every American’s favorite cuddly red carnivores: Red Pandas. For all of you who are already furiously typing up a snarky remark like “Wow, I must’ve missed Red Panda being an American species ” or some diatribe about blatant crowd pandering or something like that, take your carpal tunnel braces off and let me explain. About an hour north of Asheville in the Tennessee Appalachians, a Miocene fossil deposit contained a very large relative of the red panda (dubbed “Bristol’s Panda”), so at one point a kind of panda *was*, in fact, a North American native. In an Elephant Odyssey-esque idea, the Nature Center decided to bring in Red Pandas as part of a planned exhibit expansion showcasing living species alongside their extinct American relatives. It’s unclear how much of that idea is still on the drawing board – none of the Nature Center’s plans for the next few years involve expanding on the concept any further – but for now the pandas are here and everybody can just deal with it. The panda exhibit itself is a small and basic affair, but does have a glass-fronted indoor shelter giving a view of a very modern and sleek holding area equipped for a breeding pair.

A trio of (native) fox enclosures follow; while one was home to Raccoon during my early 2020 visit, now a pair of Gray Foxes live separately while Red Fox inhabits the other. A cool feature about these fox enclosures is a simple but effective detail, also found in the Red Panda habitat: boards attached horizontally to the enclosure wall – some with small tunnels – give the foxes vertical space as well as places to hide from the weather and the people-peeping. Nearby, a pair of rocky enclosures for crowd-pleasing River Otters rounds out the outdoor exhibits – one with a built-in pool and underwater viewing.

The final part of the zoo is Appalachian Station – a rustic-looking wood-and-stone building housing the zoo’s ectotherm collection (and for a time recently – though unfortunately no longer it seems – a Least Weasel). The building has 22 species split across two rooms, with some very nice displays for a comprehensive collection of eastern American herptiles. Though none of them are particularly rare, a few species are not common among larger zoos that focus more on exotic species and “popular” natives like rattlesnakes.

Spoiler: Appalachian Station Species

Species List: Eastern Garter Snake, Rough Green Snake, Black Rat Snake, Northern Pine Snake, Timber Rattler, Copperhead, Carolina Anole, Eastern Box Turtle, Eastern Mud Turtle, Eastern Musk Turtle, Painted Turtle, Spotted Turtle, Common Snapping Turtle, Hellbender, Marbled Salamander, Spotted Salamander, Eastern Red-spotted Newt, Gray Tree Frog, American Green Tree Frog, Spring Peeper, American Toad, Brook Trout

With some recent construction projects done, the zoo’s plans for the next 4-5 years include adding a boardwalk extension with new raptor aviaries and a native songbird aviary, both of which will expand the zoo’s currently meager bird collection. While again the WNC Nature Center is a blip on the landscape and will likely always be out of the way even for most American ZooChatters, it’s a must-see if you’re ever in the area and serves as a model for what a lot of small zoos could look like if they turned to focus on the wild animals in their backyard. Mill Mountain Zoo has expressed a desire to move their collection towards a similar Appalachian/Virginia-focused collection, so I believe the interest could exist.

Fast Food Review of the Day: Sonic

While Sonic’s food is underwhelming and not really worth the trouble IMO, there’s one very close to the WNC Nature Center and I felt there were a couple reasons to give it a paragraph or two. Sonic is a reminder of a past era in American dining that has largely been disappeared by early versions and progenitors of the very restaurants I’ve been reviewing so far. Back in the early post-war era of the 1950’s, the common model were drive-in restaurants: you park your car at a menu, order over a speaker, and then the food is delivered out on a tray to you by a carhop. If any of you have seen The Founder with Michael Keaton, you’ll remember it as the restaurant style Ray Kroc thought sucked and should be replaced nationwide with rapid-fast chains like McDonald’s. He eventually got his wish... almost. In the 21st century, Sonic is the primary chain still employing this style across the American heartland; its carhops roller-skating out to your vehicle with hot dogs and popcorn chicken in tow is a hearkening back to an era myself and the majority of others on this forum were not alive for.

There is one aspect in which Sonic remains notable besides its dining style, and that’s its drink menu. Offering over 40 different individual beverages, its main claims to fame are its slushes (for those unfamiliar: like shaved ice with drink consistency) and various flavors of limeade. I’ve known people who frequent Sonic solely for the drinks, and I can’t blame them; if you want to break out of the mold of Cokes and milkshakes, finding a sweet fruity beverage to enjoy at Sonic is easier than accepting free tickets to the San Diegos.

Aside
If today’s review felt a bit brief or slightly less clever than usual, my apologies; I slammed this out last night and this morning so that I’d have something done before half the forum scatters for the weekend (where do you all go, anyway? It’s like you have families or other hobbies or something, it’s weird). That being said, I’ll start working on Monday’s review tomorrow and I’m very excited about it. Unlike the semi-recycling I did today, the next review will cover a brand-new, undocumented exhibit complex that flew under most people’s radar last year... and yet having seen it for myself, I’m confident in saying it’s now one of the best of its kind I've seen and might be enough to put the zoo on the map for a lot of you. Anyway, go enjoy your weekend, doing whatever it is you all do then. You’re not all hanging out without me or something, right?

... Right?

While there aren't any Sonics in my area (anymore, there used to be one), there is a surprising amount of little family-owned drive-in style restaurants with great food. I don't know why this style of restaurant has survived in northeast Wisconsin of all places, but it did.

 

[aardvark250]

Can't believe a blue hedgehog now have a fast food chain.
Anyway, as much as it's focus in native collection, there's no way this little zoo could make it into "America 100 must see zoos" is it lol

 

[Coelacanth18]

Anyway, as much as it's focus in native collection, there's no way this little zoo could make it into "America 100 must see zoos" is it lol

Not sure to be honest. As far as I understand their intention, that thread wasn't really a "top 50 zoos in Europe" thread; it aimed to represent a diversity of the different types of collections that are around in Europe, not all of which rank among the best zoos (although it focused largely on the best collections). Whether or not WNC Nature Center would make such a list depends on your criteria I guess. My point was more just that this zoo is a good example of a specific type of American facility most non-Americans wouldn't know as much about, other than big top-tier examples like Northwest Trek and ASDM.

 

[AthleticBinturong]

Not sure to be honest. As far as I understand their intention, that thread wasn't really a "top 50 zoos in Europe" thread; it aimed to represent a diversity of the different types of collections that are around in Europe, not all of which rank among the best zoos (although it focused largely on the best collections). Whether or not WNC Nature Center would make such a list depends on your criteria I guess. My point was more just that this zoo is a good example of a specific type of American facility most non-Americans wouldn't know as much about, other than big top-tier examples like Northwest Trek and ASDM.

Definitely, I think the inclusion for example AlpenZoo Innsbruck for example goes to show it wasn’t a list compiling the 50 best but the 50 must dees in their own rights

 

[amur leopard]

Definitely, I think the inclusion for example AlpenZoo Innsbruck for example goes to show it wasn’t a list compiling the 50 best but the 50 must dees in their own rights

Call me crazy but AlpenZoo would make top 50 best either way. Somewhere like Obterre wouldn’t, though.

 

[TinoPup]

A nice review, and great photos. I'd been wondering about the pandas, that's such an interesting reason! If only they followed through with the est of whatever they had planned. While the place is no longer on my "absolutely must stop" list (that's what happens when you no longer have a very tiny weasel), it looks like a neat place to spend an hour.

I've never been to Sonic, it confuses me. There used to be 3 near me, now there's only one. One is a used car dealership, the other got knocked down and replaced with the first starbucks in the area.