Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia Zoo News 2022

What do they wanna do with African Plains? The last master plan I looked at suggested a big series of flex habitats but I'm not sure as of 2022
 
What do they wanna do with African Plains? The last master plan I looked at suggested a big series of flex habitats but I'm not sure as of 2022
Idk anything. It’s so old and outdated. The only nice habitat is The Phase which unfortunately has been cut down over time.
 
Since 2019, Philadelphia has lost 9 goats including two Nigerian dwarf goats, two Arapawa goats, two Golden Guernesy goats, a Saanen goat, a Toggenburg goat and an Angora goat

This doesn't seem that unusual to me. I don't know how many goats Philly has, but I know a lot of zoos tend to get a lot of young goats around the same time, which leads to times with a lot of aging goats, followed by a cycle with more young goats. So Philadelphia I'd assume got a lot of young goats about 10-15 years ago, and is now in the part of the cycle where a lot of elderly goats are passing away.
 
This doesn't seem that unusual to me. I don't know how many goats Philly has, but I know a lot of zoos tend to get a lot of young goats around the same time, which leads to times with a lot of aging goats, followed by a cycle with more young goats. So Philadelphia I'd assume got a lot of young goats about 10-15 years ago, and is now in the part of the cycle where a lot of elderly goats are passing away.
Yeah, many of the zoos goats are original kidzoou residents so they are pretty old. The only new goats in recent years are 5 Oberhasli goats that came in 2020, a 4 year old Arapawa goat named Mirabelle who was born at Philly Zoo and the 3 new baby saanen goats that just arrived. With a total of currently 27 goats, 18 of them have been longtime residents. Most have been here since the opening of KidZooU.
 
Yeah, many of the zoos goats are original kidzoou residents so they are pretty old. The only new goats in recent years are 5 Oberhasli goats that came in 2020, a 4 year old Arapawa goat named Mirabelle who was born at Philly Zoo and the 3 new baby saanen goats that just arrived. With a total of currently 27 goats, 18 of them have been longtime residents. Most have been here since the opening of KidZooU.
I have a list of the zoos goats:
Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Comet(M)
Mocha Joe(M)
Kit(M) cross Arapawa?
Jordan(M)
Buckley(M)
Parker(M)
Mason(M)d. Feb 2022
Logan(M)d. May 2022

Angora goats
Chance(M)
Amarelis(F)
Milan(F)d. Feb 2022

Golden Guernesy goats
Nebble(M)
Nathaniel(M)d. 2019/20?
Noah(M)d. 2020/21?

Arapawa goats
Dale(F)
Sage(F)
Sheldon(M)
Mirabelle(F)
5 more females idk their names(all in north yard with Sage)
deceased male age 11, idk name(died during covid)

Oberhasli goats
Star(F)
Mickey(M)
Stripe(F)
Maggie(F)
May(F)

Saanen goats
Spunky(M)
Breezy(M)d. April 2022
3 new babies arrived July 2022 idk names/sex

Toggenburg goat
Patrick(M) d. Spring 2020
 
Some changes from my visit today.
-The titi monkeys are living off exhibit since they did not get along with Grogu the sloth. There are talks about moving some of the sloths out, and they expect the titi monkeys to move to a new exhibit sometime this fall.
-The flamingos and southern ground hornbills are back in their yards.
-In McNeil Avian Center, the peacocks that once roamed around the zoo are in the front atrium exhibit with great blue turaco. The Argus pheasant moved back to the rainforest section and the birds-of-paradise moved in with the peacocks and turaco. The Hartlaub’s ducks moved to another zoo and the sign was removed.
-In Kidzoou, Jordan the Nigerian dwarf goat is inside recovering from a rash. We hope to have him back out soon, but in the meantime with his rash he is not allowed to be pet. He still comes out at night when the zoo is closed. Visitors can view him inside his stall and there is always another goat in there to keep him company.
-In African Plains, Charlotte the red river hog is still with us. I once again only saw two hogs and did not see her but during a keeper chat someone told me she was still alive.
-In the Reptile House, the banded rock rattlesnake is gone and has been replaced by a different snake who is unsigned, which is probably a milksnake or a king snake?
-Stewart, the blue-eyed black lemur, passed away last week. He had been suffering health issues the last several years as kidney disease was discovered in him several years ago, and liver disease was discovered in early 2021. He was doing well for over a year but recently his body started to fail, and they euthanized him before he would be in pain and get very sick. He was 32 and the oldest blue-eyed lemur in the world. The zoo is still left with Bardot, a 30-year-old female who is the oldest female blue-eyed lemur.
 
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Some changes from my visit today.
-The Andean geese are back outside in their yard in Bird Valley. They are currently where the wattled cranes lived before HPAI. One of the black necked swans was also out in the same exhibit but I am not sure if the zoo still has two.
-In the Reptile House, for the last three visits I have only seen one black tree monitor and eastern massasauga. In the past sometimes one was hiding where I couldn’t see it, but three times in a row is pretty concerning that one has passed away. The banded rock rattlesnake is also gone, and has been replaced with an unsigned snake(looks like a milksnake to me).
- I only saw the three Galapagos tortoises out in their yard, so I am not sure what is going on with Wilma and Betty the Aldabras. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were in Bird Valley.
-A new baby prehensile-tailed skink was born in July, and is on exhibit with its parents and two older sibilings
-Didn’t see the Wolf, cheetahs, or spider monkeys, probably due to the extreme heat.
 
Probably visiting this Friday -- the birds are back and it's the only day of respite from the ongoing heat wave (will only hit 85 in the afternoon).
 
Probably visiting this Friday -- the birds are back and it's the only day of respite from the ongoing heat wave (will only hit 85 in the afternoon).

Things of note:
- The birds are coming back out but in piecemeal. Waterfowl, flamingos, emus, and hornbills are back; penguins, storks, and raptors still off-exhibit. McNeil Avian Center still in the situation that @Kevin2342 brought up. Some of the Wings of Asia birds are in Water of Life opposite to the red pandas (I saw a golden pheasant and two tragopans).

- Did not see the new prehensile-tailed skink baby. One of the adults was peeking out of the nest basket so I assume it was in there somewhere.

- Otherwise, most outdoor animals were out and about. Only ones I didn't see were the sloth bear, colobus monkeys, Amur leopard, and maned wolf. Every single felid was asleep but that's to be expected.

- The only animals I caught using Zoo360 were the Francois langurs. The mangabeys were also apparently outside but I couldn't spot them.

- For being the hot new additions, no one seems to pay any attention to the watusi cattle, though it's hard to compete with the hippos, giraffes, and rhino being on the other side of the path. One red river hog was grazing with the cattle; I got a glimpse of the other one on the other side (which is where the mhorr gazelle was hanging out)

- Since it was mentioned last page, the snapping turtle is on exhibit and perfectly fine.

- The Canada geese are as fearless as ever.
 
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Things of note:
- The birds are coming back out but in piecemeal. Waterfowl, flamingos, emus, and hornbills are back; penguins, storks, and raptors still off-exhibit. McNeil Avian Center still in the situation that @Kevin2342 brought up. Some of the Wings of Asia birds are in Water of Life opposite to the red pandas (I saw a golden pheasant and two tragopans).

- Did not see the new prehensile-tailed skink baby. One of the adults was peeking out of the nest basket so I assume it was in there somewhere.

- Otherwise, most outdoor animals were out and about. Only ones I didn't see were the sloth bear, colobus monkeys, Amur leopard, and maned wolf. Every single felid was asleep but that's to be expected.

- The only animals I caught using Zoo360 were the Francois langurs. The mangabeys were also apparently outside but I couldn't spot them.

- For being the hot new additions, no one seems to pay any attention to the watusi cattle, though it's hard to compete with the hippos, giraffes, and rhino being on the other side of the path. One red river hog was grazing with the cattle; I got a glimpse of the other one on the other side (which is where the mhorr gazelle was hanging out)

- Since it was mentioned last page, the snapping turtle is on exhibit and perfectly fine.

- The Canada geese are as fearless as ever.
The prehensile-tailed skinks like to hide a lot. I didn’t see the baby either. The sloth bears sometimes are hard to find. It is hard to see them if they are laying in the moat or they may have been inside. The colobus monkeys usually are in the indoor gorilla habitat or Gorilla Treeway. The Amur leopards are sometimes a trick to finding. Recently, Emma, the oldest leopard, likes to hang out on the rocks in the bamboo forest habitat(look through the mesh and bamboo as soon as you pass the theater.) Last time I also did not see a leopard in the Jaguar Habitat(which where Nelkan the male has been a lot recently.) Nothing should be wrong with him, though, because if he wasn’t allowed to come out they would have put another big cat in there. Maybe he has a secret hiding spot during hot weather. The felines like to sleep a lot during summer and are more active in the winter(except the lions most of the time.) There is only one elderly mangabey, Storm, who which the sign on his exhibit says he is on Zoo360 he should have been there, you just didn’t see him since the trail extends a long way. Some people probably don’t pay attention to the watusi cattle since they are domestic. Did you see all three red river hogs or just two?

The Canada geese are always so annoying. Always trying to steal human food. I was at the zoo once on a field trip in 2018, and one tried to steal my blueberry bagel. It didn’t cause they are scared to steal from the table.
 
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The zoo has announced the death of male Blue-eyed Black Lemur, Stewart. A slow-growing tumor in his liver was beginning to impact his diaphragm and cause breathing issues, so the zoo made the decision to euthanize. At 32, Stewart was the oldest Blue-eyed Black Lemur on record, as the species’ usual life expectancy is 20-25 years in human care.
 
The zoo has announced the death of male Blue-eyed Black Lemur, Stewart. A slow-growing tumor in his liver was beginning to impact his diaphragm and cause breathing issues, so the zoo made the decision to euthanize. At 32, Stewart was the oldest Blue-eyed Black Lemur on record, as the species’ usual life expectancy is 20-25 years in human care.

Already mentioned on the thread, #206.
 
The zoo just announced that they have two new honey bee colonies at the zoo. I suppose they will be free roaming. I saw this news on an Instagram post in which bee keepers were bringing bees to the zoo near African Plains.
 
The zoo just announced that they have two new honey bee colonies at the zoo. I suppose they will be free roaming. I saw this news on an Instagram post in which bee keepers were bringing bees to the zoo near African Plains.

I just commented this on the Instagram post, but this move seems a bit irresponsible. Honeybees are domestic animals, not native to the US, and not in any danger of going extinct. Meanwhile many native bees are, and one of the things that threatens them is competition from honeybees, as well as potential disease spread by domestic bees. Honeybees are fine on a farm or orchard where they have crops to pollinate and do what they were bred to do, but in a zoo setting where they will drive away native pollinators this seems ill-researched…
 
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