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Zootierliste Goes Worldwide
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Something I would like to say, having now done a lot of looking around the North American parts of ZTL - This is not a race, everyone! The goal is accuracy, not speed of filling it in!
There are errors absolutely everywhere - including very, very easy ones to avoid. Wrong subspecies listings everywhere, former holders as current holders and vice versa, wrong holder information, listings without references (even very easily confirmed species like African Elephant! Half their current NA list has no references at all!) People are using outdated ZC holder threads and filling in wrong information. I know a couple of people who are frustrated because they keep having to fix listings they had accurate, and over and over other people are messing it up. There are numerous messages on the notice board of "I accidentally did this, fix it please" and "please add this species" when the species is already present in the database. Some mistakes are inevitable of course, but some people are clearly going too fast and have made multiple fix requests.
Genuinely, strive for accuracy and to make this the best it can be, instead of a hot mess for the admins to fix on request later! If you don't know or aren't sure, let it wait for someone else who does know! I know everyone's excited, but let's please remember it's not in anyone's interest to be making wrong listings!
There are errors absolutely everywhere - including very, very easy ones to avoid. Wrong subspecies listings everywhere, former holders as current holders and vice versa, wrong holder information, listings without references (even very easily confirmed species like African Elephant! Half their current NA list has no references at all!) People are using outdated ZC holder threads and filling in wrong information. I know a couple of people who are frustrated because they keep having to fix listings they had accurate, and over and over other people are messing it up. There are numerous messages on the notice board of "I accidentally did this, fix it please" and "please add this species" when the species is already present in the database. Some mistakes are inevitable of course, but some people are clearly going too fast and have made multiple fix requests.
Genuinely, strive for accuracy and to make this the best it can be, instead of a hot mess for the admins to fix on request later! If you don't know or aren't sure, let it wait for someone else who does know! I know everyone's excited, but let's please remember it's not in anyone's interest to be making wrong listings!
Nile Hippo Expert
Well-Known Member
I have also noticed many errors but that's okay because I don't think any websites on earth is 100% accurate.
Of course there are. People should be striving to be accurate, not first. Information is pointless if it's incorrect.
To add to what @Great Argus said. Please, do not use websites, for zoos outside of AZA, especially, as your sole source! I am saying this as the person who did the ungulate holders thread, the felid holders thread, and keeps a spreadsheet of all carnivore holders. They are usually years out of date and are completely unreliable. They're one step above asking my dog if a place holds a species. A facility's own social media isn't always reliable, either. The worse-quality zoos, particularly, will re-use photos over and over (especially cropped versions they add holiday, sale, etc messages to), even if they no longer hold a species. When doing holder lists I spent so much time (so, so much time) looking at recent tagged photos, watching videos on youtube of family trips to the zoo, and things like that from visitors that were dated and had visual evidence.
For those that didn't see it in my thread (Subspecies held in the USA, for ZTL). Bison in the USA, outside of a few holders in Alaska, are Plains bison, listed as "Plains buffalo" on ztl. They are NOT hybrids of plains and wood, which is what "no subspecies" is. They have some cattle blood yes, but they are plains bison and treated as such (unless you want to call them cattle hybrids). There are currently 46 incorrect listings on ztl from people not understanding this.
It appears once you are granted Zoofreund status and can make edits.
My best advice to everyone eager to participate is to only do listings for facilities you’ve either just been to or are especially familiar with. I’ve only done listings for Brookfield (local zoo) and the San Diego parks (which I just visited this week) and I’m making sure everything I add is something I saw with my own eyes or was signed.
To the person who listed gaur for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, believe me I wish they were still there too, but it won’t bring them back.
To the person who listed gaur for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, believe me I wish they were still there too, but it won’t bring them back.
To the person who listed gaur for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, believe me I wish they were still there too, but it won’t bring them back.
That appears to have been changed to former, as appropriate, but I see no shortage of other errors in the list unfortunately. The most blatant one being Nubian Ibex listed in both categories.
Yes I removed it from the list of current species. The ibex still should be there, although they are kept in an off-exhibit area only accessible through a paid safari.
Indeed - hence Nubian Ibex shouldn't be in the former category as well as the current.
Please be advised: If you don't add sources your account will be demoted to read only.
This hits the nail on the head. Thank you
This hits the nail on the head. Thank you
Please be advised: If you don't add sources your account will be demoted to read only.
This hits the nail on the head. Thank you
Just to clarify, sources includes personal visits where animals were seen or signed, right?
Kalaw
Well-Known Member
Yes, so long as you provide a date of visit.
Yes. The lack of a source or a very bad one (like just "Google" or something) is the problem.
Will invertebrates ever be added to Zootierliste, or are they strategically excluded due to the difficulty of determining if they're still present in collections? Ex: short lifespans and seasonal imports to butterfly houses, sometimes people can't tell if coral is even real.
Somebody is already taking the whole arm
Jokes aside, my understanding as of why they are not currently listed is because of the much extended taxonomy compared to the vertebrates thus are not easy to ID and for the reasons you yourself listed.
Except for zoos who release their inventories annually (eg. ZSL) it would be much, much harder to ID every single spineless critter in a zoo, and you could wonder if the ones raised to be food would count as well
.
Also to piggyback off of this: I noticed that someone has filled out crocodilian listings for US zoos on ZTL using this holding thread: Crocodilians in American Zoos. I can see how it might make sense to someone to use that as a source, since ZTL is effectively replacing the holder lists; however, that is not how it's supposed to work - for at least two important reasons.
One, there is this problem I pointed out in a different thread, regarding what happens with these holder lists:
The crocodilian holder list had not been fully updated since April 2021, and therefore a lot of the listings that have now been added to ZTL are no longer accurate. Each entry on ZTL needs to be individually verified.
Second - and IMO the larger issue here - is that the holder lists are not actual sources; they are lists compiled using sources. Citing a holder list on ZC is like citing Wikipedia; it is secondhand information compiled by someone else. Sources have generally not been included in holder lists on the forum because (as I see it) 1) they were more informal and only meant for casual referencing, not research-grade citations, and 2) the forum is not properly formatted to include citations without making a list of hundreds of entries unwieldy and difficult to read.
For these reasons, I would please ask everyone to not use ZooChat holder lists as a source on ZTL. It may seem helpful, but it actually creates a headache of trying to figure out whether entries need to be deleted, switched to former, or have better citations added.