Yes, but i'm mostly referencing the Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys.
There's a few reasons why the panda's inclusion will benefit Beauval:
While I can't argue with the native terraria being an enormous advantage, it is misleading to suggest that the Ural Owls are unanswered by Beauval which does have a fair few temperate forest-based birds of prey. I mentioned that I didn't describe Beauval's bird offerings earlier as I don't remember them too well, but a filter through ZTL reveals that they have the following relevant owls and birds of prey:
I mean, the complex is literally called "Hills of China"....
I fully take your point there. It's a little bit of a dilemma though, as the pagodas in the background and the decoration (both natural and artificial) are part of the viewing experience for the pandas. It's difficult for a voter to separate them from the pandas themselves and their enclosure.Now, I'm definitely not sure whether the wider accompanying theming is permissible even though the two species themselves are - it's akin to allowing the Himalaya exhibit complex at Tierpark Berlin to count as "temperate forest and woodland" on the basis the foothills of the Himalayas comprise more or less the same kind of habitat as that we were discussing earlier
Sorry, I meant strictly in terms of owls and raptors from the biomes in question, which I believe still holds true? You are right about the ravens and other birds, not to mention the European aviary in the bird house that I pictured earlier. It is unfortunate that the various aviaries throughout Beauval, and what species they hold, aren't too well documented on this forum, in the gallery or elsewhere.
My thinking was that we have previously kept the "mountains and poles" and "temperate woodland" categories distinct, and that the fact both are restricted to montane forests is the potential issue - highlighting the fact those forests are in the subtropics rather than temperate latitudes, and that the similar Spectacled Bear has been treated as falling into "tropical forest" and "mountains and poles" elsewhere in the Cup as a result, was secondary. Saying I claimed the two species are restricted to tropical forest is an equally big stretch to me actually making that claim
All that said, given the feedback from others and yourself - and the fact they do sometimes occur in lowland areas - I have been shifting towards allowing the giant pandas whilst still disallowing the snubbies as entirely restricted to montane areas. However, given the fact that a) it won't actually make a difference to the end result at this stage and b) it rather looks like my delay in deciding is causing people to switch to Beauval anyway, I might as well allow both
I wouldn't worry about it too much the match is over but it is a habitat category but there is bound to be some cases where a species counts in more than one habitat category.
It *is* a biome category - the point of my above post was that this particular biome (montane forest in sub-tropical latitudes) had an established precedent for how it would be treated within the categories at hand - "mountains and poles" - which people contested for giant panda and snub-nosed monkey. Then, after I allowed the challenge to succeed, @Philipine eagle argued that previous precedent should actually stand for Spectacled Bear (which lives in the same sort of biome as the two Asian taxa) due to the fact that South American temperate latitudes do not start until as far south as Chile.
In other words, he was arguing that "temperate forest and woodland" should be biome-based for the two Asian species, but geography-based for Spectacled Bear.
Indeed - the other past ruling which pertains to this category is the fact that the boreal forests of northern Eurasia and North America have been established as "temperate forest and woodland" rather than "mountains and poles"