ABC Zoos

Gary

Well-Known Member
Inspired by a comment on another thread-the old style ABC zoo seems in itself to be an endangered species now-can you think of any/many in the UK?

To qualify, I would suggest they should have the basic zoo animals in a child's toy box:

Elephant
Rhino
Hippo
Giraffe
Zebra
Camel
Kangaroo
Lion
Tiger
Bear
Monkey
Ape
Penguin
Parrot
Snake
Crocodile

These days, the most ubiqitous animals would be the Meerkat and the Ring-tailed Lemur, but not in the old-style collections of my youth (1970s).

Thoughts?
 
colchester zoo has all the basic animals that kids love:D

Well, going by Gary's list it's missing bears and kangaroos.

(I'm assuming here we're not counting wallabies!)

London's missing bears, kangaroos, elephants and rhinos.

Whipsnade is only missing kangaroos, and has hundreds of wallabies, so probably comes closest.

Chester is missing hippos (and now sea lions, which is one I would probably add to Gary's list).


I don't think there are any UK zoos with all of those species, but quite a few come close.
 
Whipsnade is only missing kangaroos, and has hundreds of wallabies, so probably comes closest.

I'd argue that Whipsnade may not have Monkey's either, I know they've got Marmosets but I'm unsure that they should qualify as a Monkey for ABC purposes.

Perversely though, in the context of this thread, I'm happy to let Pygmy Hippos be Hippos.
 
Unless things have changed - White-faced Sakis in the Discovery Centre?


EDIT: This, of course, if a reference to Whipsnade - cross posted there!
 
Unless things have changed - White-faced Sakis in the Discovery Centre?

Whoops , my error :o sorry there! My memory might be better if Whipsnade wasn't so expensive to visit more often:)

Whipsnade the champ then, there's almost an argument that from a general public perspective that Whipsnade's Wallabies might suffice as Kangaroos -but I'm not going there:)
 
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Whipsnade the champ then, there's almost an argument that from a general public perspective that Whipsnade's Wallabies might suffice as Kangaroos -but I'm not going there:)

Of course, many languages (German, for example) don't differentiate, and it's all Macropus at the end of the day! :D
 
Guess Edinburgh is anything but an ABC zoo then!
 
Unless things have changed - White-faced Sakis in the Discovery Centre?

... and to be honest, I think most punters would count the Chimps as monkeys (us taxonomic pedants are in the minority).
 
I would allow wallabies to qualify as kangaroos.

And any lower primate as a monkey.

And yes, I meant to include sealions-there was at least one pool on my old Britains zoo.

Gosh, I wish I still had that.
 
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