Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo - Developments 2016

I wanted to go to the zoo during the week, but I couldn’t. Busy with work. So I went today. I have never seen so much people at the zoo during opening time. There were well over 100 people lined up. The members line backup all the way passed the members signup kiosk. Regular lines reached just before the kiosk. The zoo will definitely make a lot of money this march break. Especially with this weather we’re having.

Since I had to wait 15+minutes to get in, mind you I got there at 9:30am, decided to head to the Indian Rhino. Everyone was going to see the Panda cubs. Sadly, didn’t get a chance to see him. In the indoor exhibit he was lying down behind his mother and the back wall, hidden from sight. I would’ve waited longer, but the crowds of people started building up and they didn’t want overcrowding indoors. Vishnu was outdoors around 11:30am.

Got a chance to see the White Lion Pride out in the exhibit. The cubs were running around playing, while the adults rested. It was a lot of fun to see. I still have to check how my pictures came out. Fintan repeatedly tried mating with one of the girls, not sure which, although I’m assuming Makali. The female wasn’t responsive to his advances.

Jaguars were on exhibit. They were the only ones at the Mayan Temple Ruin.

Didn’t get a chance to see the Polar Bear cub Juno, as the line up was ridiculously long. It stretched from the viewing area to the bridge coming from Eurasia.

All in all, the zoo was extremely busy, messing up my plans of see all the newborns. Lastly, by the time I left the zoo, noonish, the first parking lot was filled. They opened the second parking lot in the grassy field. I, personally, haven’t seen that since 2013 when the Pandas first arrived.
 
cypher, I thought I was the only one crazy enough to visit the zoo today.

I might have been near you at the lions, as I got their exhibit just before 10am and spent most of the day around them.

I will be really interested to see the numbers from this week, as you alluded to the long lines to get in, every food location was open and massively lined up, and the overflow parking lot also looked to be almost full when I was leaving (around 330).

The hippos were out, the girls in the morning and Samson in the afternoon.

Was fortunate enough to catch an impromptu tiger training/talk. The male was put in the transfer unit while two keepers encouraged the female to run back and forth between the two exhibits by running along outside of the exhibit. After they did a training session with the male in the transfer exhibit. They mentioned that they were hopeful to put the two tigers together for breeding in April and that they were making some noise towards each other.
 
Yeah, I couldn't believe how much people were there.

I may have been right next to you at the lions. People were coming and going around me.

I notice that everyone once in awhile they have those training sessions with the Tiger. Wish it happened on regular basis.
 
cypher said:
So here's an article that talks about the financial struggles the zoo has faced since it's opening, although it's a pretty broad analysis.

Toronto Zoo forced to adapt to survive as attendance falls | Toronto Star
Click to expand...

The article as you say is a pretty broad analysis with honestly not all that much information about anything. That's what I hate about the media these days. Take a few tidbits and give no real details about the subject.

Yes the pandas are costly (no article ever has the same numbers so really who the heck knows what they are costing at this point). The drop in attendance was fully expected. The reserve fund is a little drier than expected but one needs to remember a lot of facts impacted that besides weather, other attractions and the expected drop. First off the 2013 breeding season was a loss due to their later than expected arrival due to the gender confusion with Er Shun. It didn't help that Da Mao was a year younger than Er Shun and I think two years younger than Ji Li (the original intended female). That immaturity compromised the 2014 season. Realistically I don't think anyone had great hopes for 2013 but they must have originally had high hopes for 2014. Cubs in 2014 would have meant huge crowds for 2015. And 2014 cubs meant a shot at a 2017 breeding season and possibly an extension in 2018 that would also have been a big year due to cubs. In 5 years they could have tried for two births and had 3 big year draws. As it turned out the zoo will have just two big years. And I love how all articles about zoo attendance seem to focus on the pandas like they were brought in to make or break the zoo and they are failing to live up to expectations. The drop in attendance during the panda visit was never a surprise... under expectations sure... but not unexpected.

It fails to take into account the massive publicity problem created by the elephant debacle. That hurt the zoo's image and realistically had to have hurt attendance. The anti zoos did convince some people that Toronto Zoo is a bad place that doesn't care about the animals.

I did think the part of the article where John Tory points out the zoo might have failed to push their conservation work is true. For awhile there the zoo did stay very quiet about everything. They didn't publicize and celebrate their breeding successes in big ways. I don't really remember too many articles in the 2000's boasting about success. What I do remember was a lot of articles about animal deaths. For awhile there it seemed the only news they wanted to share was the big animal passings. 2006-2011 for example just off the top of my head there was the deaths of...

Elephant Patsy Jul 2006
Indian Rhino Indira Jul 2007
White Rhino Bull Feb 2008
Reindeer calves (male) May 2008 sparks controversy as all male calves were to be put down.
Oranguan Dinding Jul 2008
Elephant Tequila Sep 2008
White Rhino Yeki Sep 2008
Elephant Tessa Jun 2009
Elephant Tara Nov 2009
Tiger Tonghua Feb 2010
Orangutan Molek Jun 2010
Gorilla Samantha Aug 2010
Tiger Regnat Aug 2010
Polar bear twins Jan 2011 that Aurora ate
Lion Nokonda Aug 2011
Polar bear Hudson's 2 siblings Oct 2011 that Aurora attacked
Lion Rowdy Oct 2011
Tiger Brytne Dec 2011 killed by Hari

I left tons off the list. Just went for the ones I know articles have been written about. I decided to stop at 2012 because that feels to me like the time the zoo shifted focus. They stopped sounding all doom and gloom. Sure it took until the end of the year to put the elephant mess behind the zoo but they started focusing on new arrivals and breeding success.

I think it's really taken until last year for them to realize the need to push that success to the forefront. And I'm not just talking about the births of the cute and cuddlies. They are trying to get to people interested in their other projects that are not as visible. There have been articles on turtle, snake and toad breeding programs and releases into the wild. They have received notice with their work on bison AI. There was that article about one of the keepers being on an expedition in Madagascar which rediscovered a species of fish thought to be extinct. Most average zoo goers wouldn't recall the specifics of any of these things but they would remember the zoo in a positive light because of the articles. And by embracing social media they have had better luck getting that conservation message across but lots of work would still need to be done to restore the zoo's image. A good image will certainly help draw in more guests.

That article certainly could have done with a lot more information. It just makes it sound like the zoo is dying which it is far from doing.
 
I would like to see an article that takes a neutral stance at the operations of the zoo, providing proper examples to defend certain claims. Would also like to see what kind of recommendations people that have done proper research would come up with.
 
Check out the zoo's facebook page for some wonderful shots of our new snow leopard Ena who the zoo is just announcing to the public.
 
Great to see that they are actually announcing her arrival and the times she's expected to be on exhibit. From what I recall they don't usually do that.
 
They seem to be realizing the power of social media to attract interest. Hopefully this is a trend that continues and when exciting things happen like births and new arrivals they will announce it. Let's see if the officially announce hyena Kanzi and the eland.
 
In case anyone is wondering, the newborns that went on exhibit during the march break can still be viewed. Here are the hours in which they'll be on exhibit:

Toronto Zoo | Hours
 
Who is ready for some amazing news? Toronto is AZA accredited again!

https://www.aza.org/current-accreditation-list/

Take a look in the T's and there the zoo sits proudly and where it will remain until 2021 when it needs to reapply again as usual. Good job to all of those who worked so hard to get this done!
 
This is fantastic news! If I could have chosen one thing for the zoo to accomplish this year it would be getting accredited again. Congratulations to the zoo for finally making this happen. It was a tough few years, but I'm glad the zoo powered through them. I couldn't be happier!
 
Thank goodness ... at long bloody last.

May Council never ever interfere again in any day-to-day management of zoos ... in general!
 
Board stuff is up again...

Who is ready to get a little excited? The zoo is looking to add a new ride and here is the fantastic part it wont cost the zoo a dime. What is it? Essentially the monorail could come back with board approval. I loved the monorail. A company came to the zoo and said lets do this and we will pay to get it up and going so we can showcase our new system. The zoo will get a 50/50 share of profits for the first 5 years its in place then they will be given everything and the company will just maintain it. I miss the monorail. Did I ever get to see things for more then a second? Not really but I liked it any way. I for one hope this gets approved.

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/zb/bgrd/backgroundfile-91754.pdf
 
This is really exciting news. I love monorails, but I sadly was never able to go on the old one. I didn't read through the entire document, but it seems like there are very few negatives with bringing the monorail back, so why not? I did see that they would be using the same track as the old monorail, which brings up a few questions:

1) What's the point of having a stop in the Canadian Domain if that area is hopefully going to be closed in the next few years?

2) I know that there were some exhibits in the Domain that could be only viewed from the monorail, so would those be brought back? I think it would be a good idea to attract more people, kind of like the Eurasia drive through for the zoo mobile.
 
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