Children's Discovery Center - California Condor Rescue Zone

I know about the budget issues, and to be fair, most of them aren't too terrible. However, a lot of them that contained birds were quite sad:
Andean Condor and Great Curassow- great curassow was average, condor terrible
African Fish Eagle and Steller Sea Eagle- not nearly enough flight space. Somehow their stellers were happy enough to breed at least once
Red Tailed Hawk- no height extension, felt bad for it
Gray Crowned Crane- same as above
Blue Billed Curassow- again, same
I think their next major project should be fixing these or the rhino/hippo/black bear area

jayjds2 said:

I know about the budget issues, and to be fair, most of them aren't too terrible. However, a lot of them that contained birds were quite sad:
Andean Condor and Great Curassow- great curassow was average, condor terrible
African Fish Eagle and Steller Sea Eagle- not nearly enough flight space. Somehow their stellers were happy enough to breed at least once
Red Tailed Hawk- no height extension, felt bad for it
Gray Crowned Crane- same as above
Blue Billed Curassow- again, same
I think their next major project should be fixing these or the rhino/hippo/black bear area

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Hm,interesting. I can't remember seeing African Fish Eagles or Steller Sea Eagles on any of my visits. When did you see these animals? I can't seem to recall the Red-Tailed Hawk Either. As for the hippo/rhino/black bear exhibits,I feel like they'd probably wait until Rhanda (?) passes to fix those exhibits up,but those do need improvement. The markhor exhibit also stands out as particularly poor,with the ugly mock rock mountain. I think that area,the Discovery Zone area (caves), and the area of the zoo near Australia and the reptile house (including those two huge exhibits with the large moats) are all in need of improvement,as well as the roundhouses with them,but who knows when we'll see that happening...You'd think such a major city would have a better zoo. Most of the other major U.S. cities have really nice zoos.

The two eagles were in the roundhouse which is number 11 for the audio tour on the map. There is an image of an eagle above it. The red tailed hawk was in a roundhouse in what was once the "North Anerican" section, but now is just miscellaneous area (bottom left of map). The hippo/rhino habitats were suitable, but not eye pleasing and obviously underwater viewing was absent. The black bear habitat, on the other hand, was so fake that I didn't want to look at it. Markhor weren't too bad, as although the fake rock isn't the best, it's not like the zoo could grow grass in their exhibit. When you speak of the moated area, do you mean the tomistoma exhibits? They were designed for American alligator, so obviously their theme does not fit well. I personally didn't like the elephant exhibit, but nothing will be changed about it because it is so new. I liked the Franscois langur and water deer habitats that were nearby and relatively new. The reptile house only had one truly bad exhibit, which was for a poor Mata Mata that couldn't even get out of the water.

jayjds2 said:

When you speak of the moated area, do you mean the tomistoma exhibits? They were designed for American alligator, so obviously their theme does not fit well. I personally didn't like the elephant exhibit, but nothing will be changed about it because it is so new.

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No,I mean the new tomistoma exhibit. The ones built to accompany the reptile house are fine by me,but there's a tomistoma in an older exhibit,which seems rather large. If someone has a picture it'd be appreciated.

Shellheart said:

No,I mean the new tomistoma exhibit. The ones built to accompany the reptile house are fine by me,but there's a tomistoma in an older exhibit,which seems rather large. If someone has a picture it'd be appreciated.

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I don't know which are new and which are old. One thing I saw looked to be an exhibit, but was filled with lights for the winter celebration (I visited December 20th). Perhaps that is why I don't know which you are referring to.

jayjds2 said:

I don't know which are new and which are old. One thing I saw looked to be an exhibit, but was filled with lights for the winter celebration (I visited December 20th). Perhaps that is why I don't know which you are referring to.

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Yes,that's the one that contains the tomistoma,it hadn't previously held anything,then the zoo lights event saw it filled with the light equipment,now it (or the one next to it,can't remember which) now contains a single tomistoma as far as I saw. Those two exhibits looked particularly old to me and could use updating,along with that whole area of the zoo. Something else that strikes me as interesting is the sheer amount of "temporarily closed" exhibits that have,at this point,been closed since i started going 7 months ago,probably longer.