Giant Eland

Scanned Miami Metro Zoo Photos 1990-2006

Miami Metro Zoo Map from early 1980s

Quite the collection and better still their Future African Exhibits...
Miami Metro Zoo Map from early 1980s

Quite the collection and better still their Future African Exhibits...
 
On the map, it says Brown Hyena. Did they really have these and does anybody know when they left and where they went?
 
Unfortunately no... None of the cool species at least. They did end up adding exhibits for every species up to the greater kudu with the exception of springbok and cheetah- but often not in the spot on the map as was planned.
 
Was somebody fantasizing about exhibiting water chevrotain, or did they actually have a plan for that?
 
Plus they've had Arabian Oryx for a while and Somali Wild Ass since 2011 (according to google). That leaves Lesser Kudu, Water Chevrotain, Drill, Hartebeest, Brown Hyena and Springbok as the only ones never exhibited - with Cheetahs at least found in the Ambassador program.

That means the zoo ended up having 14/20 of these future plans animals, which is pretty good.

At the time of these plans, Lesser Kudu weren't yet in the US so I remember being excited to see them on here. They were seemingly in Europe at the time and were eventually brought into the US where they're now found in 13 zoos.

Springbok are the least exciting out of the 6 and were around plenty. Brown Hyenas were in Europe, while Hartebeest and Drill were around in a couple US zoos at the time so all of those wouldn't have been too crazy.

As @DavidBrown suggests, the biggest pie in sky species here was the Water Chevrotain. It's possible at the time these plans were made it was still possible to source wild animals from West Africa where they aren't too rare. Steenbok, Rhebok, Royal Antelope all arrived from Africa to the US for the first time in the 90s/00s and Balabac Chevrotain arrived in Europe as late as 2008.

There were even captive Water Chevrotain in Port-Gentil, Gabon in 2004. https://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Hyemoschus_aquaticusFull.html According to zootierliste, the most recent Water Chevrotain's outside of Africa were in San Diego in 1967.
 

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