Calgary Zoo Calgary Zoo News 2016

TZFan

TZFan

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Time for a new years thread. Wonder what will happen in Calgary this coming year. Something always seems to be on the go in Calgary.
 
King penguin chick, Nero, is now the heaviest penguin in the colony out weighing his mom the second heaviest by over two kilos now.
 
The meerkats will be off display for a few weeks while their exhibit undergoes a minor reno.
 
The poor zoo is getting slammed hard on facebook over the otters death. It's sad how quickly people turn against the zoo. Without question a horrible error in judgement was made by the staff members. I get why they thought the otters might like pants. Its a fun little tunnel for them. I can also see why its a bad choice of a toy for an otter. Anyone who has ever been soaked in their clothes should get that its probably not a good idea for an aquatic animal who will take the pants into the water with them and something bad could happen. But the zoo has disciplined them (not that the zoo can or will say how) and those poor keepers who simply made one terrible choice have to live with the guilt of killing one of their beloved charges. The zoo and staff really don't deserve the bashing they got. It's like everyone forgot that just 3 years ago they were hailing all of the staff as heroes for their quick action, dedication and is some cases brave actions to protect the animals during the flood. These are people who have risked their lives in the case of the keepers who swam through open water with hippos to evacuate terrified and powerful giraffes belly deep in flood waters. Just a shame people cannot cut the zoo or it's dedicated staff a break. Mistakes and lapses in judgement happen but the way people are reacting it's like the two keepers were sitting around one afternoon plotting ways to kill poor Logan...

"Let's eliminate Logan..."
"But how?"
"Gun"
"Too messy"
"Feed him a poison dart frog... That little red one Toby has been giving me the stink eye all week."
"We could accidentally whack Finnegan instead"
"Knife wielding gorilla"
"We tried that a couple of years ago... didn't work... thought it was a toy..."
"I know... I've got it... Death by pants!"
"Perfect! Denim or khaki?"

I mean seriously... They mistakenly thought they were being innovative and coming up with a cool new enrichment item. Had it worked out well they would have been applauded for their cleverness. Those same people blasting the zoo and calling for the keepers heads on a plate would be watching the otters play with the pants on youtube saying, "aww thats so cute." Good judgement should have meant they looked at the idea and said this probably isn't the brightest idea for otters but clearly something didn't click for those two keepers. Now they have to live with the fact that because they broke the rules while trying to make their charges lives better, they ultimately cost one of the animals their lives. Personally that level of guilt would be worse then anything else the zoo or the law could do to me. Call me crazy but it would be nice if people could show a little empathy and compassion for the keepers at fault and realize that the rest of the staff and the zoo itself are not to blame.
 
I agree with everything you're saying TZFan. Cut them some slack. Bad mistake. Employees were disciplined. Move on.
 
TZFan said:
The poor zoo is getting slammed hard on facebook over the otters death. It's sad how quickly people turn against the zoo.
Click to expand...
I just had a read through a lot of the comments, and what I took from it was not "people turning against the zoo" but rather people who don't like zoos to begin with - or people who like trolling - coming to the site specifically to rant, and the people who actually are zoo supporters being rational in saying that yes it is sad and unfortunate but it was an accident. There didn't seem to be any "turning against the zoo" because those people ranting wouldn't have been on the page before. One of them even said she was only on the zoo's Facebook page because she saw the item on a news site.
 
You do have a good point there Chlidonias. Maybe not so much turning against but attacking because they have an agenda or are just jerks. And some are just upset and uninformed.

Just sucks for the zoo that because they chose to be honest and upfront they are getting attacked. I'm quite sure there are other zoos that would quietly deal with an issue like this and the public would never be any the wiser, not that there is anything wrong with that either. Hopefully this incident doesn't impact the zoo for too long.
 
Here is a great article stepping up and pointing out the keepers had good intentions even if it was a flawed idea to put pants in with Logan. It details some of the mistreatment of animals in days gone by when no one cared about animal welfare just their entertainment value. It's always refreshing when the media focuses on the positive no matter the subject of the article.

Recent death of otter at Calgary Zoo pales compared to the attraction's former f
 
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