Countries missing on ZooChat

T

Taisha

Well-Known Member
A whole continent - South America- appears to be absent from ZooChat.
What is a shame, as animal transfers to South American zoos seem to be quite common and there is no chance to follow them up.
A closer look on Chinese zoos, not only through the eye of a foreigner, would also be interesting.
Any way to connect?
 
I'm not sure what you mean here.

There are currently well over 1000 photos from Latin American zoos; recently there has been some interesting discussion inspired by photos posted by "Toto98" of the Cali Zoo in Colombia.

There are also a large number of pictures of Chinese zoos - about 750 or so.

One country that is under-represented is Japan, from where there are not many pictures at all.
 
Focusing even closer, i posted a news item from Novosibirsk zoo in Russia and there is nothing at all from this zoo.

Also South Africa is under reported too.
 
With an english speaking forum what do you expect. Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and new zealand are the most represented nations for a reason, they all mainly speak english. The language barrier means that many parts of afruca, asia and eastern europe are under reported.
 
uszoo said:
With an english speaking forum what do you expect. Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and new zealand are the most represented nations for a reason, they all mainly speak english. The language barrier means that many parts of afruca, asia and eastern europe are under reported.
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From my own experience I can say, with English you can travel the world.
In South Africa and some other African countries even excellent English is spoken.
This may be different in South America. It made me wonder, that being addressed, the zoos over there give next to no infomation. The same happens, by the way, to the natives.
I am also puzzled by the fact, that I personally know only of exported hybrids. But this may just be a lack of information on my side.
 
I would say alot of underreporting of worthy zoo news too:
SE Asia: (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia) plus China, India, Middle East

None-existent on the threads
S. America: most countries.
Africa: most countries.
 
except for South Africa, there are few "real" zoos in Africa and even fewer that a worthy of any level of recognition. South Amerca has a reasonable number of real zoos (+many more of questionable status) and some that definitely are worthy of mention. However, I suspect many of those end up on the Spanish zoo fora. I suspect it's the same reason the number of active French users on zoochat is limited, and contrary to what some believe, younger French people typically speak adequate English. If looking solely at country population, there should be four times as many French users as Dutch, and even more Spanish (Spain+much of Latin America). IMO the biggest 'hole' in zoochat is China and Japan. There may well be local fora that locals use foremost, but my Mandarin and Japanese is limited :(
 
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I don't want to offend anyone with my words, but IMO the language it's not the problem, the problem it's the economic status /life level of many more of his inhabitants (in general terms) much of the people can't to use a computer with internet connection by economic reasons. Or to buy a DSLR camera, or to visit periodically their locals zoos.
Maybe the forumers from this areas can argue another most real vision/explanation for this interesting theme.
 
KEEPER said:
I don't want to offend anyone with my words, but IMO the language it's not the problem, the problem it's the economic status /life level of many more of his inhabitants (in general terms) much of the people can't to use a computer with internet connection by economic reasons. Or to buy a DSLR camera, or to visit periodically their locals zoos.
Maybe the forumers from this areas can argue another most real vision/explanation for this interesting theme.
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I think its fair to say that improving living conditions of animals in zoos are certainly "developed world problems".

The USA and UK have huge populations (and many zoos) and along with Australia, New Zealand and Canada certainly have the money and resources required to make their zoos world leaders. With high quality zoos, more people from the general population become interested in zoos and then end up on this forum! It basically just snowballs: success breeds popularity and popularity breeds success.

That said, there are also some very very good zoos and very very well educated publics in the non-English speaking world too - however the sheer population of the USA and UK (along with the relative wealth and prosperity of the Anglosphere) will always mean that there will be more native English speakers posting on this forum than people with other mother tongues.
 
KEEPER said:
I don't want to offend anyone with my words, but IMO the language it's not the problem, the problem it's the economic status /life level of many more of his inhabitants (in general terms) much of the people can't to use a computer with internet connection by economic reasons. Or to buy a DSLR camera, or to visit periodically their locals zoos.
Maybe the forumers from this areas can argue another most real vision/explanation for this interesting theme.
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I guess you are right (sad to say).

Having said that I would have to add zoos in France and a lot of Eastern Europe too (save for our very committed brethren from Poland and Jana from the Czech Republic) is not well covered.

However, both France and Spain/Portugal have thriving local native speakers' zoo forums (well the ones that I do tend to read). :)
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
However, both France and Spain/Portugal have thriving local native speakers' zoo forums (well the ones that I do tend to read). :)
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I wish there was a Forum for Portuguese Zoo, it´s so lonely in here, and the Spanish Forum is mostly, well, for Spain.
 
filipinos said:
I wish there was a Forum for Portuguese Zoo, it´s so lonely in here, and the Spanish Forum is mostly, well, for Spain.
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I guess, the professionals among us would be the most likely persons to be in contact with zoo employees of other countries and could offer them extended communication via ZooChat.
But how to attract zoo visitors?
Zoos in poorer countries like Pretoria Zoo (admit status poor is questionable), or the UWEC (Entebbe Zoo) seemed to attract enough visitors technically well enough equiped.
How did ZooChat get its members in the beginning?
 
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