azcheetah2
Well-Known Member
Well, a big hats off to the founding 'fathers' of this place. I only found it a couple of months ago, quite by accident, and I love it. Until this place, I thought I was alone in my zoo nutty-ness. 
How did this place even start?
- Thread starter DejaVuKatz
- Start date
I, too, came across this website by accident. I remember, when I first started thinking of exhibits and typing animal species list for my fictional Anaheim Zoo (which was then called Bakersfield Zoo, actually; oh, memories! 
), that one day, I was looking up images of the San Diego Zoo or hippo exhibits, something like that. Well, when searching on Google Images and scrolling over a picture, the picture expands a bit, also revealing the website its from and the URL, etc. This picture happened to be from zoochat.com. I decided to click on it, and well, I guess you can imagine what happened next!
I'd been looking through the galleries for about a month or so before I finally built up the courage to become a memberrolleyes, and it has, so far, been the best thing to ever happen to me. I want to thank so many of you, DavidBrown, Chlidonias, zooplantman, KCZooFan (who is no longer on the forum 
), mstickmanp, ArizonaDocent, jbnbsn99, Maguari, Hix, Jurek7, Javan Rhino, SOOOO many of you who've helped me, given me helpful links to other websites, corrected me, guided me, even all of the little things... When my zoo (may it be world class or a meager 10-acre park with only 50 different species) opens, I'll commemorate the creation of this website with a plaque and an entire list of showing the usernames (and possibly full names) of those on the forum who aided me. And for those fairly new members, Moebelle, BeardsleyZooFan, I say thank you, as well. With you two, I have been able to share ideas, pictures, and overall have fun.
I'm terribly sorry if I missed your username, as there are too many of you to count!
), that one day, I was looking up images of the San Diego Zoo or hippo exhibits, something like that. Well, when searching on Google Images and scrolling over a picture, the picture expands a bit, also revealing the website its from and the URL, etc. This picture happened to be from zoochat.com. I decided to click on it, and well, I guess you can imagine what happened next!I'd been looking through the galleries for about a month or so before I finally built up the courage to become a member
rolleyes, and it has, so far, been the best thing to ever happen to me. I want to thank so many of you, DavidBrown, Chlidonias, zooplantman, KCZooFan (who is no longer on the forum ), mstickmanp, ArizonaDocent, jbnbsn99, Maguari, Hix, Jurek7, Javan Rhino, SOOOO many of you who've helped me, given me helpful links to other websites, corrected me, guided me, even all of the little things... When my zoo (may it be world class or a meager 10-acre park with only 50 different species) opens, I'll commemorate the creation of this website with a plaque and an entire list of showing the usernames (and possibly full names) of those on the forum who aided me. And for those fairly new members, Moebelle, BeardsleyZooFan, I say thank you, as well. With you two, I have been able to share ideas, pictures, and overall have fun. I'm terribly sorry if I missed your username, as there are too many of you to count!
Where did KCZooFan go?
I, too, came across this website by accident. I remember, when I first started thinking of exhibits and typing animal species list for my fictional Anaheim Zoo (which was then called Bakersfield Zoo, actually; oh, memories!
I'd been looking through the galleries for about a month or so before I finally built up the courage to become a member
I'm terribly sorry if I missed your username, as there are too many of you to count!
Your story is pretty similar to mine. I had thought I saw an image of a Bearded Pig at Lowry Park Zoo before. So I decided to look up Lowry Park Zoo Bearded Pig on Google Images, and saw a good photo. I clicked on it, and decided to see where it was from.
http://www.zoochat.com/580/asian-gardens-bearded-pig-exhibit-84089/
I found myself on ZooChat for the first time. I checked around the site, mostly looking at gallery images, reading posts, checking out some of the users and learning who the "big-shots" were, and learning along the way. I decided to become a member about 2-3 weeks later. I've talked with lots of members, and they've helped me, and I've helped some of them. I learned a lot from some of these people, and sometimes they learn from me, and sometimes, it's just good to have fun with each other (Guess the Species, Design a Zoo, Create an Exhibit, long discussions). I want to thank lots of people that I've talked to, like jbsn99, snowleopard, AnaheimZoo, Moebelle, Chlidonias, Nanoboy, JBZvolunteer, Jurek7, Arizona Docent, azcheetah2, Blackduiker, Animal, DavidBrown, Sim himself, and so much more. ZooChat and all its wonderful members have helped me learn about animals, learn about zoos, cheer me up when it's been a rough day, and simply having fun. I'd also like to thank AnaheimZoo for his kind remark about me in his post, and I'm sorry if I missed your username; there is so many of you like AZ said! Thank you so much!!!!
On the thread started by sooty mangabey, Those We Have Known..., he said he thought he should mention that he was retiring from the forum. He felt he had gained all he could from and contributed all he could to this website and just... left.
And, BZF, you're quite welcome.
As you can see by the combined usernames in our posts, there are too many to list! 2004 WOW!!
Patrick made it interesting and ZooPro gave me a lot of insight into the zooworld.
One early member was a young woman by the tag Zukipah who was very informative about Dubbo . And a very passionate young fella with the name of zooboy(?) or something like that. I am glad that this forum has grown so much and is providing so many people with a place to discuss their interests in the zoo world.
nicholas
Well-Known Member
Wow, I had no idea I was actually among the first batch of users. I don't know if it's tragic that I'm still around or if I should be proud. 2006 doesn't seems that long ago but zoochat certainly has changed a lot. I regret that sometimes that I'm not a more active user, since I love debating, but at the same time it's nice to just follow the evolution of a place like this, checking in from time to time.
One thing that really has changed is that in the beginning, from 2006 until maybe 2010 or somewhere, very few zoo employees knew about zoochat, whereas now it is common knowledge that it exists among the zoo staff I know.
devilfish
Well-Known Member
So when will I get the cool "zoochat supporter" avatar?
You might be waiting for a while; I became a supporter several months ago and as far as I'm aware, I'm yet to receive the badge.
I'm a student, but I decided that I definitely gain enough from this site to justify the relatively low cost of supporting it.