how to fix the problems of empty zoos

C

Coquinguy

Well-Known Member
hey guys
leading on from the going going gone report by arazpa, and the future collection projections of our zoos, i would like to know what you guys think about how our zoos will look in the time to come.
for example, with pygmy hippos in collapse, what animals do you think melbourne should replace them with. or taronga's wild asia, which represents alot of investment in a tapir exhibit that could be empty within a decade...
dont anyone say okapi, or babirusa, or bunyips. lets make practical proposals that would keep with the themes and actually be 'viable' species.
my suggestion would be perhaps porcupines in the hippo exhibit, (drained of course and relandscaped to suggest a 'forest-edge environment) and saltwater crocodiles in the malayan tapir enclosure at taronga, and perhaps a second grouping of otters.
id be interested to hear suggestions for adelaides asian habitat; what could go in there to replace the tapir?
i think maybe the future of australia's zoos could lie in the direction of perth. their current collection almost perfectly mimics the exotic 'potential' species.
 
Adelaide Could really hold anything to replace the tapir and if worse comes to worse we have the space to make it a South American Forest and we can put the Brazillians in there. we also keep the Langurs in there so teh exhbit will never be empty. We could always put our axis deer in there, we dont have much water in there so anything would be a go, it could even hold a second group of Sun Bears if we just made one fence highe (dontthink langurs and bears would mix
 
You could also include the bongos in this discussion.

It is a shame that the bright sunlight in this country blinds tapirs. I personally really like them and they fit the Se Asian theme. At Taronga it the exhibit was cxhanged a bit it could hold sunbear or tiger. Or what other largish herbivorous anmial from the region? Porcupines or Indian rhino?

Deer would fit well at Adelaide.

Withe the pygmy hippo at melbourne, the zoo could take the oppurtunity to redo the whole African rainforest sectioon. An extra gorilla troop? Colobus, mandrill etc
 
the malayan tapir at melbourne, i was told today, has been "virtually" permanently removed from display because the eye problem has become so bad. i was told that she sometimes might be seen on overcast days (but today was and she certainly wasn't there)...and that the sign was removed since it was more likely than not that she wouldn't be out.

i agree with jay. they are fantastic animals and its such as hame to lose them. personally i think their must be more to it than simply too much light (though i must admit that melbourne certainly did very little to keep her out of bright sun for her first year or so at the zoo) and unfortunately if the problem isn't fixed i agree that we will have to phase them out. we can't just continue to keep blind tapir can we? however before we do that i would be keen on the zoos experimenting with keeping the tapir in different circumstances. for example is humidity a factor as zooish once questioned?
 
We keep our tapir under a huge fig tree that is shadowed by an aviary and wall most of the day, they are not totally blind but almost, i think 1 still has fairly good vision
 
ok Tapir are definately rainforest, grounddwelling animals and it is very darl there. Wht couldn't the zoos duplicate this? The Taronga exhibit is shaded by a sun sail but it isn't very dark. Where their deer are would perhaps have been a much better position for them.
 
yeah it wouldnt be hard for zoos to do, even if they were kept inder Corrugate IRON, like a big pergola
 
the tapir exhibit at taronga would not meet the minimum space guidelines for indian rhinos, nor would the indoor holding area suit them.
the shade sail in the first tapir exhibit is nowhere near big enough, in fact it needs several overlapping ones. the solution in exhibit two, which is to cover the whole thing with army camo looks really bad-shade sails are bad enough at spoiling the immersion theme but the fake army stuff justs makes it look like a cambodian refugee camp.
i guess for the money spent i think a better compromise could have ben found. or instead, the exhibit should not have been built instead-as they are a phase-out species and arazpa was aware of the ongoing eye problems years ago.
i wonder if its not like pink-eye condition in cattle, a bacterial infection spread by flies and in dust...???...
 
i haven't seen the taronga exhibit other than from Zoo_Boys pics and fro what i saw i it looked stupid-bright and unsuitable. i recomended the chitals fig-tree exhibit, as jay did. melbournes tapir exhibit has slowly had more and more shadecloth added over the years. personally i'm not against having a humidified dark indoor viewing area for them during the day and giving them outdoor acess at night only. this would not be cruel for the tapirs.
 
No way at all we need Noctoural houses that dont just have aussies
Maybe one with Tapirs, Loris, Binturong and Tree Shrews
 
oh id'e love that! (but tree-shrew are diurnal ben:)) i always like the cave idea that wellington uses, but ide do it as if it was a rocky limestone cave like the ones i went into in vietnam and inside would have craggy openings that looked out over rainforest at night. of course these would really be indoor exhibits, designed with painted backdrops and clever simulated moonlight, fans for breezes and soundscapes. done properly, they could actually appear as if they look out over miles of rainforest rising up on peaks in the distance.

of course we would have loris, binturong, golden cats and others, but bats, i wanna see massive big opening with stalegmites, beams of light shining down from cracks above and bats overhead! hundreds of bats!!!

i've thought about this quite a bit - i reckon you could make the worlds best nocturnal house on this theme....
 
taronga's exhibit would have been great if only it was more shady. only a pane of glass seperates the tapir and otters (for now) and as it is viewed from a sunken log hut with water on all 3 sides you get the impression of a sinuous river bank.
its the attention to the details of immersion the exhibit goes to which makes it such a shame to spoil it with the shade sails and camo. surely the eye issue could have been identifies earlier in the planning process and taken into consideration.
i liked the ida of displaying the tapir under the trees but with there is one problem. the three figs are heritage listed and already nearly died during construction because of root disturbance. creating a massive water feature in that area would probably have led to even more root damage.
london zoo has a god solution. it displays its tapirs indoors and outdoors by day, all year round. the outdoor exhibit is moated, very grassy and extremely shady. the inside exhibit is nothing special, a heated, tiled building with a large swimming pool and huge dens filled with meadow hay. as unnatural as the setting is, its works well...
london have had good success breeding tapir, they dont have eye problems and you can see them 24/7
 
Ohh i beg to differ on teh tree shrews they are in fact active 22 hours a day! we had some in our jewels of asia aviaries but we had to remove them because they were harassing our nesting Blue Faced Honeyeater
 
my sincerest apologies ben - all my books say they are a diurnal family. ;)

whatever the issue is with the tapirs, i think we have to realise that a "bit of shade" doesn't seem to cut it. these guys appear to need virtually no direct light or glare. but i'm not entirely convinced that sunlight is the cause, i think it might just be an extreme aggrivation. there appears to be something else but its hard to work it out when so many other zoos around the world do, or do not have the same problem with no clear pattern really emerging.

i don't want us to give up just yet..
 
There doesn't seem to be any problems with importing members of the dog and cat family and we have an existing nucleus for a very interesting collection of these members
Lion
tiger
persian leopard
snow leopard
cheetah
cougar
jaguar
serval
fishing cat

Maned wolves
Dholes
African wild dogs
the desert foxes with the big ears

Perhaps the zoos could specialise in these animals as well and create a complete collection. Enabling visitors to see the divirsity of these tw families and how they have adapted to just about every land based ecosystem
 
yeah i hope so. i really don't wanna see jaguars or maned wolves go, but i would like it if we bred a line of black african leopards for african rainforest exhibits. dholes would go well in an indian grassland theme, as would bengal tigers, indian porcupines, fishing cats, palm squirrels, birds, otters and macaques. lion-tailed macaques whilst from the southern rainforests of india could go in too, or for a more authentic vision, the rhesus macaque. there are many in private hands here in australia. and whilst they may not be the most attractive of primates, they are damn interesting if housed in a large naturalistic troop...
 
yes I think we are, maybe our zoos can import some of them if they are not on the band list as well!.
 
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