Indianapolis Zoo Indianapolis Zoo News 2024

Spike said:
More information has been released on the new chimp exhibit
9,600 sq feet of space ( Doesn’t this seem small?)
65% of the trails are complete
As of Dec. 29
https://dailyjournal.net/2023/12/29/great-apes-indy-zoos-new-chimpanzee-habitat-nearing-completion/
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Honestly, I feel as if this design is absolutely setting goodwill back a cool couple decades - Indianapolis' original concept was all about biomes and showcasing animals in *naturalistic* settings. This bears about as much resemblance to "naturalism" as a silk hat does to a fried egg. Anti-caps will see this and think "THE CHIMP IS IN A CAGE WHAT POOR ANIMALS WE HUMANS ARE SO SELFISH RELEASE IT TO THE WILD". Good grief. :(
 
StoppableSan said:
Honestly, I feel as if this design is absolutely setting goodwill back a cool couple decades - Indianapolis' original concept was all about biomes and showcasing animals in *naturalistic* settings. This bears about as much resemblance to "naturalism" as a silk hat does to a fried egg. Anti-caps will see this and think "THE CHIMP IS IN A CAGE WHAT POOR ANIMALS WE HUMANS ARE SO SELFISH RELEASE IT TO THE WILD". Good grief. :(
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I echo you hear the zoo is setting themselves up for bad press and there are so many more ways this money could have been spent like updating the bear, gibbon, or lion habitats. With a smaller zoo they shouldn’t have gotten rid of dogs and lemurs for chimps.
 
I mean. They needed to do something with the dog show space. It was a lot of land that was kind of wasted. And it could’ve been a great chimp area if they were willing to combine it with the sloth / kangaroo area or even push it into the kind of underwhelming aviary section. And I doubt they do anything with the lions until the baboons pass. But, yeah, wish they’d done something other than this iteration of the project. Update to the bear grotto would’ve been nice.
 
IndianRhino said:
Southern white rhino, Zenzele, is pregnant and due in February!! Zenzele was pregnant when she arrived from The Wilds in June of last year, and the sire of her calf is Kengele (who’s currently the breeding bull at The Wilds).

Zoo Announces Rhino Pregnancy
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Very exciting! Is the zoo’s exhibit big enough to hold 5 rhinos?
EDIT: by the way this birth would make Gloria a great grandmother.
 
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Zoofan15 said:
Southern white rhinoceros birth:

Baby rhino born at the Indianapolis Zoo on Super Bowl Sunday

The Indianapolis Zoo welcomed a white rhinoceros calf at 9:13 a.m. Super Bowl Sunday. This marks the first live-birth rhinoceros calf for the zoo and the mother’s seventh calf.

Both the mom, Zenzele, and the newborn are doing well, according to the Indianapolis Zoo.
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Zenzele's calf is a girl! And good news, she is nursing well with her mom and there are plans to introduce her to the zoo's other rhinos in the spring.
IT'S A GIRL! We are happy to announce our animal care team confirmed Zenzele's calf is a female and is nursing well with mom. We even got footage of her doing her first zoomies! Look at her go! ❤️ Both Zenzele and her calf will spend time together indoors and will begin introductions with the other members of the herd later this spring. by Senior Plains Keeper Amber Zoo Babies proudly presented by Primrose Schools | Indianapolis Zoo | Indianapolis Zoo · Original audio
 
Went to the zoo after volunteering orientation, the iguanas have awoken from their slumber in deserts

Oceans has changed a little bit, for starters the live coral tank was redone, yet I didn’t see any fish.

In the opening tank, there are now Blue Angelfish along with the other fish

The Lionfish tank now has Smallmouth Grunt shockingly
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
What have been the breeding stats for the last few years (I suspect it is only Grand Cayman blue)?
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Not really sure, sorry, the Jamaicans and Blues are in a captive breeding plan but that was from 2022 (The Annual Report from 23 hasn’t come out yet). They are first place to successfully breed Jamaican Iguanas outside of Jamaica
 
I don’t know if this is the right thread for this but I just wanted your guys’s opinions. The Indianapolis Zoo predicts a 200,000 attendance boost with this “master plan” that includes a total of…. 1 new animal species (chimpanzee) after taking away the very popular ring tailed lemur to make room for 1/3 of the very unimpressive chimp exhibit. For a zoo with around 1 million visitors a year around a 20% attendance increase in a year seems very unrealistic.
Source: https://www.indianapoliszoo.com/wp-...-For-Our-Zoo.-Our-Community.-Our-World.56.pdf (page 28)
 
Spike said:
I don’t know if this is the right thread for this but I just wanted your guys’s opinions. The Indianapolis Zoo predicts a 200,000 attendance boost with this “master plan” that includes a total of…. 1 new animal species (chimpanzee) after taking away the very popular ring tailed lemur to make room for 1/3 of the very unimpressive chimp exhibit. For a zoo with around 1 million visitors a year around a 20% attendance increase in a year seems very unrealistic.
Source: https://www.indianapoliszoo.com/wp-...-For-Our-Zoo.-Our-Community.-Our-World.56.pdf (page 28)
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From reading that document, I think that Indianapolis Zoo's conservation commitment with its IUCN species conservation center is commendable. It will be interesting to see how that project develops.

As for new species, Indianapolis Zoo has most of the go-to ABC animals (African megafauna, tigers, bears, pinnipeds, penguins, etc.) plus a mini-SeaWorld. New exhibits probably will attract some attention, but there aren't a lot of species that they don't already have that might be big crowd magnets. Chimps are probably on that list. What else? Gorillas, giant pandas, hippos. Maybe a really cool invertebrate house to complement the desert reptile house and the aquarium. Would Indianapolis Zoo have room to develop any of those exhibits?
 
The new 'south parking lot' will I suspect be used to gradually open up the current parking lot for construction, and the plan acknowledges this intent. I think @DavidBrown has offered some great suggestions for its use -- a new invertebrate building wouldn't take up a lot of space, nor would a new lemur habitat, and still probably leave room for a new megafauna exhibit... I think hippopotamus would be a wise choice, but we can never rule out the possibility of completing the trilogy with an International Gorilla Center complex.
 
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