India's Richest Family Building World's Largest Zoo

Does anyone has any information about the sea lions they have? I have seen some very young sea lions (or maybe fur seals?) in the last video they posted of Indian prime minister visiting the park. I heard rumors some time ago about their interest in marine mammals including dolphins but I always thought is just talking...
 
The YouTuber, Forrest Galante, has released another video touring Vantara. It features five tigers that share a 10 acre paddock (it seems common in Vantara to keep animals that are usually maintained solitary or in pairs in large groups). He feeds them in a covered truck, similar to the Bali Safari. It also covers the 7 Humboldt Penguins that Vantara acquired from Dubai, him covering himself in honey and nuts for ring-tailed lemurs to eat off, a juvenile jaguar with hip dysplasia and how why decided not to euthanize it, 4 juvenile Asiatic Black Bears and discussing how they frequently update their enclosure as enrichment, weight management of nile crocodile that were rescued from skin farms, a cheetah with 5 cubs, who are apparently the start of a breeding program that plans to reintroduce cheetahs to India, the lucistic okapi, Mzimu, who is kept with another female okapi, 6 South American Tapirs, all kept together.

Assuming that they plan to breed Mzimu, I'm not sure who the female could be, as all the other females are either his sisters, or mother, unless more okapis were acquired from Al Bustan.
 
KaiGoesMandai said:
The YouTuber, Forrest Galante, has released another video touring Vantara. It features five tigers that share a 10 acre paddock (it seems common in Vantara to keep animals that are usually maintained solitary or in pairs in large groups). He feeds them in a covered truck, similar to the Bali Safari. It also covers the 7 Humboldt Penguins that Vantara acquired from Dubai, him covering himself in honey and nuts for ring-tailed lemurs to eat off, a juvenile jaguar with hip dysplasia and how why decided not to euthanize it, 4 juvenile Asiatic Black Bears and discussing how they frequently update their enclosure as enrichment, weight management of nile crocodile that were rescued from skin farms, a cheetah with 5 cubs, who are apparently the start of a breeding program that plans to reintroduce cheetahs to India, the lucistic okapi, Mzimu, who is kept with another female okapi, 6 South American Tapirs, all kept together.

Assuming that they plan to breed Mzimu, I'm not sure who the female could be, as all the other females are either his sisters, or mother, unless more okapis were acquired from Al Bustan.
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Forrest Galante calling himself a biologist is shameful... but well, basically this zoo is just a private amusement park with animals with a facade of greenwashing, it seems.
 
That's why I called him a YouTuber – he is an entertainer first. I feel like Vantara is just a modern menagerie, with these billionaires collecting all sorts of rare animals. Sure, the animals get world-class veterinary care, but I can't help but look at the way many threatened species get imported in massive numbers, and think that something suspicious is going on.
 
Wisp O' Mist said:
There's already a Cheetah reintroduction program in India... It's currently ongoing.
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I apologize for the mistake. I had not read about this yet, and when I heard that they "could be the first generation to come back in over a hundred years", I incorrectly assumed that this was a first. As you said cheetahs have already been reintroduced and have bred in the wild already. Thanks for the correction.
 
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There is so much wrong with this video and I didn’t even get to complete it. As someone who works in the veterinary field as a tech, seeing that Jaguar cub with severe hip dysplasia really upsets me. The vet speaks of the uncertainty of their future and mentioning how she’s on multiple medications. She’s only going to get larger as she grows up and worsening her condition. Any good vet would want nothing more than to be the advocate for their patients. That means knowing when it’s time to end their suffering. No patient should live their final moments in misery if we can help it. Much of what is going on is wishful thinking/denial in this video.

And yet again, the need to dance around calling this place a rich man’s zoo is very clear. Forrest’s description says “To be clear, this is not a zoo.”. Oh really? You could’ve fooled me ;) Well the collection, their method of acquiring new animals, and exhibition style of these animals says otherwise. Others have pointed it out, this is Ambani doing some major greenwashing but social media is quick to consume this without needing to thinking about it.
 
Julio C Castro said:
And yet again, the need to dance around calling this place a rich man’s zoo is very clear. Forrest’s description says “To be clear, this is not a zoo.”. Oh really? You could’ve fooled me ;) Well the collection, their method of acquiring new animals, and exhibition style of these animals says otherwise. Others have pointed it out, this is Ambani doing some major greenwashing but social media is quick to consume this without needing to thinking about it.
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This is really what gets me. This zoo is owned by a billionaire. He will always get away with what he is doing and even worse because of his socioeconomic status. Yet he doesn’t, which makes his lack of transparency sillier.
 
Julio C Castro said:
There is so much wrong with this video and I didn’t even get to complete it. As someone who works in the veterinary field as a tech, seeing that Jaguar cub with severe hip dysplasia really upsets me. The vet speaks of the uncertainty of their future and mentioning how she’s on multiple medications. She’s only going to get larger as she grows up and worsening her condition. Any good vet would want nothing more than to be the advocate for their patients. That means knowing when it’s time to end their suffering. No patient should live their final moments in misery if we can help it. Much of what is going on is wishful thinking/denial in this video.

And yet again, the need to dance around calling this place a rich man’s zoo is very clear. Forrest’s description says “To be clear, this is not a zoo.”. Oh really? You could’ve fooled me ;) Well the collection, their method of acquiring new animals, and exhibition style of these animals says otherwise. Others have pointed it out, this is Ambani doing some major greenwashing but social media is quick to consume this without needing to thinking about it.
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That is facts so much is wrong but Forest was crying during the video especially after the baby Jaguar it is either he is getting fooled or he is playing along with it.
 
This is a trivial question in the scheme of things, but I assume the Cheetah they are breeding for "reintroduction" are African cheetah, as with the recent program, rather than the program to reintroduce Asiatic Cheetah?

I've no interest in the video. It does sound very upsetting.
 
Jaiden said:
That is facts so much is wrong but Forest was crying during the video especially after the baby Jaguar it is either he is getting fooled or he is playing along with it.
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He must cry every day because he can't proof the thylacine, the megalodon, the Steller's sea cow or the big foot still exist. All because he is a believer of that. The guy is a joke. And he just roams around visiting weird private backyard zoos, behind a portrait of being an animal conservationist.
 
OkapiJohn said:
He must cry every day because he can't proof the thylacine, the megalodon, the Steller's sea cow or the big foot still exist. All because he is a believer of that. The guy is a joke. And he just roams around visiting weird private backyard zoos, behind a portrait of being an animal conservationist.
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Aside from this and plenty more, he seems to have forgotten that being loud and twitchy around animals might not be in anyone's best interest.
 
OkapiJohn said:
He must cry every day because he can't proof the thylacine, the megalodon, the Steller's sea cow or the big foot still exist. All because he is a believer of that. The guy is a joke. And he just roams around visiting weird private backyard zoos, behind a portrait of being an animal conservationist.
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I actually think Forrest is a good Conservationist he is one of the people who started my passion for conservation and I also think the Thylacine is alive and I love watching his backyard Zoo videos:)
 
Jaiden said:
I actually think Forrest is a good Conservationist he is one of the people who started my passion for conservation and I also think the Thylacine is alive and I love watching his backyard Zoo videos:)
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Each to their own...All too often, he comes across as an obnoxious and rather ignorant American Steve Irwin cosplayer with an Al Borland beard.
So what exactly are his contributions to conservation?
 
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