When Folly Farm announced they would be going into working with black rhino (here:
http://www.zoochat.com/38/black-rhinos-folly-farm-363895/), my initial reaction was, out of all the taxa they could have opted to work with, why invest in the one that the nearest wildlife collection had spent so many years trying to bring to Wales? Given that people posting at the time seemed to be almost celebrating the decision Folly Farm made to go into working with black rhino, I held off commenting as I assumed my judgement must be off and that perhaps my notion of zoos competing was an erroneous one, despite having similar reservations about Colchester during the early years of Africa Alive. But I'd always thought, as holdings in a continent-wide network of EEP and ESB programs, zoos in the same area would want the public to visit them both? How can you compete as a business but subscribe to the idea of cooperation as conservation partners?
However, now Manor house is doing something it not only has been consistently criticised for
not doing (bringing in new species of real conservation value), and making a logical step given they are so near to a rapidly-expanding collection that is willing to bring in the same high-profile animals held by them, I'm confused that they are being criticised for trying to compete with Folly Farm!
I'm not sure what it is, but for whatever reason people frown on Manor house and it's current owners, it should be remembered that they really turned around what was IMHO an ailing and second-rate zoo, ensuring the remaining individuals were housed properly before attempting to bring in new stock. I get the feeling that, had Manor House attempted to keep giraffes and had the same losses as Folly Farm, they would have been absolutely trashed on here.
Yes, naive rich folk can be annoying, especially when they're kissing kune kune piglets and making anthropomorphic comments about wild animals, but I just think, well...credit where it's due?
