Melbourne Zoo's diminishing collection

[Zoofan15]

This is the 64 million dollar question What has changed? why keep trimming down to the bone, how far do they trim before the public lose interest?

The interesting thing is that while the assumption is there that the public don’t care about anything that isn’t considered an enabling crowd puller; a large percentage of their paying visitors will have come from a generation that remember a zoo stocked with species. Whether it’s reliving nostalgia or simply wanting to getting their moneys worth - to what extent will these people be won over by a few modernised exhibits at the expense of a massive decrease in biodiversity? There’s a happy medium that needs to be found; and I fear some of our zoos have lost it.

As for zoos filled with playgrounds - what better way to make trying to get your kid/kids to engage with the animals a gruelling chore. It soon becomes apparent they don’t give two hoots about the animals and just want to play on the play equipment and the parents are left wondering why they didn’t just save their money and take them to the playground down the road.

 

[Zorro]

The interesting thing is that while the assumption is there that the public don’t care about anything that isn’t considered an enabling crowd puller; a large percentage of their paying visitors will have come from a generation that remember a zoo stocked with species. Whether it’s reliving nostalgia or simply wanting to getting their moneys worth - to what extent will these people be won over by a few modernised exhibits at the expense of a massive decrease in biodiversity? There’s a happy medium that needs to be found; and I fear some of our zoos have lost it.

As for zoos filled with playgrounds - what better way to make trying to get your kid/kids to engage with the animals a gruelling chore. It soon becomes apparent they don’t give two hoots about the animals and just want to play on the play equipment and the parents are left wondering why they didn’t just save their money and take them to the playground down the road.

All quite true, But heres the thing that stands out for me, Many modern zoos in resent times have been touting the need to breed many endangered species as zoos are now become an ARK there to save rare animal species from extinction (of which many do) SO why keep trimming back the amount of species that need the helping hand of captive breeding why say one thing on one hand and do less on the other hand, two things could be possible coming into play here one could be costs, less animals means cheaper costs of less staff and food and vet care, and/or some major public zoos within this country are a little afraid of the Animal rights groups like PETA ect, at the end of the day most of the major public zoos have a government behind them (and politics) where with private zoo much less so?

 

[Jambo]

They bred once or twice and then the female got spooked, ran into a fence and died.

They bred three times (2010,2012, and 2013), to parents Ndugu and Binti (both from Taronga Zoo). They would’ve likely continued breeding them if the female didn’t run into a fence.