I don't know about Pineapple specifically, but prehensile-tailed porcupines have been a part of the collection for at least two years.
It was, and has been for a while, but I don’t know if this is temporary or not. I think the original intention was to give the bison access to the side that Bison landing wraps around, but I don’t know if that is still in the cards or if that ended up not being feasible.
Well that’s news to me! Still glad to hear they have this species, though.
Wait is the last monk seal gone, then?
Thankfully, no. Ola is still kicking.
She was rotating on display with the dolphins afaik. I'd imagine she'd continue doing so with whichever species ends up replacing the dolphins.
I am very excited to see what they decide to do with this exhibit. I can’t really think of anything that would act as a good replacement for Ola when she eventually passes. California Sea Lion and/or Harbor Seal is the most plausible, but It doesn’t really make much sense considering these species are the star attractions of the nearby Como Zoo. Everything else I can think of is either too big for the tank, too rare in captivity, or too expensive to acquire, so, as I've said many times before, It'll be very interesting to see what will be done in the coming months.
The candidate species for the old dolphin pools as per the 2012 Master Plan included the aforementioned California sea lions, walruses, an Amazon flooded forest for giant otters, caiman and arapaima (to name a few species), and an island atoll for sharks and rays (which were temporarily displayed there when the dolphins first were shipped out). Considering that this project'd only take a few months, but there is infrastructure for multiple eventualities, anything could happen.
Forgot to mention - these would be separate exhibits within the section, I'll see if I can dig up the file and show those renderings.
The Minnesota Zoo ever having dolphins again, even the Brookfield dolphins, was really far off radar. I feel like anything is possible at this point with the exception of walrus. I would not even rule out dolphins returning, but a bachelor pod perhaps. The presentations were sold out most days, and often sold out days ahead. The Minnesota Zoo needs revenue. Dolphins could help, but the cost of keeping the species is high as well. Will be very interesting to watch, hopefully they will announce soon!
Did the proposal to bring fish schools to the dolphin pool temporarily ever actually pan out, or was there a several year absence of any animals before the Hawaiian monk seals?
Beat me to the punch!
The Dolphin tank was blocked off for three years from 2012 to 2015 while the exhibit was being worked on. There were no rays or fish in that tank to my knowledge. On an unrelated note, do you know where to find the renders for the 2012 master plan? I have only been able to find about half of them but I would love to see more if you have them!
I'll send a message with them.
