Rare Species Conservation Centre News 2015

I am willing to pay £5, but for that I expect a concession on the commercial use of my photos. Many zoos have a clause in the small print excluding commercial photographers or charging them a significant extra fee for working in the zoo. I haven't looked recently, but Blackpool's used to be particularly draconian even for amateurs - some of the photos in our Blackpool Gallery may breach the letter of this rule, but I'm sure we can claim it is 'fair use'.

Alan
 
Shorts said:
Weirdest thing, zoo-wise, I've heard for a while.

It seems simultaneously arbitrary, hard-to-police, desperate and irritating if not completely insulting -it's a basic desire of any visitor to take photos. Are we going down a Ryan Air type pricing policy -£x to use the toilet, £x if you want to see the Tarsiers, £x to talk to a keeper. Bizarre.

Additionally there's the question of whether it'd be per person (with multi-cameras), per camera and inclusive or exclusive of phones and iPads?

If this were a South Lakes policy the thread would be melting down.:)
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If it was a South Lakes policy it would be much less of a surprise!!
 
A new arrival has been announced in the form of a male New Guinea dusky pademelon. He will be joined by a female in April.
 
Also confirmed in the same posts that the center will be reopening for the year on 21st March :)
 
Nisha said:
Also confirmed in the same posts that the center will be reopening for the year on 21st March :)
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Yes I got an email from the owner stating the March 1 opening date has been pushed back to March 21 due to construction delays. However, since my trip to Europe will be over before that, he also graciously offered to give me a private tour on my original intended visit date. Very nice indeed!
 
"Dear supporters RSCC will reopen for spring/summer season on March 21st 2015 and will be open until October 31st 2015! We will have a few nice new species on site."

From their facebook page :)
 
Today the new website for RSCC has finally gone live: It boasts an impressive species list including...

Carnivores:
Bush Dog
Boky-Boky
Clouded Leopard
Eastern Aardwolf
Fanaloka
Fishing Cat
Fosa
Giant Otter
Greater Grison!
Smooth Coated Otter
Jaguarundi
Maned Wolf
Malayan Tiger
Palawan Bearcat
Rusty Spotted Cat
Ring-Tailed Vontsira
Sumatran Banded Civet
Yellow Throated Martin
Sun Bear

Primates:
Sulawesi Tarsier
Red-Backed Bearded Saki
Golden-Headed Lion Tamarin
Pygmy Loris
Bengal Slow Loris
Pileated Gibbon
Fat-Tailed Dwarf Lemur
Sambirano Bamboo Lemur
Red Ruffed Lemur

Birds:
Great Hornbill
Mindanao Rufous Hornbill
Golden Necked Northern Cassowary
Goliath Palm Cockatoo
Caribbean Flamingo
Philippine Scops Owl
King Bird of Paradise (yes, really!)
African Pygmy Goose
Hyacinth Macaw
Victoria Crowned Pigeon

Reptiles:
Sunda Gavial

Other Mammals:
Red Panda
Southern Tamandua
Chinese Red & White Giant Flying Squirrel
Balabac Chevrotain

Monotremes and Marsupials:
Spotted Cuscus
New Guinea Echidna
Greater Forest Wallaby
Dusky Pademelon

It also (sort of) clears up the confusion over the photography fee..

We do permit photography and video recording at RSCC, however we reserve the right to the use of any photographs or recorded footage taken of the animals at our facility by visitors.

By purchasing a photography ticket this permits you to bring in camera equipment to RSCC and use it onsite. Small cameras/mobile phones are exempted from this.

When you purchase a photography ticket we will ask for you to email us copies of all photographs or movies taken at RSCC within 1 month of your visit. This is a condition of entry. :confused:

PHOTOGRAPHY TICKET £ 5.00 [ON TOP OF NORMAL ENTRY TICKET PRICE] These funds go directly to our in situ conservation projects.

Obviously still some issues with the website but it's looking good so far...
Rare Species Conservation Centre |
 
Nisha said:
It also (sort of) clears up the confusion over the photography fee..

We do permit photography and video recording at RSCC, however we reserve the right to the use of any photographs or recorded footage taken of the animals at our facility by visitors.

By purchasing a photography ticket this permits you to bring in camera equipment to RSCC and use it onsite. Small cameras/mobile phones are exempted from this.

When you purchase a photography ticket we will ask for you to email us copies of all photographs or movies taken at RSCC within 1 month of your visit. This is a condition of entry.

PHOTOGRAPHY TICKET £ 5.00 [ON TOP OF NORMAL ENTRY TICKET PRICE] These funds go directly to our in situ conservation projects.
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This raises two questions, of course:

1) How are they going to define a "small" camera? For instance, my digital camera is a low-spec bridge camera, and as such is physically relatively large but is not a professional camera.

2) How on earth are they going to manage the impact on their email inbox if they are demanding that all photographs and videos are to be emailed to them? For that matter, what if you have taken a shot and deleted it straight away because it is crap - would the gap in filenames be interpreted as trying to get away with not emailing everything? :p

They have addressed the matter to some degree on Facebook too:

I'm afraid due to excessive pro or semi pro photographers we have had to request this. We will of course make it a simple process but we must also safeguard ourselves - many of our species are unique or rare in captivity and we seldom get the correct credits for our hard work I'm sure many will understand - it is only for persons with pro or semi pro cameras
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lowland anoa said:
I wish more zoos would displays Sulawesi tarsier as they are amazing animals!!
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They are very sensitive animals, RSSC is doing excellent work on their husbandry. I've seen Philippines tarsier at Bristol. I think I'm very lucky to have done so.
 
Where does one start, what a line up!
Well I guess the gharial was the mystery animal in the box?
KING BIRD OF PARADISE!!!!
And welcome back to the flying squirrels
 
King Bird of Paradise is certainly one of the highlights :) of course, there is no guarantee they will be onshow - and the same goes for the Greater Grison which are another particuarly alluring prospect for me.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
This raises two questions, of course:

1) How are they going to define a "small" camera? For instance, my digital camera is a low-spec bridge camera, and as such is physically relatively large but is not a professional camera.

2) How on earth are they going to manage the impact on their email inbox if they are demanding that all photographs and videos are to be emailed to them? For that matter, what if you have taken a shot and deleted it straight away because it is crap - would the gap in filenames be interpreted as trying to get away with not emailing everything? :p
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Much as I love the RSCC, and much as I am delighted at their re opening with such a wonderful array of species, this move is, to my mind, quite extraordinarily ill thought-out, counter-productive and paranoid.

Do they imagine that there are a whole phalanx of enthusiastic amateur photographers somehow making a fortune out of selling their pictures of fanaloka and binturong?

And what is a primary motivation for a whole host of adults to go to zoos? Photography.

If 'professional' cameras mean SLR cameras, as I suspect they will, this is hardly an especially high cut-off point.

And the idea of emailing my snaps of interesting-looking stand-off barriers and warning signs is just bizarre. As is the idea of their having time to process the many thousands of pictures they would thus receive. As is the idea that this very strange policy would be enforceable.

All in all, it sounds like the sort of thing that Kim Jong-un would seek to impose, and I can't help but feel it stems from a similar sense of paranoia. There is a definite suspicion of some visitors / interested observers: when visiting the zoo,pretty routine questions about animal numbers, or their provenance, have been batted away, and my impression - possibly wholly unfair - is that the RSCC's owner does not take at all kindly to any sort of criticism. Which is a pity, because this is a tremendous place!
 
And just to continue the rant - it's not the cost that would bother me at all. The extra £5 certainly makes it a relatively pricey zoo to enter, but that is fine. It's the combination of suspicion (you must be up to no good, and therefore we are going to check your pictures) and fuss (organising photos is an enomrous faff as it is, even without having to send them off to someone!).
 
What exactly are they going to do if photographers don't e-mail? Sue them? They are entering a very, very dangerous legal minefield there
 
The species list on the new website is certainly exciting . I wonder if these all will be on show when the Centre re-opens .

I notice 2 species no longer listed - golden-cheeked gibbon ( presumably the pair now at Exmoor ) and snow leopard ( elderly specimen ) .

I wonder if the red-backed sakis and Balabac mousedeer are new imports or from the stock previously imported and distributed to other collections . It would be good for the European populations if the giant otters and pileated gibbons were new importations .
 
Bele said:
The species list on the new website is certainly exciting . I wonder if these all will be on show when the Centre re-opens .
.
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Yes, I was wondering that. I'm planning a trip down but would like to see everything rather than be told that all the interesting things are offshow. From what I've read, they are rather secretive...
 
So what are they going to do then if someone takes a photo but doesn't bother to email it to them? Hunt them down?There's actually nothing they can do.

RSCC is not the only zoo to hold an animal that no-one else in the country does, and I do not know of any other park that has such a bizarre rule. People taking photos of their day out and uploading them to social media serves as free advertising for the zoo.

If RSCC is worried about people taking photos of their animals, they could always go out and take some pics themselves.
Im also not sure that just because they're RSCC's animals means that all photos of them legally belong to the RSCC by default. Especially if a person you let into your park took them.
 
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