Agreed. I was talking with one curator during a zoo visit who was very much to the book about SSPs and wanting as many of the SSP species as possible and as few non-SSP species... very interesting for a reptile curator. I don't want to reveal what zoo for the sake of their anonymity, but I will say its a zoo with a reasonable, but not huge reptile house, and the reptile house certainly reflects this management philosophy (barring a select few species). Granted, that's not the worst management philosophy- and it is a more interesting reptile house than if it held pet shop variety reptiles, etc., and I'm all for a good crotalid collection (something well-represented by the SSPs), but I can certainly see where it can be problematic when, not just one, but many, curators blindly follow SSP recommendations. However, the opposite is also not ideal- a complete disregard for SSP recommendations would not be a good course of action either. But I agree overall that I'd place more blame for the current state of collection planning in AZA Zoos with zoo management, not AZA management- as the AZA decisions basically just reflect the decisions made by the zoos themselves. One beneficial change that's slowly starting to occur, however, is merging some SSPs so that they're managed by one program leader- giving more authority for them to work with zoos about reconsidering which of similar species should be managed. This has been done with the three Gibbon SSPs- merged into one Gibbon SSP with a single leader, who could say to a zoo that "hey, can you keep white-cheeked gibbons instead of siamangs?" and balance out some of that popularity. Same thing has occurred with the two Orangutan populations and the two red panda populations. I'd love to see this as a model further followed- especially when the popularity of one species is causing detrimental effects to a similar species or subspecies with identical care requirements (such as the various callichtrid species, or some ungulate programs).
ANIMAL KINGDOM LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
That list both A. Does not include a number of species that are a part of the collection, and B. Includes at least one or two species that are not in the collection. I would not use it as a reliable source for determining what animals DAK has.
Yes, according to a USDA inspection that was mentioned earlier in the thread.
When you posted that inspection, was Sebastian their lone bontebok at that time or it was a different one back then?
They had just the one when I went in February.
Sad to hear about Emma! As I mentioned back in March, according to the WDW Entertainment website she was not at the park anymore but various people on here have said not to trust it so I was optimistic about her. She lived a long life though, she was in her early 20s which is double the lifespan for Elds deer. When did Emma pass away? If it was either in March or before that the website was actually correct.
