Personal Year Overview

TNT

TNT

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
For me and zoos, 2018 has been a fantastic year!

Some highlights include :
- Continuing to study Zoo Biology at Nottingham Trent University - loving it there!
- A weeks placement at Noahs Ark Zoo Farm with the big cats and Spectacled bears.
- 18 days in Madagascar where I was able to see so many amazing species.
- A five week internship living and working in Blackpool zoo as "Assistant curator". I was able to help write the 2018 Waterfowl and Pelecaniforme Regional Collection Plan for EAZA and complete the studbook reports for Long-Nosed Potoroo, Ground Cuscus and Lesser Flamingo.
- Target trained a Fossa!
- Purchased a share in a zoo.
- Visited 18 zoos (a record for me, but still not enough) which brings me to a total of 48 in my lifetime.

Next year I hope to visit many more zoos including the Aspinall Parks, Highland WP, and maybe one or two foreign zoos...

I will also be taking part in years a placement and an unknown collection/collections - interviews will be occuring in the new year.

I'd love to hear a summary of your years too :) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!
 
It's been a pretty good year in terms of zoos as I've now crossed three major zoos off my list - Cologne Zoo, Duisburg Zoo, and Riga Zoo.

Cologne Zoo and Duisburg Zoo were among those I've long wanted to visit, so I decided to finally take a trip to Cologne which is also a worthwhile city, though probably not as interesting to stroll around as, say, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden or even Lübeck (I haven't been to Munich yet).

Cologne Zoo is very much an awesome zoo - loads of species, a varied collection, and given the species amount and the relatively small area, it's amazing how few mediocre exhibits there are.

Like everybody else, I mostly had Duisburg Zoo on my wishlist because of the river dolphin - it's not a top tier zoo beyond that. That being said, the rest of the zoo surprised me positively given that everybody on here likes to claim that Rio Negro is the only interesting thing about the zoo. True, the Äquatorium needs a major overhaul, but all of their newer exhibits are pretty good, with particularly the exhibits for lynxes/wildcats/tigers coming to mind. I wouldn't mind revisiting even when Baby dies.

I guess I could have seen a few more zoos in the Cologne area, like Wuppertal or Krefeld, but well, with five whole days and also wanting to see some more traditional sights like the Kölner Dom and several museums, as well as just strolling around along the river and in the old town, I didn't have time.

I didn't visit Riga because of the zoo - it was only a bonus, and most of my time was spent in the old town and the Art Nouveau streets - but because I wanted to see one of the Baltic countries. That being said, it's a nice enough zoo, if somewhat less modern than the major West European zoos. It's certainly among the more overlooked zoos here on Zoochat - it has a big collection (and an unusually big variety of amphibians), several rarities, a pleasant location, some interesting architecture, is easy to reach, and apparently has quite some success when it comes to breeding endangered species, yet I almost never see it mentioned on here. Maybe it's too out of the way.
 
I had a good zoo year in 2018 too I think:

1. I continued to work as a volunteer at Werribee Open Range Zoo (and actually was given a reward of recognition a few weeks ago for my 5 years of service)
2. I visited Sri Lanka in April, where I spent some time in Yala National Park (I saw 8 leopards, as well as elephants, spotted deer, common langur monkeys, three striped palm squirrels, wild boar, water buffalo, mongoose, black naped hare, crocodiles, and many types of bird) and Mineriya National Park (I saw huge herds of elephants, as well as tocque macaque monkeys, a purple faced langur monkey, common langurs, and various other animals). On the last day of my Sri Lanka trip, I visited Colombo Zoo.
3. Back home in Australia I visited Melbourne Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary
4. Mid-year I went on a roadtrip with my partner and took her to Mogo Zoo, where we both did the red panda experience (feeding them, patting them, getting photos with them etc), which she absolutely loved! On the same road trip we visited Canberra (National) Zoo.
5. A few weeks later I went back to Mogo and Canberra again - as I had found a large ceramic black panther statue in an antique shop in Mogo on the aforementioned trip and had to go back and buy it...
6. Later in the year I went to Thailand and Malaysia with my partner and my 2 children. We saw many crab-eating macaques in Penang National Park and at the Batu Caves, and on the last day of the trip we went to Kuala Lumpur Zoo, where the highlight was the baby giant panda.

Zoos visited in 2018:
1. Werribee Open Range Zoo
2. Melbourne Zoo
3. Healesville Sanctuary
4. Colombo Zoo (Sri Lanka)
5. Mogo Zoo
6. Canberra (National) Zoo
7. Kuala Lumpur Zoo (Malaysia)
 
Grant Rhino said:
Can you please expand a bit on this, as it sounds really interesting! I assume it's not on the stock market :p How did you do this?
Click to expand...
I now own a very small, but important share in a zoo. I just happened to know the right person aha :)
 
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