I'm working on it. I didn't say any of this was gonna be perfect and I would appreciate some understanding.Your solution to "too ambitious and logistically burdensome" was to create three yards and a long dead end path by taking out a parking lot?
I'm working on it. I didn't say any of this was gonna be perfect and I would appreciate some understanding.Your solution to "too ambitious and logistically burdensome" was to create three yards and a long dead end path by taking out a parking lot?
I'm working on it. I didn't say any of this was gonna be perfect and I would appreciate some understanding.
This is something I legitimately want to do.Why not just make a spec zoo based on Bronx instead?
This is something I legitimately want to do.
There will be some mistakes on the way but let me cook.
I would have them sign waivers before.Hiking creates liability issues for injuries.
Make all the side monkey cages into 1 or two larger cagesWhat do you suggest about Mouse House the House with the Mouse
Make all the side monkey cages into 1 or two larger cages
Have one of the tanks themed around NY rats. You can even source them from the subway but I wouldn't; too many diseases.
Oh also, try to improve the noise absorption of it and the Reptile House and those places give me a headache
That's a good question. Having seen rats on the tracks a lot, one idea could be making the exhibit look like the bottom of the subway track area. That really grimy spot where the rats are. Or perhaps, make it look like a piece of train track.Themed how?
That's a good question. Having seen rats on the tracks a lot, one idea could be making the exhibit look like the bottom of the subway track area. That really grimy spot where the rats are. Or perhaps, make it look like a piece of train track.
I think that it'd be a fun exhibit to showcase this part of NYC that's so often ignored at best.What would be the purpose of this?



I think that it'd be a fun exhibit to showcase this part of NYC that's so often ignored at best.
I was trying to go more for that all animals are interesting, even something as seemingly regular as the humble New York rat.Personally, I always thought that it would be cool if a bird house had, maybe as a final exhibit, a recreation of a stretch of city sidewalk, maybe the side of an apartment building with some adjacent planted areas, with rock doves, European starlings, house sparrows... sort of to highlight that birds really are everywhere and always with us, even in what must seem the most inhospitable of habitats (and, with those three in particular, to sound a warning as to how we're losing native bird species and becoming a world of what are, essentially, the animal equivalent of weeds.
I'd say a rat exhibit with a cool educational message would be a welcome feature of a zoo small mammal house. One that just has the message, "ew rats are gross and crawl around in liquid feces," could use some work. I don't particularly like animals being used for ick value - not saying that's what you're going for, but that's how I think it would be interpreted
That's a good question. Having seen rats on the tracks a lot, one idea could be making the exhibit look like the bottom of the subway track area. That really grimy spot where the rats are. Or perhaps, make it look like a piece of train track.
I was envisioning a space that'd just take up one of the tanks in the Mouse House.You'd need to get rid of a lot of the other existing enclosures and species to do this. Considering this is the only really extensive small rodent collection in the nation--at least at a major zoo--this would be a pretty major downgrade and loss to AZA diversity.
An extensive, educational exhibit for Brown Rats might honestly be of more value in something like the Children's Zoo. Maybe one of the rabbit or tortoise yards or something. Obviously would need to be fully contained in the end but I think that'd be more worthwhile than razing a wing of the Mouse House. It's also worth noting that the Mouse House had Brown Rats for quite some years, I believe right next to the House Mice.
EDIT: I'd also like to point out that Brown Rats are invasive to North America.
~Thylo
I think that it'd be a fun exhibit to showcase this part of NYC that's so often ignored at best.