San Diego Zoo Safari Park San Diego Wildlife Park news 2007-2009

theres something i always has me frowning about san diego zoo.

why are they so reluctant to attempt integrating elephants? the san diego zoo has groups of both species - yet the zoo however holds a couple of asians that live with an african cow. i have always suspected this was to maintain the prestige of having not only elephants, but both species, on display in what is the worlds largest menagarie at the zoo.

now the SDZS plans on finally consolodating and integrating its asian elephants together, i wonder if they will do the same for their african elephants and move teh female at the zoo her to the wild animal park. the article i read suggested the answer was "no".

controversially, they moved the parks african elephants to chicago (where they soon died) instead of attempting integration with the wild-captured animals that exist there now. i imagine integrating an established wildborn herd with long-time zoo animals may not be easy, but not necessarily impossible.

i applaud that the zoos asian elephants will soon be in the company of more of their own kind and think that housing a different species at each zoo is the best case scenario. i do however, hope they do the same for their african elephant as well!!




in any case, what do you guys think of this pleistocene-themed exhibit? it has strong overtones of the "pleistocene rewilding" concept i brought up a while back.

whilst i think the idea of developing a park that was entirely devoted to the concept, that did it properly with elephants roaming free in a semi-wild scenario with horses, camels etc would be fascinating, personally, its not something i expect so much from a zoo.

heres a question...(and one i have not made up my mind about)

is it just as effective, or even moreso to teach about extinction through the story of local prehistory or does it only allow people to lose touch with the seriousness of the current situation in the world?

but maybe its all about what it says, now how?
 
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thankyou pat, for explaining the new exhibit with better terminology, and i to was wondering it. whilst i agree the message of extiction is strong, should we be focussing on that, or through habitat immersion, teach the conservation of an entire habitat, rather than species focused. i don't know wheter this rpehistoric one is right for the zoo, but we will have to wait for more details to emerge, as well as experience it for ourselves to make judgment. On the other hand, it does have a wild animal park 40 minutes away, not 5 hours away, that can very easily and effectively (if you imagine africa to be sloped, and a mass of errosion) display a 'natural' habitat, with plenty of space.

On the african/asian thing, i can see 2 sides

1. for breeding, do not intergrate, as we have seen at woodland park zoo just this year, a 5 year old male asian died, presumable as it lived with an african.

2. is it fair to disconnect a group of animals, that have lived together for mnay years. i have been reading much about the nc zoo african import, and in some reletion, all the animals arriving were swapped around, and removed from there own socail structured herds, whilst it is nessicary to move animals for genetics etc, what animal rigths groups have started to cling on to is, the removal of animals from tehre herds, to 'supply' other zoos. Do you all get what i am saying? IS it fair for us to beak up herds that are well-established, with there own heirachy, as well as social interactions with 'family and firends' relations. i do understand though it is nessicary, but just a thought! i would support the zoo keeping the african and not intergrating ti with the other african herd, as she has lived with these asian for many years. if breeding was the primary objective, i think i would still send her to a sanctuary/otehr zoo, as i belivve in teh wild, cows would just not accept other females, and especiall in the parks case, where it has successfull captive breeding, why change it.
 
SAN DIEGO – Instead of the usual “bioclimatic” zone exhibit, the San Diego Zoo’s new Elephant Odyssey, is about extinction and what people can do to combat it. The animals in the exhibit are all ancestors of those that roamed Southern California 10,000 years ago. The $44 million project will house elephants, lions, jaguars, California condors, tree sloths, camels, secretary birds, rattlesnakes and pond turtles, peninsular pronghorn, guanacos, tapirs and capybaras. 7 acres of old exhibits on Horn and Hoof Mesa are now being demolished to make way for Elephant Odyssey. More than 300 animals once inhabited the area in exhibits dating from the 1950s. Many have been moved to the Wild Animal Park or other zoos. The zebras and giraffes will shift to different locations at the zoo. 10 percent of the zoo’s display area will be off-limits to visitors while bulldozers take out 50-year-old exhibits and an 18-month construction period will start early next year. Six Asian elephants from the Wild Animal Park will join the 3 now at the zoo in the new 2.5-acre space with see-through barns that will allow visitors to watch zookeepers caring for the animals.

a good sum up from WILD FINANCE.

interesting to note, on 2.5 acres, of the 7 acres, will house the 7 elephants, in the latest zoo movments, 2.5 sounds quite small.
 
I was lucky enough to see a scale model and plans of the exhibit at San Diego Zoo on Wednesday - The entire area is just over 7 acres, with around 4 acres being provided for the elephant exhibit. It's a massive site, and construction is well underway.

The "pleistocene-themed exhibit" as Pat refers to it is actually a very small part of the 7.5 acres, and is a recreation of mammoths in the La Brea tar pits. Personally, I think it will tell a great story, and is a bit unusual with regards to zoo exhibits. Since the zoo plans to increase its size dramatically in the coming years, by taking over the existing car park, I think they have plenty of space to dedicate a small portion to a unique and interesting series of exhibits and interpretation material. It gets a thumbs up from me!
 
so zoopro, it's not entirely pleistocence based, rather a small section, so how does the rest of the 7 acres fit in? as i have read, the acreages for the elephants is to be a mixed species with tapir, and capybara? the area isnt all prehistoric, how does the zoo interpret the rest of the exhibit?
 
The entire area is long and realtively narrow. The preferred entrance to the area is through some interps about the pleistocene period in California, with a recreated La Brea tar pits exhibit, and a full-sized mammoth. The interps tell the story about the disapearance of the mammaoths from the area, along with the disapearance of other prehistoric species. The main theme is to not let us allow the same thing (mass extinctions) to happen again.

The elephant exhibit is long, with seveal smaller exhibits (tapirs etc.) in smaller sections between the elephant exhibit and the visitor path. The eles will have access to the exhibit 24 x 7, with quite a small barn incorporated into the exhibit. The barn will be used mainly for veterinary procedures, with the idea being that the eles have access to a very large area almost all of the time.

At the right side of the exhibits is a plaza area with the usual services - kiosk, gift shop, toilets etc. and a few smaller exhibits. At one point, the visitor path drops down below and under a section of the exhibit, allowing the visitors to see the animals up close, at the same level as the animals.

For those who know the zoo, the exhibit runs from the meerkat exhibit in the far right corner of the zoo closest to the frnt entrance, right along the perimeter fence, behind the cat canyon and the small carnivores, past the escalators, and all the way to the rear of the panda discovery centre.

The guest bus runs all around the exhibits, with the public walkway between the bus road and the exhibit.
 
i gotta say, while its interesting i think its a really bold and unusual concept for a zoo to attempt and illustrates that the immersion theme need not be an immersion of a real-life habitat. alot of zoos in teh states have supprised me with some of their new developments. one made one based on the "river's edge" but featured asian elephant, capybara and hippo's to name a few. another built a new cat complex that, whilst the enclosures were modern in design, the running theme was obviously still very much on the old-school idea of taxonomy.

i suppose none are right or wrong, but i am very supprised a zoo would incorporate some of its biggest stars, such as elephants and lions, into an exhibit that was not really about elephants or lions. whilst no doubt it will still be a big attraction, as was their hybrid asian/african rainforest - i think i still personally prefer the geography type way of things.

something about it feels like its moving away from zoo and into museum or theme-park territory there...
 
i've never been to san diego (waaaaah!!), but didn't some of the porcines already get new exhibits in the new "heart of the zoo" precinct?

also i suspect that the WAP has all teh antelope species that teh zoo has, so i suspect they will just move them there, or relocate them elesewhere in the zoo when they do so for the zebra and giraffe.
 
Writhedhornbill,i'll be there at the end of October so if you give me a list of the wild pigs you were talking about I'll keep an eye out for them.
 
kiang said:
1.0 Black rhino born in July
Click to expand...

Kiang,

Your source?

I have been awaiting confirmation of the birth for some time now. At the last Rhino Mayday SD staff confirmed the female to be pregnant. Yet no newspaper ever reported his birth in July!

It is strange that this birth has yet to filter through into the ISIS data sets for San Diego!

Perhaps, our US forumsters can clarify the business here???! ;)
 
hi jelle i was in san diego earlier in the summer and they had a quite young black rhino then :)
 
jelle go to the website and go to what's new. Go to the new babies gallery, and it is on slides 19-20-21 something like that
 
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