Species you hate to see in zoos

ThylacineAlive said:
Hamerton is a good example of a smaller zoo which focuses on oddities. They really only have maybe four heavy hitters for the public: Cheetah, tiger, zebra, and some lemurs. I'd imagine the tigers are really the only ones that'd get visitors through the doors on their own, though. Aside from that, most of the animals are lesser known species and they seem to do very well.

~Thylo
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I think a key difference is that Hamerton is in a zoo-poor area, whereas RSCC was in the exact opposite. Hamerton also has a nice domestics section with public feeding. It really is a family friendly place, and I'm not sure you could have said that about RSCC (genuinely not sure, I never visited).

Incidentally, this is really bumming me out because one weekend shortly before it closed I didn't visit RSCC because it was raining.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
I think a key difference is that Hamerton is in a zoo-poor area, whereas RSCC was in the exact opposite. Hamerton also has a nice domestics section with public feeding. It really is a family friendly place, and I'm not sure you could have said that about RSCC (genuinely not sure, I never visited).
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Compared to my neck of the woods, Hamerton is in a thriving hive of collections :P with Woodhurst Raptor Foundation, Rutland Falconry, Shepreth, Houghton Hall Deer Park, Baytree Owl Centre, Woburn Safari Park and Linton Zoo all within 50km or so. Conversely, within the same distance from here there are the following: Washington WWT, Kirkley Hall Zoo and Tynemouth Blue Reef :p

Funny enough, looking at the zoo-radius search on ZTL it looks like RSCC wasn't all that different in terms of proximity to other collections; Wingham Zoo, Howletts, Wildwood and Port Lympne are all within 50km of RSCC, but that's about it - I have to admit I am slightly surprised.......
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Compared to my neck of the woods, Hamerton is in a thriving hive of collections :p with Woodhurst Raptor Foundation, Rutland Falconry, Shepreth, Houghton Hall Deer Park, Baytree Owl Centre, Woburn Safari Park and Linton Zoo all within 50km or so. Conversely, within the same distance from here there are the following: Washington WWT, Kirkley Hall Zoo and Tynemouth Blue Reef :p

Funny enough, looking at the zoo-radius search on ZTL it looks like RSCC wasn't all that different in terms of proximity to other collections; Wingham Zoo, Howletts, Wildwood and Port Lympne are all within 50km of RSCC, but that's about it - I have to admit I am slightly surprised.......
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I'm surprised like you! However, with the possible exception of Woburn, most families in that area would surely choose Hamerton as the best place to spend a Saturday afternoon, whereas in Kent I think both the Aspinalls and Wingham would have been more popular choices.

I'm going to start a thread based on the idea of what is the most zoo-rich area of the world.
 
Howletts and Wingham are practically down the street from one another :p Obviously never got to visit RSCC unfortunately but I'm given to understand it was't much further away.

~Thylo
 
FunkyGibbon said:
However, with the possible exception of Woburn, most families in that area would surely choose Hamerton as the best place to spend a Saturday afternoon
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You could make a pretty decent case for Linton and *possibly* Shepreth too.

FunkyGibbon said:
I'm going to start a thread based on the idea of what is the most zoo-rich area of the world.
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Well, that one would be easy I suspect :P
 
elefante said:
Didn't Cincinatti used to have beavers mixed in with Mexican wolves? I thought I had read that somewhere but I could be wrong.
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That would be Cleveland. I haven't heard of any problems, and the animals were well away from each other when I saw the exhibit in person.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
You could make a pretty decent case for Linton and *possibly* Shepreth too. :p
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Not if people live North of Hammerton (few other options and an extra 50 minutes drive, each way, to Linton).

How off-thread are these posts getting? And where's the rhetorical question emoji? :D
 
Shorts said:
Not if people live North of Hammerton (few other options and an extra 50 minutes drive, each way, to Linton).

How off-thread are these posts getting? And where's the rhetorical question emoji? :D
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We are getting pretty far off topic and I've been guilty as well. Wow what are some species you don't like seeing in zoos Shorts?
 
elefante said:
We are getting pretty far off topic and I've been guilty as well. Wow what are some species you don't like seeing in zoos Shorts?
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In penance for going off-thread I'll supply my, fairly vanilla, reply: Lions, Meerkats, Asian Short-clawed Otters, too many domestics, the usual zoo nerd "dislike suspects". That said I fully appreciate the zoo's reasons for exhibiting these species (they help zoos exist and hopefully exhibit some species I'd prefer to see and/or never get bored of seeing) and even these species can, on occasion, act in ways that surprise, intrigue or interest me.
 
Shorts said:
In penance for going off-thread I'll supply my, fairly vanilla, reply: Lions, Meerkats, Asian Short-clawed Otters, too many domestics, the usual zoo nerd "dislike suspects". That said I fully appreciate the zoo's reasons for exhibiting these species (they help zoos exist and hopefully exhibit some species I'd prefer to see and/or never get bored of seeing) and even these species can, on occasion, act in ways that surprise, intrigue or interest me.
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What's your definition of too many domestics? Do you consider llamas and camels to match that definition? I wrote a post in agreement with yours previously.
 
England, Germany and the Netherlands all have lots of zoos within a given radius and the quality of them is high. It's a cultural thing: look for the map of West Germanic languages. Somehow the idea must touch something deep in some countries but not others.

Not even Celtic Britain or the North Germanic countries in Scandinavia feel the same way. Well I have no idea why this is, but the ethnic bias towards animal collections is clear.
 
SealPup said:
England, Germany and the Netherlands all have lots of zoos within a given radius and the quality of them is high. It's a cultural thing: look for the map of West Germanic languages. Somehow the idea must touch something deep in some countries but not others.

Not even Celtic Britain or the North Germanic countries in Scandinavia feel the same way. Well I have no idea why this is, but the ethnic bias towards animal collections is clear.
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I'm sure that this is just a mistype on your part but there's a difference between culture and ethnicity and in the modern world it's kind of a big deal to confuse the two.

However, I do think you're onto something culturally. Maybe Scandinavia can be explained by climate, and 'celtic' Britain by low base population, but it's really hard to see why Spain or Italy aren't great zoo nations.

Seems to me though that Eastern Europe is pretty zoo-dense as well though.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
I'm sure that this is just a mistype on your part but there's a difference between culture and ethnicity and in the modern world it's kind of a big deal to confuse the two.

However, I do think you're onto something culturally. Maybe Scandinavia can be explained by climate, and 'celtic' Britain by low base population, but it's really hard to see why Spain or Italy aren't great zoo nations.

Seems to me though that Eastern Europe is pretty zoo-dense as well though.
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A mistype?

Unless you believe that the zoo-philia ;) of those countries is somehow due to immigrants or some other outside influence, then it's obvious what I meant. Why split hours?
 
SealPup said:
A mistype?

Unless you believe that the zoo-philia ;) of those countries is somehow due to immigrants or some other outside influence, then it's obvious what I meant. Why split hours?
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Because as FunkyGibbon stated in his original comment, the difference matters.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Because as FunkyGibbon stated in his original comment, the difference matters.

~Thylo
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No it doesn't. Is there a reason you are splitting hairs? Mmm?

EDIT: I mistook FG's statement for something a SJW might whine about, but he's in China and writing English. The Chinese words we gloss as culture and ethnicity are very different, in nuance, from the familiar usage of the words. For instance in Chinese usage Zhuang and Miao would be Chinese though they are not ethnic Han or even Sinitic, rather than non-Chinese natives within Chinese borders. Han rather than Chinese would be the appropriate term for who we think of as ethnic Chinese. In Asia, the concept of Chineseness developed from Confucianism and the Pax Sinica - not from a ethnicity. (Similar to the way Roman-ness was greater than Latin-ness ie. Byzantine Greeks.) Some Chinese are sensitive about this. However to most Europeans, the Han are the Chinese, sometimes including non-Mandarin Chinese also. I hope that clears up the confusion about word usage.
 
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SealPup said:
No it doesn't. Is there a reason you are splitting hairs? Mmm?
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There *is* a difference between culture and ethnicity; to refer to the Cambridge Dictionary definition, the former pertains to "the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time" and does not state that this particular group need be of a single ethnic origin.

Also, you cannot merely dismiss FunkyGibbon's statement as one arising from a difference in translation between the Chinese definitions of ethnicity and culture, and the English definitions of these terms - he may live in China at present, but FG is *from* the United Kingdom :p
 
Well, when we talk about specific cultures, we are surely talking about ethnicity as we can dismiss the presence of a few adopted foreign children. The semantic differences between culture, ethnicity and some usages of the word race are nowhere near as separate in most cases as you are insisting. Otherwise statements as mine would have unclear meanings: but they do not.
 
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@SealPup You were right the first time; I am indeed a whining social justice warrior.

I know you know this already, but you come across as unbelievably arrogant on this site. To blithely dismiss "a few adopted foreign children" as unimportant to the debate rather than something that threatens your entire argument is ridiculous. Culture is demonstrably different from ethnicity, as any number of edge cases illustrate.

You are correct that I knew what you meant, and the majority of the time one can interchange culture and ethnicity without losing the meaning of a statement. But that doesn't mean one should.

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining why, it's obvious that someone who is as well educated as you understands my point. But I will say that it is incredibly disingenuous, if not outright dishonest, to feign ignorance of the context of this discussion. I can respect difference of opinion but I cannot respect that.

With regards to Chinese ethnicity, I completely agree that greater use of the word Han would bring a lot of clarity. In my experience, english speaking Chinese nationals tend to use Chinese as something in between ethnicity and nationality. In their understanding someone can be both Miao and Chinese, but someone could also be Miao, Chinese and American. The fact that their family had lived in the states for generations would not matter too much. Identity might be the best word to use.
 
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