The zoo from hell

steveroberts said:
Coming soon:
*Red Pandas (never come, but we did get Fennec Foxes for a couple of years)
*Serval (never comes, but we did have an elderly female Binturong for 3 years, plans to bring in a second Binturong for company never eventuate)
*One summer we temporarily had Snappy the baby Saltwater Crocodile in our 'Meet the Reptiles' show
*(hybrid) Giraffes (never come but we did get more Capybaras in a 3rd exhibit for them)
*Hamadryas Baboons (never come instead we built a tunnel with viewing glass to view some of our resident Meerkats in their underground activities).
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I especially like this section. It accurately sums up people’s frustration when zoos promise us species that never arrives.

One zoo I know promised more Common hippopotami when the last one died (I knew it was a permanent phase out); and was hopeful another would follow through on their 2014 promise of more African wild dogs later that year…still waiting….
 
Zoofan15 said:
On reflection, I lied. I’m not still waiting - I gave up in the late 2010’s, but still VERY disappointed an import of this species did not eventuate.
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Yeah I've also stopped expecting it to happen with a lot of (99.9%) of zoos when they say, its not easy planning big expensive future arrivals or re-arrivals especially with our uphill importation struggles, but it seems even less likely as time goes on. Will be very very surprised if Sydney Zoo ever gets its Hippos (given there's a current importation block that makes zero sense), why oh why were those Hippos in Cairns exported to Indonesia back in '13??
 
DaLilFishie said:
1. Step on a Stonefish Experience
2. Every single exhibit is a coral reef exhibit, with the obligatory Ocellaris/Percula Clownfish, Regal Tang, Yellow Tang, Pyjama Cardinalfish and Blue-green Chromis. All use dead coral skeletons other than one which has ugly brown zoanthids, which are signed as "Coral"
3. Seahorses, crabs and octopus are signed only as "Seahorse", "Crab" and "Octopus"
4. Dolphins :(
5. Signs that haven't been updated in years and do not match what is in the tanks at all
6. An exhibit named "Finding Nemo: The Experience"
7. Jellyfish exhibit with only Moon Jelly
8. There was an actually nice exhibit years ago with native freshwater species or something that was replaced with Finding Nemo: The Experience
9. Calls the sea lions "Seals"
10. A tank full of goldfish
11. Advertising makes a big deal of the "dangerous" sharks but are actually just Blacktip Reef Shark, Tawny Nurse Shark and Sand Tiger Shark
12. Mandatory green screen photo at the entrance
13. Tanks use those ugly fake plants you see in pet stores
14. Big sign at the exit that says "We hope to SEA you again!"
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A thousands laughing with tears emojis and thumbs up
 
steveroberts said:
Not quite from hell (in fact I like all the species I'm gonna mention, its just for the sake of some tongue-in-cheek humour, I believe anyone else from Australia/New Zealand who sees the post might see what I'm driving at with our most commonly held species in our region's zoos).

MEERKATLAND ZOO
$50 adults
$40 kids

Not 1 not 2 but 38 Meerkat exhibits featured throughout the park, chance for a VIP tour to meet our awesome Slender-Tailed Meerkats ($250 per person, pre-bookings essential).

Other animals you'll come face to face with are our awesome Capybaras, Common Marmoset, Ring-tailed Lemurs in the Lemur playground where you can climb on climbing equipment while our Ring-tailed Lemurs do the same thing (behind glass of course, though you can feed them in our VIP tour, additional $80 and again pre-bookings essential), Black-capped Squirrel Monkeys (replaced later by Brown/Tufted Capuchins), (Asian) Water Buffalo (later replaced by a second Capybara exhibit and a Quokka exhibit), Kangaroo Island Kangaroo and Tammar Wallaby walkthrough (Tammar Wallabies later replaced by Red-Necked Wallabies, inspired by another members comment on a now deleted media page), Koalas (only accessible for photo standing next to while are on a wooden branch under a 4m high shelter pagola, $80 fee to see, photo compulsory), (European) Fallow Deer (later replaced by Shetland Ponies), Dromedary Camel (site of exhibit later replaced by 3 more Meerkat exhibits), Lolly our resident Blue-and -yellow Macaw and Topsy our grumpy old Emu (and only two birds at the park), Harry our resident Greek Tortoise (watch him eat lunch everyday at 1pm) our other reptiles Spike the Inland Bearded Dragon, Bruce the albino Coastal Carpet Python and Jemima our Red-Eared Slider (Turtle) are available to meet in our amazing 'Meet the Reptiles' session everyday at 2pm (additional $50 access).

Coming soon:
*Small-Clawed Otter (never comes but we built a VIP section with more Common Marmosets don't worry)
*Red Pandas (never come, but we did get Fennec Foxes for a couple of years)
*Serval (never comes, but we did have an elderly female Binturong for 3 years, plans to bring in a second Binturong for company never eventuated)
*One summer we temporarily had Snappy the baby Saltwater Crocodile in our 'Meet the Reptiles' show
*(hybrid) Giraffes (never come but we did get more Capybaras in a 3rd exhibit for them)
*Hamadryas Baboons (never come instead we built a tunnel with viewing glass to view some of our resident Meerkats in their underground activities).

PS We make sure our billboards near the zoo inspire your kids to harass you to come visit us and pay the costs, just because of how cute our Meerkats look on our billboards of course.

Oh and when the Fennec Foxes and elderly Binturong died we built more Meerkat exhibits in place of their former exhibits.
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Why are we here? Just to suffer?!
 
steveroberts said:
Yeah I've also stopped expecting it to happen with a lot of (99.9%) of zoos when they say, its not easy planning big expensive future arrivals or re-arrivals especially with our uphill importation struggles, but it seems even less likely as time goes on. Will be very very surprised if Sydney Zoo ever gets its Hippos (given there's a current importation block that makes zero sense), why oh why were those Hippos in Cairns exported to Indonesia back in '13??
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There’s similarly zero chance of Sydney Zoo importing the gorillas they planned to import from Orana Wildlife Park. This cancellation was disappointing as Orana subsequently cancelled their plans to import gorillas to form a breeding troop. Aside from the costs, they don’t have the space with two bachelor males to manage a second troop - long term.
 
@Zoofan15 That's so bloody frustrating because Sydney Zoo's cancellation creates massive progress halts for Orana too. Second time this year have learned from you about a New Zealand zoo having plans cancelled on them by a wealthy private zoo in eastern Australia. I'd be so angry if I was Orana or Auckland.
 
steveroberts said:
@Zoofan15 That's so bloody frustrating because Sydney Zoo's cancellation creates massive progress halts for Orana too. Second time this year have learned from you about a New Zealand zoo having plans cancelled on them by a wealthy private zoo in eastern Australia. I'd be so angry if I was Orana or Auckland.
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Auckland made very clear in the media their disappointment at Australia Zoo cancelling Burma’s import days before and I too, don’t blame them.

In Orana’s case, I know cost played a part in the cancellation of the Europe, so they were probably happy to retain their bachelor males. There was similarly a plan to import Sumatran orangutans that fell through.

Covid has been the unexpected spanner in the works for many imports and exports. Hamilton Zoo were all set to ship out their adolescent male rhino to Australia in 2020. He remains there to this day.
 
@Zoofan15 Yeah its very showing the financial hardship as the world has gotten pretty much back on with regular living with some Covid cases here and there but treated like the Flu is now. But the delays and cancellations that have happened during the 'eye-of-the-storm' period of Covid in 2020 and 2021 are still being felt 75% of the way through 2022.

ps I'm glad that Auckland Zoo didn't shy away from publicly expressing their disappointment at Australia Zoo pulling the pin at the 11th hour. I wouldn't trust them if I was another zoo with working together (in all honesty I don't like Aus' Zoo anymore and personally am only impressed by their Sumatran Elephant herd, though love all their individual animals from afar don't get me wrong, its the human-beings in charge there I dont go much on, though no disrespect intended towards Bindi or Bob Jnr they're just young people born into a unique position in the world, kinda like the younger Windsors in England or anyone whos parent or parents are 'A-list' actors or musicians).

Hope Orana can proceed with some of their plans soon enough, quite impressed by that place.
 
steveroberts said:
@Zoofan15 Yeah its very showing the financial hardship as the world has gotten pretty much back on with regular living with some Covid cases here and there but treated like the Flu is now. But the delays and cancellations that have happened during the 'eye-of-the-storm' period of Covid in 2020 and 2021 are still being felt 75% of the way through 2022.

ps I'm glad that Auckland Zoo didn't shy away from publicly expressing their disappointment at Australia Zoo pulling the pin at the 11th hour. I wouldn't trust them if I was another zoo with working together (in all honesty I don't like Aus' Zoo anymore and personally am only impressed by their Sumatran Elephant herd, though love all their individual animals from afar don't get me wrong, its the human-beings in charge there I dont go much on, though no disrespect intended towards Bindi or Bob Jnr they're just young people born into a unique position in the world, kinda like the younger Windsors in England or anyone whos parent or parents are 'A-list' actors or musicians).

Hope Orana can proceed with some of their plans soon enough, quite impressed by that place.
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I suppose the real zoo from hell was the Covid pandemic. Zoos were closed to the public, there were staffing shortages, international transfers were cancelled and construction was put on hold as materials were unable to be sourced - not unlike the WWII era minus the obvious.

Zoos are now in the recovery phase and those with the resources to do so are making great strides. Orana Wildlife Park are focussing their efforts on the large Southern white rhinoceros import from South Africa, which is an exciting development for the region.
 
@Zoofan15

Such good points you make, it's cool too to see you acknowledge and highlight how much the zoos and their staff have been up against in the last 2.75 years (and its not like zoos didn't already have to go through financial toughness even before the world plunged into the war-like Covid era).

Think that its awesome that Orana knows where its priorities lie at present, and like you said the Sth White Rhino' major import project is a very exciting and meaningful project to be happening and am so glad that it is. Orana while I know only the basics about its story I think I'm being accurate by saying has had a long 30-35 year (possibly longer) legacy with their work with Sth White Rhinos' and wanted to acknowledge that, so I hope with this joint-partnership in the Rhino import project that Orana will get as optimal a new imported group of Sth White Rhinos' as they are asking for.
 
Haliaeetus said:
"and a Quokka exhibit"

Are them so common ?
I'm not sure that a single zoo has this species out of Australia.
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Quokka are held across several Australian facilities, but are indeed a novelty to those outside Australia. There are other species @steveroberts mentions such as the Koala which most people in North America would be excited to see, but I believe the point of his post is to highlight what species he feels are over represented in the zoos of his region (Australasia).

While which species are common and which are a novelty will vary from region to region, what’s universal is that each region will have its own variation on this. I for one would be excited to see an American black bear (which isn’t held at any zoo in my region), but am confident few North Americans would share that enthusiasm.
 
@Zoofan15 Thanks man for helping explain what I was driving at the joke post.

@Haliaeetus On a personal level I actually love Koalas and Quokkas with a passion (been lucky enough to spend many days interacting with Quokkas on Rottnest Island in WA on many trips between the early 1990s and 00s (cant wait to return, its been 12&half years almost), the first times I saw Quokkas in zoos in Australia was really impressed with their living space (Perth Zoo has a walkthrough exhibit that leads up to their Numbat House) and Taronga has the same over the last few decades in different parts of the zoo. What it is with Koalas in Australia is that so many zoos and wildlife parks here jump to be part of the whole tourist buck to have your photo taken next to a Koala that would rather be left with some space between it and a horde of people so that it can munch on its eucalyptus gum leaves in a nice tree in peace and quiet. For example Perth Zoo has a good exhibit with a boardwalk surrounding for visitors while the Koalas have several metres of space between them and visitors, and some actual trees to occupy also. Taronga in Sydney (while it has had a fairly decent Koala 'walkabout' exhibit since the early '70s) has recently knocked down a historic section of native bird aviaries to create another Koala photo opportunity section which I think is a travesty of the highest order. When I visit zoos that have Koalas and Quokkas I'm always happy to see them both ... its more just 'tongue-in-cheek' about how if a make-believe zoo was going to copy the masses (whatever the opposite of 'buck-the-trend is), they'd likely have a Koala photo section and an exhibit for some Quokkas. You've inspired me now too: the Meerkatland Zoo phases out its Quokkas after a couple of short years and builds a Butterfly House over their old exhibit lol (not a big impressive one thats capable of supporting caterpillars to cocoon into butterflies either, one that has to regularly catch them from the wild, as I have heard Perth Zoo's BH (1995-2002ish) functioned.
 
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steveroberts said:
Not quite from hell (in fact I like all the species I'm gonna mention, its just for the sake of some tongue-in-cheek humour, I believe anyone else from Australia/New Zealand who sees the post might see what I'm driving at with our most commonly held species in our region's zoos).

MEERKATLAND ZOO
$50 adults
$40 kids

Not 1 not 2 but 38 Meerkat exhibits featured throughout the park, chance for a VIP tour to meet our awesome Slender-Tailed Meerkats ($250 per person, pre-bookings essential).

Other animals you'll come face to face with are our awesome Capybaras, Common Marmoset, Ring-tailed Lemurs in the Lemur playground where you can climb on climbing equipment while our Ring-tailed Lemurs do the same thing (behind glass of course, though you can feed them in our VIP tour, additional $80 and again pre-bookings essential), Black-capped Squirrel Monkeys (replaced later by Brown/Tufted Capuchins), (Asian) Water Buffalo (later replaced by a second Capybara exhibit and a Quokka exhibit), Kangaroo Island Kangaroo and Tammar Wallaby walkthrough (Tammar Wallabies later replaced by Red-Necked Wallabies, inspired by another members comment on a now deleted media page), Koalas (only accessible for photo standing next to while are on a wooden branch under a 4m high shelter pagola, $80 fee to see, photo compulsory), (European) Fallow Deer (later replaced by Shetland Ponies), Dromedary Camel (site of exhibit later replaced by 3 more Meerkat exhibits), Lolly our resident Blue-and -yellow Macaw and Topsy our grumpy old Emu (and only two birds at the park), Harry our resident Greek Tortoise (watch him eat lunch everyday at 1pm) our other reptiles Spike the Inland Bearded Dragon, Bruce the albino Coastal Carpet Python and Jemima our Red-Eared Slider (Turtle) are available to meet in our amazing 'Meet the Reptiles' session everyday at 2pm (additional $50 access).

Coming soon:
*Small-Clawed Otter (never comes but we built a VIP section with more Common Marmosets don't worry)
*Red Pandas (never come, but we did get Fennec Foxes for a couple of years)
*Serval (never comes, but we did have an elderly female Binturong for 3 years, plans to bring in a second Binturong for company never eventuated)
*One summer we temporarily had Snappy the baby Saltwater Crocodile in our 'Meet the Reptiles' show
*(hybrid) Giraffes (never come but we did get more Capybaras in a 3rd exhibit for them)
*Hamadryas Baboons (never come instead we built a tunnel with viewing glass to view some of our resident Meerkats in their underground activities).

PS We make sure our billboards near the zoo inspire your kids to harass you to come visit us and pay the costs, just because of how cute our Meerkats look on our billboards of course.

Oh and when the Fennec Foxes and elderly Binturong died we built more Meerkat exhibits in place of their former exhibits.
Click to expand...

This post is practically made for Zoochatters to upvote
 
Cypselurus said:
Be a target for archerfish! Put a scuttling cockroach on your face and hope the archerfish's aim is dead on, and not going into your eyes, nose, or ears. And that's if the insect doesn't go to those places first.
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Sounds interesting... only part I don't like is the cockroach... I don't mind water in my face.
 
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