The vast majority of animals have "colonial names" rather than "indigenous names". What do you suggest when an animal has a range which encompasses multiple languages - surely it wouldn't be right to just choose one of them because that would be disrespecting the speakers of those other "indigenous languages"? Or would you just use all of them equally? What about species which don't have "indigenous names" to start with?
I've heard there's a movement in North America about whether to change the names of various bird species which are named after European scientists and other people of questionable beliefs.
Wasn't sure if I should post this here or on the TZ Discussion thread...
I went to the zoo and walked the entire thing on Tuesday (March 12th). Yes, even the Canadian Domain Hill lol.
Things I noted...
- New Greenhouse is BEAUTIFUL inside.
- Love how people can walk through more of it than just the one aisle.
- Plants are actually often planted in the ground vs. in pots from before.
- Aisles are wider for better accessibility.
- Volunteers were fantastic with their facts as always
- They have two lovely green plant walls that make for great selfie backgrounds!
- Canada and Mayan areas were open. Kid Zoo didn't seem to be when I walked past the entrance to the Discovery Zone...looked like the gate was shut.
- Capybara was in where the jaguar used to be in the Mayan area.
- No butterflies in the newly-reopened Mayan Woods pavilion, which sucks because that used to be one of my favourite parts of the zoo!
- Did get to actually see one of the Clouded Leopards though! I don't think in the 10+ times I've been to the zoo since we got the Pandas I've actually seen one!
- Not only are the old ticket huts at the entrance gone, but the greenhouse-looking gift shop at the entrance is also gone.
- Sad, but I picked up a bunch of garbage wrappers as I walked through the zoo...more of a slight on the number of March Break families that were there who were definitely not paying attention to what their kids were doing and haven't taught them not to litter.
- Canadian Domain signs said all the animals were out except the emu. Did the hike all the way down only to find the moose and grizzly weren't out.
- On the upside of this, the Canadian Domain was by far the quietest part of the zoo with not many people, which was a nice break from the March Break chaos of unsupervised children the rest of it was LOL.
- I think I read it somewhere on here before, but the Babirusa was in next to the orangutan exhibit (where Puppe was out!)
- Both Snow Leopards were out together (and you could actually see them!)
- Lots of newly updated animal signage around the outdoor animals...I mainly noted this in the Eurasia loop, but did notice it in other areas as well.
- Specifically noticed for the Przewalski's Horse that the zoo is now calling them the Asian Wild Horse on the new sign, which makes me sad because I used to enjoy eavesdropping on people trying to say Przewalski
Not sure. When I was there there was only one in the pen that I could see. It literally sat there in the middle not moving, like a statue lol.
Makes sense, what he's saying. Would be nice though if it was a universal change across the world vs. various zoos and sources deciding to change it to different variations.
Yes, those are eponymous names - there is a whole thread about it elsewhere on the forum. However the original post in this thread was saying that "colonial names" should be changed to "indigenous names" which isn't the same thing at all. The follow-up post made it clear that they were actually talking about eponymous names.
I don't think so, as nomenclature in taxonomy is pretty fixed.
