Your Favourite Individuals

My favorite individuals at the Cincinnati Zoo are probably the elephants Sabu and Jati, Kifaru the Black Rhino, Jomo and Samantha the gorillas and the gibbons (don't know their names).
 
Aeriel the bald eagle, Butterball the turkey vulture, and the nameless Guinea turaco at the Santa Fe Teaching zoo
 
Amelia the harbor seal at the New England Aquarium. I love that girl. Even though it's getting really cold, I still try to hang out with her for a while and get plenty of pictures every time I'm there.

Ron the California sea lion at the same aquarium is a favorite too. Little boy is growing up so fast.
 
I always enjoyed the Pachyderm House at the Philadelphia Zoo when it had elephants and rhinos. My favorites were Dulary the Asian Elephant and Xavira the Indian Rhino. When I was little I used to think the African Elephant Petal was a male LOL.

At Zoo Miami my favorite is Dalip the Asian Elephant cuz he is the last great elephant in the USA. He is the closest thing to a Palaeoloxodon or Stegodon you'll see anywhere and I always feel so priveleged to be in his presence. I almost bowed like Mowgli in jungle Book when I saw him last time! My other favorites have to be the Sarus Cranes in Wings of Asia since they inspired my YouTube Channel name.

At Jacksonville Zoo I have a great fondness for the Yellow Billed Storks in the River Valley Aviary and Ali in the elephant exhibit as well as the wild Wood Storks that nest in the Bongo exhibit every spring even though their calls can be annoying at times.

At Zoo Tampa the resident Indian Rhinos Arjun and Jamie and Shoebills were my favorites and at the Sunset Zoo I've enjoyed watching and recording the Caribbean Flamingos breeding season. I'll get to editing it eventually. I also like to hang out with their American White Pelican and the Red Crowned Cranes in the Asia loop.
 
Of all the zoo animals I've met so far, the one that might have impressed me the most as a kid was the big male African softshell turtle called "Susi" (there must have been a Johnny Cash fan among the staff...#aboynamedsue) that lived at the zoo aquarium of Tierpark Munich Hellabrunn for almost 50 years.
Neues aus Hellabrunn
 
Victor the late polar bear at YWP, he was always the one I spent the most time with and was the first animal I could genuinely identify. I suppose he got me into travelling to different collections and following the zoos and individuals more.

Vladimir the amur tiger (YWP)
Aung Bo the asian elephant (Chester)
Yang Guang the panda (Edinburgh)

William the chimp at Twycross, he's got a lot of personality and I've never seen my little brother (who has ASD) engage with an animal the way he did with William, they both sat at the window and pulled faces at each other for a while and I got a great picture of the two of them and my brother was so happy.

Finally Lucu the sumatran tiger at Edinburgh, funnily enough I've never seen him in the flesh, (I saw a tiger at Paignton a couple years ago but I'm not sure who it was) but I've nearly always got the webcam on and I've come to know his habits and his favourite spots.

I've probably got more to add but these are the ones that came to me first.
 
Scottish Wildcat said:
  • Louie, Qafzeh, Liberius (my age), Cindy, the star attraction of my local petshop)
  • Bertus the Indian Rhino (Edinburgh, I always spent my last half-hour in the zoo up-close with him in the rhino house!)
  • Tyson the Honey Badger (Edinburgh, my old best friend's favourite)
  • Sasha the Amur Tiger (Edinburgh)
  • Mercedes, Walker, and Arctos the Polar Bears, (HWP, self-explanatory)
  • Mondula the African Elephant (Blair Drumond)
  • The Californian Sea Lions (Blair Drummond)
  • Gandalf the Rupell's Vulture (World of Wings)
  • Anne the Elephant (Longleat, I saw her in the circus in my local park when I was little and got a picture next to her. I'd love to visit her in her new home as a kind of apology)
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Where is bertus now?
 
The animal that wins my heart is Mai Thai the Indian Elephant at the Cincinnati Zoo. She is so kind and gentle to the other elephants and her keepers even when Jati starts to bully her.
mar-2015-elephant-reserve-mai-thai-look-at-her-head.287668
 
Batto said:
Of all the zoo animals I've met so far, the one that might have impressed me the most as a kid was the big male African softshell turtle called "Susi" (there must have been a Johnny Cash fan among the staff...#aboynamedsue) that lived at the zoo aquarium of Tierpark Munich Hellabrunn for almost 50 years.
Neues aus Hellabrunn
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Amazing that they reintroduced "Susi" back to the wild too in Jordan.

Are there any pictures or videos of this animal out there ?
 
Batto said:
No. Due to that and the rumors I've heard, I doubt that the animal survived the trip. The title "Zum Jordan gegangen" resembles "Über den Jordan gegangen", a German phrase for dying.
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But they stated in the newsletter that the turtle was successfully released into a lake in a protected area in Jordan, do you mean that they covered the death up and pretended that everything went as planned ?
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
But they stated in the newsletter that the turtle was successfully released into a lake in a protected area in Jordan, do you mean that they covered the death up and pretended that everything went as planned ?
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Yes.
Your translation is incorrect, btw. The article only states that the turtle arrived at Zoo Jerusalem and was supposed to get released into the nature reserve of the Jordan River.
 
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Batto said:
Yes.
Your translation is incorrect, btw. The article only states that the turtle arrived at Zoo Jerusalem and was supposed to get released into the nature reserve of the Jordan River.
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Thats such a shame, all that way just to die in a zoo, wouldn't it have been better to keep it at Hellabrun ?
 
The tank "Susi" had lived in for decades was no longer adequate. And allegedly, no one local wanted to take in an old, huge softshell turtle. For me, it's kinda strange that there are no online photos of the animal in its old tank, in its new enclosure at Jerusalem or from the release. You would assume that especially the latter would have triggered more national and international media coverage; the anti-captivity lobby, in the wake of "Free Willy", would have had a field day.
The Zoo in Jerusalem is not listed as a past or present keeper of the species.
The more you think about it, the more you feel like Fox Mulder challenging the official narrative as a cover-up.
I know from a good source that the death of the other long-lived big African softshell turtle in a German zoo (i.e. Rostock) in 2015 did also not take place as officially stated.
 
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Batto said:
The tank "Susi" had lived in for decades was no longer adequate. And allegedly, no one local wanted to take in an old, huge softshell turtle. For me, it's kinda strange that there are no online photos of the animals in its old tank, in its new enclosure at Jerusalem or from the release. You would assume that especially the latter would have triggered more national and international media coverage; the anti-captivity lobby, in the wake of "Free Willy", would have had a field day.
The Zoo in Jerusalem is not listed as a past or present keeper of the species.
The more you think about it, the more you feel like Fox Mulder challenging the official narrative as a cover-up.
I know from a good source that the death of the other long-lived big African softshell turtle in a German zoo (i.e. Rostock) in 2015 did also not take place as officially stated.
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I just think it is an absolute tragedy really what happened to "Susi".

I can understand that the tank was no longer adequate but couldn't the zoo have built a new one for her ?

Moreover, why wouldn't other zoos take her in ?

These are very long lived animals and Susi could have potentially lived for decades more afterall and could have been housed with any number of other reptiles in a mixed-species exhibit.

I can also understand why the idea to release the animal back into the wild may have been attractive and have caught on in the minds of staff.

Nevertheless, these kinds of efforts don't always work out, that is obvious and almost to be expected and for an animal so old there are so many obvious risks inherent in that kind of move.
 
Batto said:
Softshell turtles do not rank highly in the popularity score chart of most zoos. In particular when they're big, old, not endangered and, given that they are softshell turtles, often not very friendly.
Before jumping to any further conclusions, I will continue asking around to find out what really happened to the specimen.
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Yeah I know they are hardly crowd favourites as far as the zoo going public are concerned but this was an older animal that had a remarkably long life at the zoo and as with any elderly animal within a captive environment I just feel that there should be a duty of care to them.

That said, perhaps back in 2000 it was considered to be a duty of care to release the turtle back into its natural habitat.

Yes, that would be great as I'm quite intrigued by the story of "Susi".
 
Louie, an African bush elephant that formerly lived at Toledo Zoo and Aquarium. He was a favorite individual animal of mine because the two of us were born on almost exactly the same day, and elephants have always been one of my favorites so it was perfect. Louie was transferred to the Henry Doorly Zoo in 2017, per a breeding recommendation.
 
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