ZCETT: Going to the dogs (and cats and chickens)

[DavidBrown]

Greetings. For this edition of the ZooChat Exhibit Think Tank I wanted to find out if anyone has ever seen a zoo exhibit that had as a theme the origin of dogs from wolves and the connection between Man's Best Friend and its wild relatives. Ditto the link between cats and their wildcat origins.

I know that there are some domestic dog exhibits spread throughout the zoo world. I've read on posts here that there are zoos in China where you can take a dog for a walk. Some zoo farm exhibits have farm dogs. When I was I youngling in ancient times (1976) there was a long-haired dachshund exhibit at the Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose, California. There are approximately a bazillion wolf exhibits in the world's zoos. Has any zoo ever combined these elements to explore the link between wolves and dogs? There is much emerging genetic and archaeological information explaining how dogs breeds emerged over time.

Likewise, has anybody ever seen a zoo exhibit featuring the link between domestic cats and the African wild cats that they presumably were domesticated from? It seems like a potentially interesting angle to enliven the cat species exhibit that is a standard of most zoos.

How about a jungle fowl exhibit that brings alive how the chicken came to be?

 

[Ituri]

I have not heard of such an exhibit, but the idea of an exhibit centered on domestication is an interesting one. Combine this with your exhibit idea about crop diversity and suddenly we'd have a farm in the zoo that would actually interest me. It'd be nice to go beyond petting goats and "milking" plastic cows.

 

[FBBird]

ZCETT: going to the dogs...

Many years ago, paignton Zoo had a 'Heredity & poultry' exhibit, to illustrate genetic principles, which if I remeber rightly, included various domestic breeds and Red Junglefowl.

 

[Meaghan Edwards]

How 'bout a dingo exhibit which talks about dog breed evolutions?

 

[JBZvolunteer]

If you want to see chickens and poultry go to John Ball Zoo, It felt like we either were gathering eggs(from trash cans, brush boxes for the toddlers, or wherever else that fine day) constantly had chicks, or were trying to answer the question on what type they were (we had five different types so, you didn't know what kind of a mix you had until the chicks were fully grown.) We also had a turken who's favorite pastime was wait for the barn to fill with toddlers and run the length of the visitor path through the barn screaming bloody murder.

We also had a cute set of white turkeys born. (She[the turkey] laid them in the middle of a rain storm when I was there and one of the keepers had to go find her and the carry her and her eggs back into the barn.)