ZooChat Cup 3rd Place play-off: Burgers vs Chester

Ungulates and miscellaneous mammals

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
C

CGSwans

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Coming from an Australian rules background, I don't really understand this consolation round for 3rd place thing: in my sport once you're out you're out, and that's that. But why not.

Tonight's play-off features one category from each of the zoo's losing semi-finals. Chester was knocked out by Prague 26-11 on primates and miscellaneous mammals, while Burgers fell to Berlin, 21-15, on ectotherms and ungulates.

Tomorrow: the big one.
 
Miscellaneous mammals is not where Burgers' strength lies and I feel it stands no chance against Chester. For Ungulates and allies they have a much better chance. Though again with less species they have some of the better enclosures and a big bonus in the form of Manatees in a huge tank.
 
lintworm said:
Miscellaneous mammals is not where Burgers' strength lies and I feel it stands no chance against Chester.
Click to expand...

However, miscellaneous mammals is also the area which cost Chester the match against Prague.....

This is going to be a tough one.
 
I feel for both zoos to get this far is a great achievement seeing as they’re not the top 4 seeds, and should have lost in the last 8 if seeds mean anything which in this competition they’ve certainly not. I feel this will be a great match, can’t wait to here the arguments for both sides.
 

Ungulates
Both: South-East Asian elephant; Rothschild's giraffe; Myanmar thamin; Eastern bongo; Javan banteng; roan antelope

Arnhem
Asian elephant
West Indian manatee
Grant`s zebra
Southern white rhinoceros
Northern warthog
Collared peccary
Reeves' muntjac; common hog deer; Eurasian forest reindeer
California bighorn; common waterbuck; beisa oryx; eastern white-bearded wildebeest; western blue duiker

Chester
Onager; Grevy's zebra
Malayan and Brazilian tapirs
Eastern black and greater one-horned rhinoceroses
Red river hog; Negros warty pig; common warthog; Sulawesi babirusa
Balabac chevrotain
Okapi
Indian muntjac; Visayan spotted deer; southern pudu
Kirk's dik-dik; lowland anoa; red buffalo; western sitatunga; red duiker

Arnhem has a manatee and a peccary; Chester has tapirs and a chevotrain. This is a draw on family diversity.

Chester has more horses, rhinoceroses, pigs and giraffes and wins on species.

Other mammals

Both: Aardvark; Rodriguez flying fox; Seba's short-tailed bat

Arnhem
Swamp wallaby
Merriam's kangaroo rat; Cactus deer mouse; hispid cotton rat; capybara; common Rock squirrel
Lyle's flying fox

Chester
Dusky pademelon; Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo
Lesser hedgehog and lowland streaked tenrecs
Round-eared sengi
Cape hyrax
Linnaeus' two-toed sloth; giant anteater
Belanger's tree-shrew
Giant jumping rat; Asia Minor spiny mouse; Northern Luzon giant cloud rat; Cape porcupine; naked mole-rat; capybara; Azara's agouti; Sumatran Prevost's squirrel

Chester has tenrecs; a sengi, a hyrax, a sloth and anteater and a tree shrew and wins on order diversity.

Chester wins overall.
 
This is tough, the best zoos from both of my home countries against each other.

Though Chester may have more variety than Burgers’, Burgers’ slays Chester in exhibitry (that manatee tank, plus Safari and the mixed exhibit in Rimba). Given that Burgers’ also has more rarities than Chester in both categories (rock squirrel, kangaroo rat, manatee, Beisa oryx etc.), I’m going with Burgers’.
 
I have visited neither zoo, but am going with Burgers'. Having read travel reports and looked at gallery pictures and contemplating, where would I rather go see 'ungulates and misc. mammals' Burgers' elicits a level of curiosity in me that Chester simply does not: with Burgers' i genuinely wonder how its enclosures might be like, whether this is the savanna or the manatee house (which both seem to get a lot of praise), or the sheep in the desert (which get mixed reviews). Even with misc. mammals where I don't think I've read anything on Burgers' enclosures, I am curious as to how they might exhibit them to a level I simply am not with Chester.
I might be assessing this unfairly and - good arguments provided - may yet revise my vote.
 
Other mammals is probably Burgers' weakest point. For a zoo that is arguably among the best zoos in Europe, the lack of xenarthrans, hyraxes, sengis, tree shrews, insectivores and tenrecs, as well as low numbers of marsupials, means a huge gap in the collection. Although they are often not the easiest species to add to an ecodisplay, I think the rodents in the Desert show it is not impossible.

What Burgers' does it does good, and ever since the legendary first match, Burgers' has always won on exhibitry until it met its match in the form of the truly excellent Berlin Aquarium and ungulates buildings. If Burgers' wins, it will win on exhibitry and not collection.

@Dassie rat, Burgers' does keep capibara!
 
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