ZooChat Cup finals: Beauval vs Bronx

[amur leopard]

About the bird show: aren't there a lot of species that occur only in the show? I didn't take any detailed notes but remember at least a few larger falcons, eagles, buzzards and large amounts of three species of kites that made appearances during the show but were, to my knowledge, not present in the bird-of-prey area or elsewhere in the zoo...

Andean condors, griffon vulture, White tailed eagles, lots of different species of owls, buzzard, kites and hawks make appearances and fly amongst the crowd and over the field. I think King vultures also make an appearance.

There are obviously lots of other species of birds.

 

[Vision]

Andean condors, griffon vulture, White tailed eagles, lots of different species of owls, buzzard, kites and hawks make appearances and fly amongst the crowd and over the field. I think King vultures also make an appearance.

There are obviously lots of other species of birds.

That wasn't my question: I've visited and seen the show, I know generally which species make an appearance. Earlier (post #17) you mentioned that all species had an on-show enclosure, which I don't think is true.

 

[amur leopard]

The vast majority of the species in the show are on show in the zoo, in fact I cannot think of an example that isn't on show elsewhere in the zoo.

 

[Ursus]

Although World of Birds isn't all walkthrough

Does this matter though?

 

[TZDugong]

Although World of Birds isn't all walkthrough and not all bird aviaries.

Why does it matter if it isn’t a walkthrough? And yes, it’s all birds.

 

[Mehdi]

The vast majority of the species in the show are on show in the zoo, in fact I cannot think of an example that isn't on show elsewhere in the zoo.

Do you have any stat to back that up as it seems like you and @Vision are contradicting yourselves...

 

[Vision]

I could be wrong and the situation might have changed in the 1,5 years after my visit, but I definitely remember seeing at least Augur buzzard, Common buzzard, Long-legged buzzard, Harris' hawk, Lanner falcon, Steppe eagle, and Eastern imperial eagle in the show that were not present in the normal, on-show aviaries.
I believe there were also a lot more Red kites and Brahminy kites used in the show than in their respective onshow aviaries, but this I'm less sure about.

The Eastern imperial eagle has since been moved to former holdings on zootierliste, but all others seem to still be present in the show (and, as far as I know, not visible outside of it).

 

[nczoofan]

World of Birds is the best bird house I have ever seen. It does not matter that its not all walkthroughs. Some rarer species do not respond well to walkthroughs as well. Highlight species include Maleo, Western Capercaille, great blue turaco, lesser bird-of-paradise,and raggiana bird of paradise.

The Aquatic Bird House is older and more sterile of a building, yet is still filled with good enclosures. The highlights in this house are Guam kingfisher, anhinga, northern brown kiwi, storms stork, and little penguin.

Attached to this house is the stunning sea bird aviary for Magellenic Penguin, Inca Tern, and several other species. There is also a large series of aviaries for lesser adjutant stork.

The Pheasantry is another bird focused exhibit, consisting of a traditional line of historic aviaries that are well planted. Highlight species here include Australian brush turkey, Australian magpie, Elliot's pheasant, Mikado pheasant, and satyr tragapon.

Birds of Prey is a historic line of aviaries close to the Aquatic Bird House. It originally held a variety of large birds of prey, yet in recent years these birds have been increasingly replaced with smaller species such as northern white-faced owl.

The main room of Jungleworld is about half an acre in size and is home to many Southeast Asian bird species, such as metallic starling, painted stork,

While these are the zoo's main displays of birds, other species of bird are scattered around the zoo. Northern Ponds is an area of the zoo home to a variety of waterfowl. Bird exhibits can also be found in Congo Gorilla Forest, Madagascar, Astor Court, Carter Giraffe House, African Plains, and Himalayan Highlands. As you can see, birds are all over the zoo, therefore making it hard to describe concisely.

Also wanna point out that the Bronx Zoo had 301 species of bird as of 2017.

https://c532f75abb9c1c021b8c-e46e47...7/06/23/92qyj61oww_2016_WCS_Annual_Report.pdf

 

[amur leopard]

Why does it matter if it isn’t a walkthrough? And yes, it’s all birds.

Yes because it means that the space figures are then distorted.

Anyway, does Bronx have anything apart from World of Birds? Because Beauval has its greenhouses plus all the birds scattered around the zoo plus the penguins plus the show plus the tremendous hippo aviary, and we have already ascertained that World of Birds is equal in size to, if not smaller than Beauval's greenhouse aviaries, even without counting the others scattered around the zoo.

And here begins a massive photo essay: Thanks to @Maguari, @Antoine and @Maxime and anyone else whose photos are featured.

As soon as you enter the zoo you get the greenhouses to your right. They are, contrary to what @Vision said, very distinct. Here are some photos. It is over 1800 m2 in area and holds around 100 species of bird if I remember correctly.







These photos only show a tiny part of the exhibit but the point is that each and every bird in the house gets 1800 m2 to fly freely in unlike Bronx's World of Birds. This means that they debatably have better welfare.
Next are the wild asses. Inside the exhibit are guineafowl and a couple of duck species:





Next up is the pampas exhibit depicting South American duck species as well as Southern screamers and rheas coexisting with maras, tapirs and capybaras. There are several stretches of water for the ducks, capybaras and tapirs.





More photos of the pampas directly after this post.

 

[amur leopard]

More pampas photos, thanks again to @Maguari, @Antoine and @Maxime.




OK, next is the African plains exhibit. Marabou storks are housed along with rhinos, sable antelopes, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest and springboks.




Next are the water-centred bird exhibits. For starters, there is a large Caribbean flamingo exhibit with theming.



And then a massive pelican exhibit with lots of lake space:





And lastly for this post the magnificent hippo enclosure, with Griffon vultures, Dalmatian pelicans, Yellow-billed storks and South Bald ibises.




More in the next one.

 

[nczoofan]

Anyway, does Bronx have anything apart from World of Birds? Because Beauval has its greenhouses plus all the birds scattered around the zoo plus the penguins plus the show plus the tremendous hippo aviary, and we have already ascertained that World of Birds is equal in size to, if not smaller than Beauval's greenhouse aviaries, even without counting the others scattered around the zoo.

And here begins a massive photo essay: Thanks to @Maguari, @Antoine and @Maxime and anyone else whose photos are featured.

As soon as you enter the zoo you get the greenhouses to your right. They are, contrary to what @Vision said, very distinct. Here are some photos. It is over 1800 m2 in area and holds around 100 species of bird if I remember correctly.

Maybe its important that you spend time reading and looking at the facts I laid out above before making statements like what does the Bronx Zoo have. This seems to have become a common trend.

Yet to answer your question, well 301 bird species in a variety of different habitats. In fact less than 1/3 of the zoos species are kept in WOB. Many other exhibits are scattered around the zoo as I said above.

Also it's important to note that huge walkthrough mixed-species aviaries are not the best for many species of birds, especially those of conservation concern. Hence why their are many smaller exhibits in WOB, allowing for the zoo to breed some of the rarest species in captivity.

Edit: Its also a mistake to compare WOB to Beuval's greenhouse. If you want to compare exhibits, look at Jungleworld where birds mix with gibbon, tapir, langur, gharial, prevost squirrel, turtle, among other species.

 

[amur leopard]

Then, we have the Nyala and Red river hog exhibits, with the same combination of birds as the hippo exhibit. The birds can move interchangeably between these 3 exhibits.






And continuing on we have the penguins in their large exhibit:





And then the takin exhibit with Japanese cranes mixed in with them:





More in the next one.

 

[amur leopard]

Next to the takins is a large aviary for Steller's sea eagles:




And near there is a massive Asian hoofstock paddock with notably for this tie White-naped cranes:









And finally, there is a very large exhibit for Wattled cranes near the lions:



Thanks to all whose photos I used and to all those who actually read this verbal diarrhea.

 

[amur leopard]

Hence why their are many smaller exhibits in WOB, allowing for the zoo to breed some of the rarest species in captivity.

Except Beauval has a phenomenal birth record for the 9 Critically endangered and 13 Endangered bird species it keeps, so the walkthrough approach seems to be working in terms of breeding success while still providing good (maybe even better) welfare simultaneously.

 

[nczoofan]

Except Beauval has a phenomenal birth record for the 9 Critically endangered and 13 Endangered bird species it keeps, so the walkthrough approach seems to be working in terms of breeding success while still providing good (maybe even better) welfare simultaneously.

Care to provide sources for that as some claims have become hard to verify and believe in the course of this cup. I have never said anything bad about Beauval, they seem to have nice exhibits, yet I will stand by my claim that manging rarer and conservation dependent species in large walkthrough aviaries with other species is often less successful and more difficult.

I do not have the exact statistics for the conservation status of birds at the Bronx Zoo, yet I am fairly certain it would at minimum equal the numbers you provided above. Examples of this being Maleo, northern bald ibis, bali myna, Storm stork, baer's pochard, and guam kingfisher.

 

[amur leopard]

Care to provide sources for that as some claims have become hard to verify and believe in the course of this cup. I have never said anything bad about Beauval, they seem to have nice exhibits, yet I will stand by my claim that manging rarer and conservation dependent species in large walkthrough aviaries with other species is often less successful and more difficult.

I do not have the exact statistics for the conservation status of birds at the Bronx Zoo, yet I am fairly certain it would at minimum equal the numbers you provided above. Examples of this being Maleo, northern bald ibis, bali myna, Storm stork, and guam kingfisher.

I receive email notifications for every birth in Beauval and can confirm that especially the Mynas, Siberian cranes and Blue-throated macaws have bred exceedingly well in the past year.

Stats are from ZTL of course

 

[Ursus]

As soon as you enter the zoo you get the greenhouses to your right. They are, contrary to what @Vision said, very distinct. Here are some photos. It is over 1800 m2 in area and holds around 100 species of bird if I remember correctly.

i'm sorry, but I just see a very similar greenhouse in your photo gallery. So I do think Vision is correct. Unless there's other photos proving the contrary ofcourse.

 

[amur leopard]

Here is the map, which shows that the greenhouses are reasonably separated. Anyway, why is it relevant? Even if they are joined together, doesn't that mean that the birds have even more space?

 

[TZDugong]

Here is the map, which shows that the greenhouses are reasonably separated. Anyway, why is it relevant? Even if they are joined together, doesn't that mean that the birds have even more space?

Because you said the zoo had 3-4 bird-focused greenhouses, when in fact they really have 1 greenhouse. That's what people are disputing, your exaggeration.

 

[CGSwans]

From memory I think all are interconnected except that one might have a separate room? At most I make that two ‘greenhouses’.