SDWAP Dec 2010 - Ankole Cattle

First day home and I went to the Wild Animal Park. Checked out the changes made to the elephant enclosure and rode JiA.

When I went, this Ankole Cattle was visiting before being transferred to another zoo. The tour guide said that he was being placed into the Central Africa exhibit because he needed to be introduced to animals of a different species. Scimitar-horned oryxs were also in this habitat and the bontebok and kudu were missing. This is most likely not a permanent change.

Not one of the species listed is found in Central Africa

Maybe they should call it "Africa Rocks 2"

I guess that all depends on your definition of "central". The Sahel is south of the Sahara and Ankole cattle are from Uganda.

I think this underlines my point: this combination is not representative of any natural association--and is therefore weird....

Its only a temporary change. Its always a bit screwy the way they have their animals displayed. Most zoos display animals that don't exactly live with each other either, but they overlap. Of course there are some weird ones, like Bontebok dont live anywhere near Central Africa and in the Asia section Banteng are in the Central Asia exhibit with Pere Davids Deer. However, there are reasons for this because some animals wont mix. In the last example, the Banteng don't live in the Asia Plains exhibit because they cannot mix with Gaur. That would get ugly.