Any Zoos you plan on visiting next year?

There's a good chance I can get to Omaha this summer!

 

These zoos are confirmed - Bristol, Wild Place, Exmoor, Axe Valley, Chessington, ZSL, Hamerton, Paignton, Living Coasts, Newquay, Woodside, Wolds, Shepreth... Many more will be added to the list.

In the next couple of years I hope to be travelling to Perth to visit a good friend - I'll make sure to visit plenty of Aussie zoos.

 

I can't make any promises... But that does remind me, I do hope to take a trip north this year!

 

I have had it confirmed that this year's ZooHistorica will be at Rostock on Saturday September 12th (with an excursion to Stralsund on Sunday 13th).

 

We have started to consider planning another 2-day trip to Pairi Daiza (like the one we did in October 2019) somewhere this year.

Other than that I am still trying to not make too many plans just yet. Besides Antwerp and Planckendael zoos that are however definitely on high my list for 2020 are GaiaZoo, Zie-Zoo, Avifauna, Blijdorp, Burgers' Zoo and Dierenrijk. Apenheul, Artis, Ouwehands, Duisburg and Wüppertal are also zoos I am considering.

But there isn't anything certain at this point.

 

I know I'm going to the Bronx Zoo for my spring break trip and maybe another one for my birthday in Hawaii (parents won't tell me what we're doing)

 

I've only been to O'ahu, but I can attest that the Honolulu Zoo and Waikiki Aquarium are both worth a visit.

 

I'll be hitting up Jacksonville and ZooTampa in a week or so. Later on in the year I'll probably be seeing Denver for the 3rd time in 2 years And there's a chance I may see one of the Chicago facilities, but we'll see. I'd like to see Baton Rouge and Alexandria again this year as those are both day trips from me.

 

I replied to this thread last year with grand plans, and then my life went and took a drastically different path and none of it came to fruition. That said, things should be much more stable this year I, too, am hoping to hit Baton Rouge and Alexandria for the first time this year, as they are also both only day trips for me now as well. One of my best friends was just hired at the Caldwell Zoo and another friend recently moved to Fort Worth for work (not in the zoo industry), as well, so I am hoping to take an extended weekend to visit both of them, during which I would visit Caldwell and Fort Worth, as well as the Dallas facilities.

 

Once again I'm having to cancel all my zoo plans at the very least for the entire rest of the year 2020.

I had an accident on the way home from work (on bicycle) yesterday and while I have only minor injuries luckily (bruised leg) that won't likely keep from doing stuff for very long, I did end up severely damaging the car I drove into.

I am probably facing legal prosecution because the accident resulted in a very large part from irresponsible if not reckless behavior on my part. With the amount I'll have to pay for the car to be repaired and with the fines I am likely to incur for this I'm probably not going to have any zoo budget for a long time.

In any case I was very much in the wrong and made a number of severe and probably criminal mistakes that in my opinion warrant severe consequences. I have already decided that I will not be visiting anymore zoos at least for the rest of 2020, and thus I will only have visited Planckendael a single time this entire year.

 

Oh that's horrible! I hope you feel much better.

 

@KevinB You should consider getting legal advice, at least informally. The vast majority of cases of collisions between bicycles and cars are caused by the motorist, not the cyclist. Given your tendency to ascribe blame to yourself when it's not strictly necessary I wonder if you haven't jumped the gun here slightly? Also, it's hard to see how you could cause severe damage to a car whilst only suffering bruises. I think a reflective pause before committing or admitting to anything would be very prudent.

 

In reality both I and the driver were to blame, although I would still argue I am far more to blame and am the party who could have done the most to prevent this car crash.

At the moment there are some people helping me with this and taking care of things for me. There might not be going to legal action at this point, although I think I will likely still have to pay the damage to the car. Even repairing minors dents and/or scratches to car body work costs a lot of money and the insurance likely isn't going to want to cover it without compensation.

The damage to the car caused by the handle cars and front wheel of my bicycle, while my bruising was caused by my leg hitting the bicycle. I got off lucky that I still had the chance to break and didn't hit the car full force, or I wouldn't be writing anything on here right now.

I am definitely going to reflect on this further, but there will be a severe punishment nonetheless. This should not have happened and resulted from severely imprudent behavior that warrants very severe consequences. I will not be visiting any zoos for the foreseeable future, that's for sure.

 

Possibly things are different in your country, but this is literally the point of insurance as I understand it.

We perhaps shouldn't go into the specifics, but it certainly sounds like you did your best to avoid an accident. As always, I think the best thing is to take a step back and see how the situation looks in the morning. Already in between your two posts we can see that things are not as bad as first advertised.

 

Great! Its a fun place to go.

 

Have a few confirmed plans this year now:

March - Longleat and Hawk Conservancy Trust.
April - A week in Germany, which will include revisits to the Berlin Zoos, plus 1st time visits to Leipzig and Magdeburg Zoo.
June - Ouwehands, Burgers, Apenhuel and most likely Dierenrijk.
July - Pairi Daiza for 2 days, and most likely Planckendael
August - Isle of Wight for a family trip. Will aim to visit all the facilities on the island.

 

So you're planning to come back to the low counties this year. Maybe we'll bump into each other again.

 

Yes! Really looking forward to it. We're going with friends this year which is why we're doing mostly revisits. Would be good to catch up

 

I hate that I just don't seem to be able to manage my reactions well enough and I apologize for it happening again.

As it stands now I don't think banning myself from zoos is going to help me get over this at all. I have some thinking to do and some changes to make I'd say, and I might even loose some money, but hopefully things won't turn out all that bad.

I don't think it would be wise to go to a zoo until my leg is sufficiently healed up, which probably means a few weeks to perhaps a month. Hopefully by that time I'll be over this more.

Right now I really want to go to Antwerp to visit the new parrot aviaries that have finally been completed (and include species I haven't yet seen or haven't seen for a long time). But that will have to wait for a few more weeks. Hopefully by that time spring will be in the air.