Are you more likely to visit a zoo with giant pandas?

The (soon?) arrival of pandas in Adelaide and the possibility of pandas at Edinburgh made me think, are zoo fans likely to make a special trip to see them if they arrive at a collection in your country?

Specifically, are you Australians going to make an effort to go to Adelaide and will Brits and Europeans make the journey to Edinburgh if they get pandas?

Thanks!

 

It's getting to the point where I go to Edinburgh every year anyway (it's a great zoo, with or without Giant Pandas), but Giant Pandas would be an incentive in itself as I've never seen one before. To put that in perspective I live around 300 miles away.

Who knows whether I'd be fussed for an rapid second visit as I know some zoo enthusiasts and visitors who rate them as a poor "display".

 

Yep and I would be one of them as they are never awake at the main opening times of the zoo`s with them been a crepuscular species.

 

I've seen pandas awake and moving.

I would not visit a zoo just because they had giant pandas.

 

I'm one of the many Aussies that I'm sure will make the trip to Adelaide to see the giant pandas.

 

I definitely will go to see them IF Edinburgh get them. Just so that I could say I had seen them.

 

I'll also make the trip, but I want to visit the big South Australian parks - Adelaide, Monarto and Cleland - anyway. The pandas really does more to set the date for that trip than anything else.

 

My boss asked me if I was going to ask for time off next month to go back to Adelaide, I asked why, he said "to go see the pandas"

I declined.

 

i think i'm the only australian member so who won't go to adelaide.

i've seen pandas a few times in zoos and whilst they are okay - they really don't excite me much more than any other bear species. the fact that they are black and white and eat bamboo only just makes up for the fact that they do seem to sleep an AWEFUL lot.

but really its their rarity that has made them so high profile and the ensuing so called panda-monium.

if lions were just as rare we'd go absolutely just as mental over them as well.

 

I totally agree, but for me its about just ticking them off and another collection off (Edinburgh).

 

ah the old tick off.

whilst i'm still keen to see a "new" species in a zoo - its all about seeing in the wild for me. and to this day i haven't seen a single big cat!

think its time to head to africa.

 

No need to go that far. There are plenty of big cats roaming the bush in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney!



Hix

 

Put simply - no. Presence or absence of pandas makes zero difference to me when choosing a zoo to visit.

While I recognize the giant pandas are a rare species, I also recognize there's a lot of other, far more endangered, species which (I think) deserve better coverage.

It has ever been a mystery to me why giant pandas are so fawned over to begin with. Do they fill some critical ecological niche I haven't heard about?

Happy travels.

 

In the summer of 2008 my wife and I visited the San Diego Zoo, the National Zoo, Zoo Atlanta and the Memphis Zoo...the ONLY 4 zoos in the United States (and basically half of all zoo's outside of China worldwide) that have giant pandas. The animals themselves are nothing special in terms of how active they are, but they are a crowd-pleasing, rare species that somehow have accumulated a massively popular following. All 4 zoos that we visited were ones on our 30-zoo/aquarium road trip that we would have gone to anyway, but having giant pandas means big business. Why else would zoos pay a million bucks a year for a decade just to have another species of bear? If I lived close enough I'd definitely visit pandas, and the city of Adelaide is only about a 7-hour drive from Melbourne so my wife and I would be there in a heartbeat if we lived down under.

 

I m still not able to understand why people love seeing panda's. I think together with koala's this is the most overrated species in captivity.

 

A lot of it is hype I guess and the fact that they are visible in so few zoos.

 

i love the overseas hype surrounding koalas. from the indoor, climate-controlled exhibits, to the imported eucalyptus leaves, to the so-called "endangered" status.

you can find koalas in almost every backyard wildlife park in australia. they live in southern climates that are a far cry from tropical. it can and does snow in inland southeastern australia. and whilst all our wildlife is under threat here in australia (we hold the record for mammalian extinction) koalas are a far cry from the top of that list.

they are thriving in some areas.

 

I read something some years ago that explained this phenomenon.

Apparently, it is genetically inherent in the female of most species to feel maternal towards both their young and the young of others. This is obviously beneficial to the species as females (and sometimes males) will fiercely protect their young, and often the young of other individuals, or unrelated species.

It seems that the large eyes, big heads, and rounded body shapes of newborns (or very small offspring) cause this maternal feeling.

Giant Pandas fit two of these criteria - round body (furry helps!) and the black eyespots make their eyes look much bigger than they really are. Plus the cute, infant like behaviour seen of pandas in captivity climbing trees, standing on their heads etc reinforces the child-like image subconsciously.

Koalas are similar. The ears make their head look bigger, and they have round furry bodies. I've often heard people go completely ga-ga when looking into a koala's eyes, something I don't understand - when I look into a Koala's eyes, absolutely nothing stares back. It's like a vacant stare.



Hix

 

They maybe safe in the south phoenix but they are in trouble in Queensland

 

i see vertical slits for pupils which remind me of possums and i see possums as rather aggressive creatures, so i feel rather detached from them.

its the same as goats and sheep. they have frog eyes, so i feel less empathy for them because frogs re rather stupid. cows on the other hand, they have big doey mum eyes and i want to be nice to them.