Best Exhibit in Australasia Thread

Introduction

Myself, @Zoofan15, and @Jambo had the idea to create a post assessing the best great ape and Sumatran tiger exhibits in Australasia respectively. I would regard @Jambo ‘s idea to do this via poll as the better option (versus my idea to do it via independent assessment) as it makes the process interactive and allows everyone to participate, so this is what I will do too.

Polls we had in mind are:

@Zoofan15: gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee, lion
@Jambo: elephant

Other people are hereby invited to submit ideas for polls they want to see and volunteer themselves to run a poll that interests them (I’d be lying if I said there weren’t people more knowledgeable on Australasia’s freeflight bird aviaries than myself). I will tag a few who might be interested @WhistlingKite24, @akasha, @Swanson02, @steveroberts, @Matt_C, @Zorro, @Abbey, @Patrick Keegan, @Riley, @marmolady

Once we know how many people are interested in doing this (I’ll give people until 8pm 19/07/2022 New Zealand time) to put themselves forward, we can put together a roster. Depending on the number of people, we can agree the frequency. I was thinking of one poll per week (maybe on a Friday) so people have time to digest the previous week’s post and so we’re not spamming the forum; but we’ll decide this depending on how many people join the roster (if six join, could do two week for example).

 

Sumatran tiger exhibit poll:

And if you haven’t already seen it, check out the first poll in this series and vote! Best Tiger enclosure/complex in Australasia

 

Awesome.

Polls I also had in mind were: Meerkat, Red Panda, Seals, Gibbon and Baboon.

I’ll also do hippos as a whole (rather than Pygmy and Common together, due to there not being a lot of holders).

 

Sounds good, I’m excited for the hippo one!

I was also thinking of doing a giraffe and rhino one. The former are combined with zebra etc. at about every zoo - so I will probably make that poll a generalised Savannah poll as results will otherwise be skewed by how many species the giraffe are housed with.

Others I have in mind are Cheetah, Snow leopard, African wild dog, Tasmanian devil, lemur, penguin and Crocodilia - might put the latter to the back of the roster, so a certain tropical dome is open

And @akasha would be a good person to cover hyenas and Binturong.

 

@Patrick Keegan and @WhistlingKite24 could both do an outstanding job with a reptile house and free-flight aviary poll imo.

 

I was going to do a giraffe one too, but I was sure one of the open range zoos would win it! Taronga do have a nice enclosure though, complete with a scenic view of the Sydney harbour in the background so it might be one of the most aesthetically pleasing enclosures.

I also thought ones for Kangaroo, Platypus and Koala would be great, especially considering our region is full of them. And Sun bears in too.

Would it maybe be good to do Leopards in general? Considering there are only a few regional holders of Snow Leopard.

 

I guess we could get a poll up every week. Maybe at the end, we could have a thread of the best enclosure overall in Australia. Of course based on how good they are for their respective species, but I think it’s a nice idea.

 

The results of the polls may well surprise us. I’d automatically assumed Auckland or Taronga would steam ahead in the tiger poll, but the aesthetically stunning Adelaide exhibit is certainly holding its own. Similarly Australia Zoo or Taronga Zoo may take out the giraffe exhibit poll.

I too considered merging Snow leopards with Sri Lankan leopards, but thought the taxonomists might have a cry about it. I think we should though on the basis there’s six poll options and we have four Snow leopard holders and two Sri Lankan leopard holders.

A poll every week sounds like a good idea. I was thinking on a Friday evening - with you, me and anyone else who wants to join the roster. When we get to 8pm Tuesday (the deadline outlined above) and we know how many people we have joining us, we can devise a roster that everyone agrees too.

 

I love this idea! Depending on how many polls there are, we could do quarter finals, semi finals and a final (since a poll can only do six options and wouldn’t cover every poll).

We could have pool groups of apes, ungulates, felids etc. in the lead up, but this is something to be covered much later down the track so I won’t overthink it at this stage.

 

That sounds good. And I think the result of the poll should be announced the day before (Thursday). For further reference I’ll have to look to adding a time limit to the polls so people can’t future vote after the deadline.

 

We already have around 20 poll ideas between us, so we could have around 30 or so in the end.

We could then have an overall vote (where multiple choices can be made to chose eight for quarterfinals) and then go from there. Semifinals and then a final. With the winner being declared the best enclosure in Australia.

I think pool groups sound like a better idea IMO, but your right. These polls should take us to the end of the year at least so we’ll decide then.

 

I'd be happy to be involved. There seems to be a pretty comprehensive list of ideas so far, which is great. I love your overall ideas! Sort of like a World Cup (well, Australasian Cup) of zoos!

 

Great to have you onboard @Abbey. It's going to be a hugely exciting project that has never been done on this scale before within the Australasian forum. People have until tommorow night to express an interest in running it. After that we can begin a discussion on how we want to roster the species we plan to cover.

 

Species List for Polls

Thank you to @Abbey and @Patrick Keegan for offering to join the roster. Your assistance is much appreciated. I’ve devised the following lists by reallocating a few of my species to others (as I had the most). @Jambo, you’ve retained all of your species.

Species:

@Zoofan15:

1. Gorilla
2. Orangutan
3. Chimpanzee
4. Lion
5. Cheetah
6. African wild dog
7. Hyena
8. Crocodilians
9. Rhino
10. Lemur

@Jambo:

1. Sumatran Tiger
2. Elephant
3. Meerkat
4. Red Panda
5. Seal
6. Gibbon
7. Baboon
8. Hippopotamus
9. Kangaroo
10. Platypus
11. Koala

@Abbey:

1. Binturong
2. Giraffe/Savannah
3. Tasmanian devil
4. Penguin
5. Free-flight Aviaries

@Patrick Keegan:

Snow Leopard/Sri Lankan Leopard

 

Roster:

I propose we initially follow this roster

22/07/22 - @Zoofan15
29/07/22 - @Jambo
05/08/22 - @Abbey
12/08/22 - @Patrick Keegan
19/08/22 - @Zoofan15
26/08/22 - @Jambo
02/09/22 - @Abbey
09/09/22 - @Zoofan15
16/09/22 - @Jambo
23/09/22 - @Abbey

After ten weeks, we can devise a new roster for the next ten weeks based on any changes we want to make e.g. if there’s new people who want to join, or if we want to increase the frequency to two polls a week.

Additional Species:

It’s inevitable that new species will be thought of as we go along.

Irregardless of who thought of them, the species will go into a figurative pot and be allocated prior to creating the next ten week roster.

Allocation will be based on giving everyone an equal number of species.

Is everyone happy with this plan?

 

Feel free for @Patrick Keegan and @Abbey to take species from my list if you wish! I do have quite a bit, but would rather others get involved and have a shot at creating a poll too on their desired species.

 

That sounds brilliant. Can't wait to see this pan out.

 

Cheers. Needless to say that while we’ve been allocated days, it’s at the individual’s digression which species from their list they chose for their day. Listing them as numbers in Post #13 was purely for counting purposes.

 

Cool. I'll 'secure' elephants, hippos and red pandas for my three in the meantime. If @Abbey or @Patrick Keegan want to take any of the others please let me know before this roster finishes.

 

I’m down to ten (forgot to remove Snow leopard from my list when I reallocated it to @Patrick Keegan).

I will similarly offer up more of mine if necessary to balance out the numbers, but this can all be agreed closer to the end of the ten week period.

For now, let’s get planning our respective polls! I’m excited to see what we can all create. This series is a first for Australasia and will hopefully prove a valuable resource to people around the world.