Dont worry....when my parents first took me to the zoo, I was told that I was much more interested in all the people around me than the animals themselves...and look at what I turned into.
apart from the risk of extinction, which doesn't really matter anyway seeing how few pureblood subspecies of tigers live in zoos: People WANT to see big cats, so you at least have to have 1 species of them in order to keep your visitors happy. @chlidonias: most parent go to the zoo for their children and then they ignore their interest. it's a scandal! especially because there can never be enough people interested in frogs and such. (btw, it's typical they want to see the big cats, see the above)
anecdote time: when I was at Melbourne Zoo a while back I was just coming out of their Frog House (which always seems to be almost deserted in stark contrast to the always-packed Reptile House right next door), and a family walks past. The little boy goes "Froggies! Froggies! I want to see the froggies!" whilst jumping up and down, clapping his hands. To which the father responds "no you don't, frogs are boring" and the mother says "lets go look at the lions". I was both amused at the parents and saddened for the boy in equal amounts.
Why jump from one extreme to another, @redpanda? Tigers are among the most popular zoo species, even when they're asleep. No zoo in its right mind would abolish these cash cows...Yet keeping dozens of them would overstrain most zoos both financially and space-wise. Amen! And not to mention the difficulties of re-introduction... The approach of the average zoo visitor torwards certain species seems to be not just age-, but also gender-related. As far as I could observe, most females, and especially mothers, seem to be more captivated by childlikeness/cuteness in animals than males. That might also explain why more women than men (with the exception of Mickey Rourke...) keep those big-eyed, brachycephalic tiny lap dogs. Childlikeness, however, doesn't appear to work on most children till a certain age-no wonder, as they themselves depict those very characteristics. For them, "odd", new (or well-known due to movies, TV...), big and/or interactive seem to be more interesting attributes in an animal. @forumbully: I think there's a reason why most parents don't want to go to the less-popular species-because a) the parents are not interested in (and sometimes even afraid of) these species and b) know even less about these animals than they know about the popular species. A vicious circle-unless you have a determined kid that drags his/her parents to the animals to those neglected species. And apparently, quite a lot of those (former) 'kids' are present in this forum...
changing the subject slightly, its a bit dispointing when zoos exibit many common domestic species such as llamas, such is the case at blackpool which has llamas in its largest paddock and also in there pets corner if there still there.
I have never seen a Koala do anything but sleep in a zoo. In the wild they are much more active and interesting. I just put up a link to a video on the Koalas thread which I took of wild Koalas on the weekend.
What annoys me is when those zoos which were specifically set up to conserve endangered species (i.e. Marwell, Jersey, Port Lympne) prostitute themselves to public demand by bringing in common species (e.g. meerkats) which can be seen ad infinitum in almost every other zoo.
conservation costs money. visitors are a (if not the main) source of money. so what you call "prostitute" is nothing more than common sense. they can either go with the flow, or drown battling it.
Yep - wasn't it P.T.Barnum who spent a fortune bringing a rhino to the U.S. 100 years ago only to have the public take a quick look, then go back to watching the antics of the rhesus monkeys?
As many of you will know, a few years ago the London Zoo (or ZSL London Zoo, as I suppose I should be calling it) did a superb job in renovating the old Mappin Terraces into a enclosure resembling a slice of the Australian Outback. And very realistic it all looks. Goodness knows how much it all cost. But then (and this is something I find hard to comprehend) the zoo chose to fill this magnificent creation with Bennett's Wallabies and Emus, two of the commonest Antipodean species imagineable and ubiquitous in British zoos. I say "hard to comprehend", but that's not strictly true. The problem is that the general public is not very discerning, and the majority of visitors wouldn't notice if the exhibit held Bennett's Wallabies or some critically endangered wallaby species. To most visitors, a wallaby is a wallaby, and Bennett's are easier to acquire than any others. But had I been in charge, I would have brought in a much more endangered macropod species. Yes, I know Austalian species in general are hard to come by at the best of times, but certainly not impossible for a collection of London Zoo's standing. After all, South Lakes Wild Animal Park, no more than a baby on the zoo scene, managed to obtain some much more deserving wallaby species, so why not London?
You'd be surprised how upset and angry the general public can be when they visit zoo's and dont find the ABC animals. Unfortunately some public expect to go to a zoo and see the common animals such as meerkats, a lion, a giraffe, a elephant etc etc. At the end of the day a zoo's success tends to be measured on how many people they get through the door.
But most 'conservation' zoos, including the three you mention here have always, to a greater or lesser(in the case of Jersey) extent, held a number of commoner or traditional type species as well as their more unusual and rarer ones. While nowadays some more traditional zoos are increasingly adding unusual or rarely seen species- so the divisions between the different types of collections is increasingly blurred. A collection with an increasingly eclectic mix of unusual species such as Edinburgh could eventually supercede somewhere like Port Lympne which is seemingly destined to become a SafariPark- type experience now.
I believe that it's all in the presentation. I think any animal can be exciting but you need to have a decent exhibit DESIGN to make people appreciate what they are looking at. For example - in the wild, if most people see a black bear they get very excited but in a zoo setting black bears are rarely noted. Same with hoofstock who are often keep in an easy to rake pen. It really isn't the animal, it's the design of the exhibit. Just look to Arizona Sonora Desert Museum to see it done right. All North American desert animals. No Giant African Plains exhibit, no South American Rainforest exhibit, no pandas. Just prarie dogs, coyotes, deer, black bears, birds... and it is the best zoo you will ever visit.
One of the best exhibits I've seen on TV, exhibits a pretty bland animal - the Naked Mole Rat... Because they were blind they have them in a large maze of see through pipes indoors... Was at Philidelphia Zoo I think... So I agree design and innovation is the most important aspect... I think arcylic is under-used... Aquarium style tunnels through exhibits is the future after glass windows methinks...
The aforementioned Arizona Sonora Desert Museum made good use of acrylic in their latest exhibit, LIFE ON THE ROCKS. Above ground exhibits (seen through acryclic or glass) PLUS underground burrows in a fake rock wall with acrylic fronts so you can see the animals when they choose to go underground.
I believe this was touched on, but unfortunately when it comes down to boring vs. interesting/exciting animals, it's a money question. The zoo owners/curators are going to look at what they can get for the lowest price that they think people will want to see. Elephants,tigers,lions,giraffes are what most zoogoers want to see because they know what they are. The average zoogoer wouldn't even know what some of our favorite animals are. So, what we see as "boring", a zoo manager sees as dollar signs. A child sees a tiger and now that child wants the stuffed tiger in the gift shop. A child sees a gaur and he thinks "it's a cow". Don't get me wrong, I walk past the elephants,lions,giraffes,tigers too!
There aren't enough non-lutrine mustelids, or indeed enough viverrids or non-suricate herpestids, in the UK for my tastes. If half of the meerkats and short-clawed otters in UK collections were replaced with, for instance, linsangs and tayra, I think there would be a lot less complaints about the meerkats and otters that remained...
But have linsangs and tayra had entire tv series devoted to them? Or a rather absurd national tv campaigns? Meerkats and otters are active, can live in large groups and regularly exhibit behaviour such as being on lookout in meerkats or washing in otters that the public love.
I think that maybe some rarer species of otter, such as spotted-necked otters would be good, or rarely seen mongoose species such as narrow-striped mongoose.
