British Isles Cup Redux - League B - Bristol/Wildplace vs ZSL

I think this will prove to be an exciting round, will wait to hear what others have to say. I wonder how much of a say London's aquarium closure will have on this.

 

This one is very interesting.

 

Well this one is a bit of a puzzle to solve thats for sure.

 

Whichever way I vote I have a soft spot for Bristol Zoo and the Bristol Zoological Society (I have an excellent boss who was trained by them).

I much prefer Bristol zoo in terms of the way it looks and the overall nicer feel and ambience of the place, the organization / zoological society and of course its collection. I honestly really do not at all feel the same affection for ZSL despite admiring their conservation output through the EDGE species programe (London Zoo is a bit of a disaster in my opinion).

I also think that Bristol really do deserve some credit for their work with captive breeding of species like the Lord Howe Island stick insect (they just need to apparently display the species better to the public), partula snails and Desertas island wolfspiders.

Moreover, they have important ex-situ populations of reptiles, amphibians and at least one fish of conservation concern like: Golden poison frog (EN), African dwarf crocodile (VU), Lemur leaf frog (CR), Mountain chicken (CR), Prehensile tailed skink (DD but probably at least VU), Malaysian giant turtle (EN), Rhinoceros iguana (EN), Golden mantella frog (CR), Black marsh turtle (VU), Utila iguana (CR), Aruba island rattlesnake (CR), Standings day gecko (VU), Vietnamese box turtle (CR), African pancake tortoise (CR), Cuban boa (NT), Yellow headed day gecko (EN and European breeding programe coordinated at Bristol), Aldabra giant tortoise (VU), Mississippi paddle fish (VU).

It is really quite a significant collection of Ectotherms when you think about it and I may be swayed to voting Bristol in the end pretty much out of preference rather than anything else.

 

I feel ZSL (at least in regards to its zoos) is in quite a state of decline too and it is really quite noticeable but I can't pretend that my vote was totally about ectotherms because it wasn't.

It is quite hard to articulate this for some reason but I think that Bristol zoo / zoological society have far more "heart", "character" and "soul" and feel far more welcoming to the visitor than ZSL.

Don't get me wrong, I will always support and admire the EDGE species program as one of the very best conservation initiatives there is because I genuinely believe it is but that is not the zoo.

I am basing my opinion on having visited Bristol zoo just once almost two decades but from what I remember it was a brilliant experience and the memories from that one visit remain strong. I remember the tortoises and the rhinoceros iguana particularly for some reason.

As you mention the displays for their reptiles, amphibians and inverts were / are excellent and that was back then so I can only imagine how much they have improved in the years since (though not for the LHI stick insect evidently).

 

I didn't know they held the studbook for these invert species and if I'm honest I didn't know about the existence of the species either.

However, now I do I'm really glad to hear that Bristol zoo are driving forward their conservation.

 

I would argue that the four top ecotherm zoos in the UK are Bristol, ZSL, Cotswold and Chester, with the ranking depending somewhat on which groups you care about most. Four or five years ago I would have put ZSL at the top of the list thanks to a great balance between the aquarium, reptile house and BUGZ, but with the loss of the aquarium this has really hampered things (though the Whipsnade one looks good, it isn't a patch on the original alas), along with a long-term decline in the reptile house.

Bristol's invertebrate house is the best in the country, the reptile house is excellent, and the aquarium is brilliant (though I prefered the 98% freshwater set up of 8-10 years ago) - very few zoos have large freshwater fish on display and the paddlefish alone deserve some credit. Points across the board for collection, balance between taxa and conservation focus here. There's no way London can't not get a point however, so 2:1 here.

Chester or Bristol however is a more difficult one...

 

Totally agree with what you've said about Bristol zoo.

Jersey with its amphibians and reptiles would surely be somewhere up there at the top too.

 

I think probably totally off display now thanks to the pandemic but I thought they had a reptile / amphibian house that was open to the public normally though of course some of the more sensitive species would be kept off display.

In terms of inverts and fish though I would say definitely not comparable to Bristol.

 

Not much time for a detailed reply I'm afraid, and I'd absolutely agree with TLD that is very factor dependent. However, as Jersey has a fairly small invert collection (though they did work with Partula) and a mere two fish species I don't think they're quite as balanced as the four I picked out. Ok, Cotswold doesn't have many fish either, but they do have a proper invert house (not just a butterfly walkthrough) which counts for a lot in my book. I was probably a little rash in including Cotswold in that top tier, but for me Jersey can't even begin to complete with Bristol, ZSL or Chester in this category.

 

What are their fish and invert species ? I wasn't even aware they had any at all except the historic partula snails.

I think personally that Jersey could compete in this category given its conservation work with reptiles and amphibians and the species they keep being of top conservation concern but I don't think in terms of quantity of species kept.

 

I voted Bristol and stick to my vote but I think there are a lot of things in ZSL's favour including the excellent and unparalleled EDGE species program and the keeping of several ectotherms which are of top conservation concern and not at Bristol.

For instance, I know that the aquarium is now gone but at Whipsnade they have fish species extinct in the wild like Greek killifish, La Palma, Mezquital and Potosi pupfish and they also have fish species new to science such as Sainthouse’s killifish.

At London zoo they have a number of interesting and endangered ectotherms that are apparently not kept at Bristol. There are nine species of partula snail of which I'm sure one or more may not be at Bristol, endangered amphibians such as Lake Patzcuaro salamander (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation), Axolotl (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation), Chinese giant salamander (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation), Sardinian brook salamander (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation), Mallorcan midwife toad (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation) and Lake Oko clawed frog (also involved through EDGE with species in-situ conservation and first captive breeding).

There are a number of endangered reptiles like Philippine crocodile, Ethiopian mountain adder and bushmaster not kept at Bristol which add to London zoo's charm.The freshwater turtle collection kept at London include endangered or critically endangered species also apparently not kept at Bristol like Mccord's snake necked turtle, spotted pond turtle, spiny hill turtle, Annam pond turtle and big headed turtle.

 

I think the main reason I voted for ZSL has largely been covered by @Onychorhynchus coronatus post.
I just feel that since the main argument for Bristol appears to be its conservation efforts, ZSL is at the very least equal to Bristol in that area yet Bristol was being pushed in a way that implied that ZSL does very little when in fact it does a lot of in and ex situ work, particularly with amphibians, rare turtles and snails.
If the aquarium was still open it would be a lot easier to make a strong case for ZSL, it was by some distance the best in the UK, but Whipsnade'S new aquarium is very good, from a conservation viewpoint as well as its displays. Whipsnade's butterfly House is easily the best of the 3 in this contest too.
London's reptile House would beat Bristol imo if only all exhibits were still in use or didn't contain several duplicate species.
For me the Phillipine crocodile, Komodo Dragon and Giant Salamander are a plus for London too.
I am not really that bothered by invertebrates and have never been a fan of ZSL's BUGS, apart from the Jellyfish exhibit. I think I prefer Bristol's probably. I don't think there is a lot in it either way really so I can't push too hard for ZSL or criticise anyone voting 2-1 the other way!