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BT’s Attempt To Visit All AZA Facilities In Illinois

Discussion in 'United States' started by Bengal Tiger, 11 Mar 2022.

  1. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Hello all, this year I want to visit as many of the 7 AZA accredited facilities in Illinois, to start this thread off, I’ll be heading to Chicago for a couple of days, and my parents have agreed to let me see Shedd and Lincoln Park. Later this year, I ope to visit Scovill, Brookfield, and Miller Park. Costly and Peoria would be nice to see as well, because they are the only AZA facilities in the state that I haven’t visited.
     
  2. IndianRhino

    IndianRhino Well-Known Member

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    Do you plan on posting reviews of the facilities you visit in this thread? If not, what will you posting here? Just wondering since you didn’t really specify.
     
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  3. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, my bad, I will be posting reviews.
     
  4. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    I’m leaving very soon folks, I’ll probably have a review done by Wednesday or Thursday.
     
    Last edited: 13 Mar 2022
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  5. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Before I start the review, I want to make a note that the McCormick Bird House was closed when I visited, also there were some off show animals, that I will get to later. also, I may plop in a couple of references, so keep an eye out for those. If you find htem, you must be highly cultured. Anyway, here it is:

    Kovler Seal Pool & Pritzker Family Wildlife Center

    I started off at the seal exhibit, so I think that's an appropriate place to start. We walked over, and had the joy of seeing a trio of lovely pinnipeds. There was a grey seal, and two harbor seals. Now, I was just staring at the utter cuteness of these blubbery little critters, watching the harbor seals swim, and the grey seal sit half in the water, half not. We went to the underwater viewing section, and were able to get a nice view of the seals from there as well. Now the exhibit itself was not the nicest looking, but I thought it was fairly functional, and didn't see any stand-out flaws.

    We moved on to the children's zoo (which is really just a North American section), and started off by passing the NARO exhibit (without any otters) and then continued by watching the beautiful red wolves (who run the show). We had seen the while we were walking into the zoo from the back of their enclosure, but seeing them from the front was naturally better. There were two of them out, just chilling on that Monday afternoon. The enclosure was a decent size, and was well made, and I don't think there is much for me to say about it. After that we headed down the path towards the bear enclosure. The enclosure was not the biggest, but seemed a suitable size for the individual in question, who was actually a fair bit bigger than most black bears I have seen. He looked like he was trying to figure out whether he wanted to go out into his enclosure, or stay inside, and was doing so right in front of this door to the indoor den. The exhibit was not the largest I have ever seen, but it wasn't that bad. Moving on to the beaver enclosure, I saw that they had a bad algae problem on one of their viewing windows. There was no visible beaver, so we moved on into the indoor area. The first exhibit was a very nice, and fairly large tank housing wood, blanding's, and spotted turtles. My minds' first reaction upon seeing the little spotted turtle was "Ermergerrizzokyodt" (for those of you don't know what that means, it means 'oh my god it's so cute), after thatreaction I nerded out over the blanding's turtles. There was a group of tanks/terrariums that followed, some which were empty, and other which had inhabitants. All of the tanks/terrariums were very well made, and saw eastern newts, and walking sticks (there were 5-7 generations in that tank), and I didn't see an american toad. We spotted a screech owl in a decent sized exhibit, as well. We were about leave when we realized that the NARO had come out, and we spent some time watching its playful antics.

    That wraps up the first part of my review, toodles folks.
     
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  6. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Care to tell us what zoo you started with? We can figure it out by context but it does make you look rather silly for posting a review without telling us where you went.
     
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  7. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Dang I’m forgetful, I went to LPZ on Monday, and Shed on Tuesday. How was the review? I hope I did a decent job (feedback on it is desired)
     
  8. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Well... um, it's a start as you're young. Your word choice signals you as very young, such as this bit, among other parts:
    Also this was kind of unnecessary -
    Your "Ermergerrizzokyodt" and "toodles" didn't help either. I also would suggest giving it a read through for spelling and grammar mistakes; we all end up with a couple sneaking in and a read through helps catch some. Also try to remember to start out with where you're reviewing, that does immediately kind of throw off one's perspective if it's missing.
    Posting a full review instead of a part would be beneficial to your feedback too.
     
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  9. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Much appreciated :)
     
  10. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    I thought you were a Bengal Tiger, not a snake :p
     
  11. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    That was fur
     
  12. IndianRhino

    IndianRhino Well-Known Member

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    Since you were looking for feedback, if you don't mind, I thought I'd chime in as well!

    First off, like Argus alluded to, it's very evident that you're young since it's all a bit *too* informal. Now, I'm obviously not saying you've got to be super formal with no jokes or anything, but perhaps you could dial it down a bit. People would appreciate it and take this more seriously if you didn't include "Ermergerrizzokyodt" in it, for example. And for the record, knowing what that means doesn't make anyone "highly cultured" :p

    Like I've told you earlier, double-checking your post for spelling/grammar errors is really helpful when posting, especially when it's reviews like these. As much as I hate Grammarly ads when I'm watching Youtube, Grammarly is actually quite helpful when writing longer pieces like these. Even if you don't notice the errors upon rereading your post, Grammarly will most likely find it for you and underline it in red.

    Just remember, you're not in any rush to post these reviews. Take your time to check for spelling/grammar errors and to make it slightly more formal, and you're likely to receive more appreciation from others. Also, try to think about what you need/want to include in your post prior to hitting the post button so you don't have to be embarrassed later on about forgetting to tell us important details like which zoo you visited! :p

    Just a few more things that have to do with the actual content of the review itself. It would be beneficial if you could provide complete species lists of the sections you're reviewing as many of us would find this thread much more useful if you included this. And perhaps you could describe the habitats a bit more? I feel like most of what you have so far is just, "The x habitat is not the biggest/best I've seen but it's sufficient/good." We'd appreciate it if you'd actually explain what the habitats look like (plants, ponds/pools, etc) or provide photos!

    I hope that helps and I'm looking forward to seeing future posts in this thread.
     
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  13. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    I'm afraid species lists are not something I can provide, but @Grant made one last year for LPZ.
     
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  14. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Pepper Family Wildlife Center


    We started off looking for the lions in the wrong enclosure, but fortunately a nice lady was there and pointed us in the right direction. We made our way over to the side of the lion area that did have lions and were treated by three beautiful big cats, lounging in the sun. We then made our way into the house itself, and got a different view of the lions. The exhibit was decently spacious, and was grassy, with fake rock forming the majority of the back of the enclosure. Overall, I thought it was nice, but I just did not like the look of the big yellow logs standing upright in the enclosure. We moved on over to the snow leopard exhibit, where the animal in question had scaled the wall, and nestled itself in a small nook close to the top of the enclosure. We later came around and saw the Canada lynx exhibit, but there was no lynx in sight. My main issue with the lynx and snow leopard exhibits is that they were too small, they were both of similar proportions, and just didn’t seem to be adequate (area-wise) for the animals in question.



    Small Mammal-Reptile House


    I started off this area by checking out the reptile exhibits, the first things I saw were a pair of very well made terrariums with lush planting and moss housing emperor newts and oriental fire-bellied toads respectively. Beyond that was an Oriente knight anole in a medium-sized tank which was filled with climbing opportunities for the lizard. After that was a large mixed-species terrarium housing a poorly camouflaged solomon island leaf frog (it was hiding on a live plant, at least it had the right idea), and a pair of prehensile-tailed skinks resting on the branches that filled the upper half of the exhibit. A black tree monitor was lazing on a branch next door, while a green tree python was… doing the same (a lot of animals were resting on branches in this building). I also saw a massasauga in a naturalistic terrarium covered in leaf litter, as well as a pair of gaboon vipers next door. The rio fuerte beaded lizards were all resting by the glass, and the aruba island rattlesnake was sitting on a large rock in its exhibit. Past the rattlesnake was a final enclosure for an african rock python. On the small mammal side I didn’t see the brush-tailed bettong, the tree shrew, moholi galago, pygmy slow loris, prehensile-tailed porcupine, or dwarf mongoose (the enclosure was being cleaned). I did however see the Iraqi sand gecko (listed on @Grant's species list as a leopard gecko, which is what it looked like), an Egyptian fruit bat, the naked mole rats, and the extremely active cactus mice. The exhibits for the small mammals are very similar to most others you will see. Next up were the asian small-clawed otter and a lounging spectacled caiman. The otter had a fair sized exhibit made of fake rock, featuring a “river” running through it. The caiman’s exhibit was in the average indoor crocodilian layout, just more bland, it had a water body in the front, and the land portion was fake rock. Next was a mixed species exhibit housing a Xingu River ray, an Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle, a white-faced saki, and a golden-headed lion tamarin. All animals were visible, with the ray swimming around the bottom of the water portion, the turtle basking on a log, the saki resting in a very uncomfortable looking position, and the tamarin enjoying its lunch in the back of the enclosure. This enclosure was a pretty decent one overall, with the water portion in front and the land portion in the back (as is most sensible), and a large “tree” that had some branches overhanging the water. Next was an exhibit in which I only saw red devil cichlids. The cichlids had a very shallow pool, and it was terribly overstocked. They were 6-7 inches “tall” and had a 8 ½ - 9 inch deep body of water. It was ridiculously cramped for them as well, as whoever stocked seemed to have thrown as many cichlids as they could possibly have gotten in there. Next up were some red-footed tortoises in an exhibit reminiscent of the one in Shedd, just with more even ground and planting that was restricted to the sides. Moving along there was an exhibit for Jamaican iguanas, which was similar to the red-footed tortoise exhibit, just larger. I only saw the Jamaican iguana when I went to the overhead viewing for this small section of the building. Moving past that I found an artificial rock wall with cramped tanks for frogs nestled inside. These tanks were all 7 inch (ish) cubes. Past that was a vell planted aviary for a couple of Puerto Rican amazons, the final exhibit in the building.
     
  15. geomorph

    geomorph Well-Known Member 10+ year member Premium Member

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    Thank you for the review, sorry you didn’t get to see quite a few of those delightful small mammal species!
     
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  16. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    You’re very welcome, I was also quite disappoint that many of the small mammals were off show. The good things is that I may go again, which will give me a chance to see species that may have been hidden on my last visit.

    I have k make an announcement: I won’t be able to finish my review today, my school play is this Friday, and I will be very busy rehearsing for it. I’ll get back to it on Sunday.
     
  17. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I was very confused where this was until I got to the last sentence. :p
    Maybe make sure to add an indication of what you're continuing for clarity?
     
  18. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    Disclaimer: I’m skipping the swan pond and the waterfowl lagoon because nothing was on display (avian flu)


    Ungulate Paddocks


    We started off at the beginning of the loop with something I didn’t expect to see: a male Pere David’s deer!!! Naturally I was thrilled, and spent some time watching him. I did move one after a bit and headed towards the next exhibit, where four bactrian camels were lounging around. Now, as with all exhibits in this area, I felt it was too small for the animals. Personally, I think the zoo should switch towards slightly smaller ungulates. Moving further on, we were able to find some sichuan takin. I always love seeing takin at a zoo, so this definitely was a joy. The next exhibit was for a lone takin, which I assumed was the male. Beyond them, a pair of chacoan peccaries (something I was very thrilled to see) were lounging in what looked to be a mud pit. Beyond them was a paddock for grevy’s zebras. We sat watching the zebras for a bit, and then moved on towards a surprise. Four more male Pere David’s deer were in the next paddock. I watched them while I walked along their exhibit. This concluded the loop. A bit of a short review, but I didn’t have as much to say about it as some of the other exhibits.
     
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  19. Bengal Tiger

    Bengal Tiger Well-Known Member

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    I have a reason for not posting photos by the way (@Great Argus, I believe you were wondering), I don't have a phone, I type up my posts on either my computer or my Ipod touch. I am also a terribly photographer, though I hope to improve, as I find photographing and filming animals to be quite interesting. I will be getting a phone this summer for my 14th birthday, so some small amounts of media (I'll need to figure out how to upload that, as I'm not very tech savvy)will be posted.
     
  20. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    It was @IndianRhino that suggested it, not me.
     
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