Tonight (March 24) was the docent and donor preview party. I have posted lots of photos in the gallery, mostly of the signage and related items. (Only a few photos of the elephants). The exhibit itself is great, the signage and hands-on activities are very innovative, and the herd is very active and fun to watch. There is really only one thing that I do not care for (and as a photographer it really bothers me). Since the exhibit is basically right on the sidewalk of a MAJOR business street, there are tons of power lines and buildings in the background always. If you turn around and look away from the elephants (back towards the rest of the zoo), you see mostly trees and a glimpse of the Catalina Mountains. The view would have been ten times better if they just flipped this entire exhibit 180 degrees. Put the visitor area up against 22nd street (with our backs to the street) and put the elephants in front. Then there would be trees and mountains in the background instead of utility poles and buildings.
Exhibit opens today to the public. (I was there yesterday which was a member only preview day and everyone I saw commented on how great it is). Here is a news clip a local station filmed this morning before the zoo opened. It focuses primarily on the door and gate system, which the general public may not care about but the geeks on ZooChat will likely devour! BTW, the elephants got used to the jets almost immediately and now pay no attention to them. (The zoo is in the flight path of Davis Monthan Air Force Base). The gentelman they spend most of the time interviewing (with the Reid Park Zoo vest) is our general curator who has been here about three years and is really doing a fantastic job. The staff speak glowingly of him and he is very proactive in getting animals for breeding and making sure all enclosures are maintained. We used to hardly ever see our curators out on grounds, but I see Jim all the time walking around and personally checking on things. Elephant exhibit opens | KVOA.com | Tucson, Arizona
Thanks for posting the video. The new exhibit looks great. Well done, Reid Park Zoo. I look forward to getting down to Tucson to do some elephant watching.
Here is a four minute audio broadcast interviewing the curator. Topic is a call to the community to supply addtional browse to help enrich the new elephants. NPR Media Player
Here is a completely ignorant opinion piece put out by our local newspaper. It deals with Connie's death at San Diego and says they handled it well by their openness (blog posts) and that Reid Park Zoo needs to learn from them. Their whole argument is based on the fact that we "lied" to Tucsonans when we said the new exhibit would be for Connie and Shaba and then we shipped them off in exchange for new elephants. Here are the facts (which the opinion writer should have know, since this has all been well published, but they chose to ignore). At the time the elephant expansion was being planned, a decade ago, we DID intend for it to be for Connie and Shaba (with perhaps additional elephants). So we did not lie to the public, it really was our goal. But in the interim, the AZA came out with standards stating asians and africans should not be mixed. So we changed our plans to stay in line with AZA standards. Shaba (the african) was still going to stay and be integrated with the new herd but we had to change that plan because extremists claimed they could not be separated (even though these same extremists would have separated them at their preferred sanctuary). Over the last couple years Reid Park has been completely transparent about everything that is going on with the elephants. Our blogs and website announcements are just as transparent as San Diego's. Whoever wrote this piece is clueless (or as I suspect just has a chip on their shoulder and is still trying to find ways to dig up the elephant issue even though it is already settled). Reid Park Zoo can learn a lot from San Diego
Docent there seems to be a coordinated effort to attack any and all attempts to upgrade and hold elephants at anything but the sanctuary's. I have seen Reid Park and you have seen Birmingham and we have both made tremendous Elephant exhibits imo. I don't know what more these people want?
The local public access channel does a show (weekly? monthly?) at the zoo. I have only seen one or two, but the latest one had the YouTube link posted on the zoo website. It is all about Expedition Tanzania, from the planning and construction through completion and the elephants enjoying it. Very well done, but it is over 21 minutes long. (If you want to skip to the best part, jump to the last five minutes or so).
Mabu is a proud papa again. Swazi gave birth to his 11th calf today at 3:39 am. Its his fourth girl and first in 5 years and 7 little boys. Hopefully he and Samba or Lungile will provide you guys with another little calf at some point.
