This is my fantasy zoo, called Jackson Wildlife Park. Unlike many zoos, it does not focus on the large, charasmatic megafauna, but the smaller creatures and those that need the most help and are more neglected by conservation efforts. Jackson Widlife Park works in association with other zoos to create breeding programs for endangered animals, and is helping to re-intoduce them back into the wild. It uses smaller off-branches of the zoo in other countries to help endangered wildlife on location, and to monitor the individual creatures released back into the wild. I am not certain where the wildlife park would be located, but I'm pretty certain it would be somewhere in the UK. I think that the park would be around 30+ acres, though the size may increase as I add more exhibits and enclosures. I will post summaries for the various exhibits one by one.
Exhibit: Australasia This exhibit is close to the park entrance, and includes several sub-sections, the first being Wallaby Rocks. This is a walk-through exhibit, consisting of a dirt path - which visitors are asked not to leave - that winds it way sinuously through the enclosure, which has a shallow pool in the centre, and has a few trees and rocks. The ground of the enclosure is mostly sand and grass-covered soil in areas. The enclosure is netted over to prevent the escape of the dozen or so orange-breasted fig parrots (Cyclopsitta gulielmitertii), which share the enclosure with several parma wallabies (Notamacropus parma). At certain times of the day, a zoo keeper will come round with a bucket of vegetables such as carrot and lettuce, which visitors may use to feed the wallabies with. In the Australasia Pavilion, several indoor enclosures can be found, including one shared by a pair of New Guinea short beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus lawesii) and a pair of Goodfellow's tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi buergersi). This enclosure has a floor of woodchips and several large branches placed at high points for the tree kangaroos to climb on. Treats are placed in dispensors hanging nearby, so the animals have to work for their food to keep them active and entertained. We also have 4 white-striped dorcopsis (Dorcopsis hageni), their indoor enclosure consisting of sand for the floor with branches and palms for them to hide behind. They also have an outdoor enclosure, though this is offshow at the moment to give them some privacy while they settle in. Outdoors we have a spacious enclosure for our beautiful southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius), called Cassiday. His enclosure is open at the front but has some trees and cover for him at the back. We are currently looking into getting him a mate.
Exhibit: Malagasy Jackson Wildlife Park is quite well known for its large collection of Malagasy fauna, and these animals were also some of the very first brought to the park. The first part of this exhibit is Moonlit Madagascar, an indoor area with dim, moonlight-mimicking lights in the enclosures. This area is for the park's nocturnal denizens of Madagascar. Inside, several speakers quietly play the noise of a jungle at night, with various animals such as frogs and cicadas calling. Inhabitants of this exhibit include our pair of aye-ayes, which we are hoping to breed, though we have had no success as to yet, but it is early days. Due to the dropping numbers in the wild, perhaps one day our individuals' descendents will be released into the wild to boost numbers. Our aye-ayes, named Luna and Haymitch, live in a spacious indoor enclosure at Moonlit Madagascar, with a floor of woodchips and lots of branches and ropes for them to climb about on. Our keepers have made several hollow logs for them, in which treats can be placed, and the aye-ayes have to get at them by poking their finger through the slits. This mimics natural behaviour, though these feeding logs have to be regularly replaced due to the fact that our aye-ayes tend to gnaw on them with their rodent-like teeth. We also have several Malagasy giant rats, which have a rather spacious enclosure with a floor of sand and several rocks and branches for a more natural setting. Next door to them are our pair of greater hedgehog tenrecs, in a slightly smaller enclosure with a similar setting. They have several branches for them to climb on, as surprisingly they are rather good climbers. Outside, you can find our narrow-striped mongoose, or known somewhat more amusingly, as the boky-boky. We have several in a large, circular enclosure with a sandy substrate and several boulders for them to climb on. In our walk-through enclosure, you can find our red-ruffed lemurs, which we run a breeding program for, as sadly they are classed as Critically Endangered and are threatened by habitat loss. If they need to have some privacy for breeding, a couple can be moved to a smaller enclosure at the back of the main one, which is not open to public access. The walk-through enclosure, which is shared by several mongoose lemurs, takes the visitors on a winding dirt-trail through the cluster of trees, connected with ropes for the lemurs to swing on. We want our lemurs to have as natural life as possible, so the enclosure has been built around several pine trees for them to climb in. Nearby to this walk-through enclosure is a larger one for our crowned sifakas, which we are also breeding for conservation purposes. This enclosure is not walk-through, but visitor's can still watch the animals through the mesh. This enclosure is quite large, with a large oak tree and several large bits of wood and rope for them to climb on, with thick bamboo planted in areas. They often show off their jumping skills by leaping impressive distances from one piece of wood to another, much to the delight of visitors.
What would people like to see next? South America with its large collection of tamarins, or the Jungle House with its free-roaming animals?
