Masterplan of my "absolute" Zoo - 2022 version

Then feel free to volunteer; the ZTL guys appreciate any useful help & support.

 

I agree with Batto and would argue that for the average visitor, seeing the "boring" species when they wish to see ABCs is like wanting to get a jar of sweets and the jar has a lot of liquorice and raisins when the average sweets eater would rather eat caramel and fruit taffy. They will sort and enjoy the taffy and caramel but won't touch the raisins and liquorice even if the latter set of sweets are made with the best materials under the best conditions. The average sweets enjoyer wouldn't care to get another jar by the same candy manufacturer if they do not want to go through the hasstle of sorting the "good" sweets from the "bad" sweets. If they do they just won't eat the rare raisins and liquorice which would be a waste of effort to produce. So a candy store would lean towards selling candy with only taffy in the future rather than a mix of everything.

 

I think they stated multiple times they won't keep track of inverts because they're not easily identifiable, because zoos do not always identify them right, because of how big the group of inverts is and the fact that their presence in zoos is much more fleeing than most vertebrates.
Or at least, this is what I understood by a post of one of the guys on facebook, their mentality might have changed, you probably know better than me

 

This is a rather picturesque analogy, and actually very accurate. Average customers for candy companies and zoos have very… specific tastes, shall I say. In that they want certain things and don’t want to go looking through the less desirable things, while us “zoo geeks,” as Batto phrased it, are like those who want the raisins and liquorice, in that we don’t have a care in the world what we get, we just want it all.

 

The thing is, I specifically praised your original design for NOT having tarantulas. I wasn't giving you an idea at all. ^^;

 

This isn't a real problem.
If the visitors don't want to see animals they dislike, they can skip the enclosure or exhibit.
I've seen that many times near the reptile houses of zoos. In the same groups or families, one or two people stayed near the house while the others went into to see the snakes and other cold-blooded creatures.

 

You're thinking like a zoo geek again, not like a zoo director. For the sake of customer satisfaction as well as educational and economic efficiency, you don't want people to skip enclosures and exhibits. A zoo where the visitors just rush through past most of your "unique in Europe" species to get to the ABC species and the visitor amenities will lead to a decrease of general zoo visit duration, thus less time and money spent in the zoo. And zoo visitors, not just in the USA, are pretty vocal these days online when they feel like having to walk too long to see what they want to see. So at the end of the year, unless you're the rich sovereign owner of your zoo and have no superior, you will have to answer to the supervisory board why your zoo has so many skippable exhibits.

 

Such deep economic advanced tips and tricks which I absolutely agree on pray you for... For a thread about someone explaining a non-existent zoo.
If you know so much about this why don't you get some wallabies and goats for your everything-but-crowd-pleaser irl zoo? You knew what you were going for, yet you did not swap for a much more profitable petting zoo.

 

Your attempt at sarcasm and provocation is kinda adorable, but doesn't have the desired effect.
In my opinion, such a master plan should try to be as realistic as possible, which also includes the incooperation of basic zoo management aspects. Otherwise: thylacines, quaggas and dinosaurs.

As for your dig at WdG: quite simple - because keeping goats & wallabies professionally would cause me more legal problems (following the Austrian Tierhaltungsverordnung, Tierseuchengesetz, Tiertransportgesetz etc.) and cost me more money than they'd be worth. And why should I deliberately weaken an unique, working system? ""

Is "(...)agree on pray you for(....)" supposed to mean something?

 

You say you want a realistic masterplan, how do you want it? From the 1800s up to today, a detailed explanation of the evolution of the zoo throughout 2 centuries with a record of every cent spent and the thoughts of the now deceased previous directors? A masterplan of a new zoo born in 2022 from the ground up?
A masterplan of a zoo born from the ashes of another existent zoo? You should clarify on that.
As for the laws you mention, I'm not an expert on Austrian language or burocracy, but I can kind of understand that you're mentioning all laws for animals, one is about research(?) and another is about transport, the other I can't get what it is.

 

As previously described: grounded in reality. There's little else left to clarify.

Since I'm not the author, you'd have to re-direct your questions to @Haliaeetus

Not "research" - Animal Infectious Disease Law. I just threw in a few examples (there’s plenty more) to illustrate that it is not that simple, if done professionally. The more you know, the better.

 

No, the above mentioned questions are what's left; grounded in what of the many realities?

 

Once again: that’s the author's choice. Unless you're esoterically inclined, however, I'd act on the assumption that both on us are living in a shared single reality, where your country is famous for Pizza & Pasta, and mine for stealing your Frittura piccata alla Milanese and selling it as Wiener Schnitzel...

And in this reality, getting hoatzins, golden langurs, emperor penguins and many more peculiar species into a French zoo without the basic understanding of zoo management is rather unlikely, isn't it?

 

I don't see why you're being so critical over Haliaeetus' work here. OK, look, I understand criticism and pointing out flaws, don't get me wrong, but at times it feels like you're genuinely going out of your way to stomp their ideas into the ground. Their comment isn't even an inaccurate one - people WILL go past an exhibit if it's got an animal they don't like.

Maybe the whole idea of getting all these animals seems a little hard for you to believe, and maybe in this timeline, it is. But it doesn't scream "impossible". It's not like this thread is keeping quaggas, thylacines and dinosaurs like you insist it ought to.

TL;DR - just ease up a little. Otherwise where's the fun in making these sorts of threads if every single zoo is effectively the same because all the animals have to be "realistic". Maybe a golden langur is unrealistic to you, but it's still not impossible.

 

A few years ago, I had to explain this when @snowleopard and the now departed Bib Fortuna were engaged in a little argument: what you see here is kind of a clash of different cultures, especially in regard to the perception of criticism.
Bib and I come from a culture (and era) that appreciates (constructive) critique. Early on, we were taught to strive for improvement. Hence, if we find a flaw, we're eager to point it out, so it can be fixed, for the sake of perfection. Here's a comedy sketch to illustrate my point:
Irish man in Germany bei TikTok
For you, this straightforward approach might appear to be rude, mean and unnecessary. For us, it's a sign of respect and appreciation; doing our bit to bring you and your work closer to perfection. If we didn't appreciate it, we wouldn't waste our breath on it and give you a teutonic cold shoulder treatment. So, maybe it's you who should ease up a bit?

Realistic doesn't automatically mean that all zoos will look the same. And it's not merely the species that counts, but the way you keep and exhibit it. Bringing up my favourite reference, once again:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2151-6952.1968.tb00902.x
Apparently, you didn't get my point regarding skipped exhibits.

Do you have any real experience in legally exporting / importing wild exotic animals?

 

Hello,

I can see that my topic has inspired many discussions.

To begin, I admit that my project contains many rare or even unique species in Europe, and isn't therefore (in current conditions) especially realistic.
In the next versions of my Zoo I may be more modest with the rarities, but I apologize to be among the ones that hope to see (again?) Philippine Eagles, Mountain Tapirs and Saigas in European zoos.
In practical termes, recent experience from my "home zoo" Beauval (OK, not the average collection in France or Europe) has proven that supposedly (and for many reasons) "unrealistic" species have actually joined this collection, like Harpy Eagles, Yellow-Backed Duikers and Douc Langurs. All of these species, that aren't especially popular ABC species (not more than the average eagle, antelope or monkey) have joined this zoo, after being absent for decades in French collections and nearly inexistent elsewhere in Europe.
The "rarity" of species is also a relative notion, as I can see frequently on this forum : species like the Barbary Apes and Greater Flamingos are superabundant in Europe but extremely rare if not absent in other continents.

About the possibility to "skip" one or more exhibits, no visitor can be forced to see them.
Snakes and arachnids are peculiar controversial cases (it has been actually the matter in the previous posts of this thread), as some visitors love to see them and other express hate, fear or disgust in front of these animals and want to avoid such unpleasant encounters (for them). It's common to see visitors that don't want to see snakes, spiders or cockroaches and it isn't a scandal, otherwise all the zoos would close their reptile houses and vivariums.
Even popular zoo animals aren't appreciated by some people : I've already met zoo visitors that don't like to see cats, even if they are among the zoo favourites for much people.

To close this post, I add that I'll resume quickly the description of the last exhibits of the 2022 version of my Vivarium.

 

Actually, it's just one discussion: how realistic is a zoo full of hardly obtainable exclusive "rarities" these days. Even Plzen, the often quoted Beauval, Berlin, the Shedd Aquarium etc. have their limitations nowadays when it comes to obtaining and keeping rarities just for the sake of "collection lust".

You keep bringing up the same examples. There's a significant difference between obtaining species that are already kept and at best bred on a regular basis in modern foreign zoos or in private collections in Europe and the US, and species like the hoatzin. The "rarity" of the latter isn't relative; they are currently not kept in captivity at all, and for various reasons, there's little chance that this is going to change any time soon. Especially given the current climate of anti WC import sentiment in western zoos, at least in regard to species the anti zoo lobby can focus on. As for the skippable exhibits: yes, some species are more, some are less popular among visitors than others. Nihil novi. Nobody, including myself, suggested "forcing" zoo visitors to see species against their will. But just "throwing" as many obscure species at visitors so at least some will "stick" is a strategy that most modern zoos have abandoned for various reasons, chief among them finances, conservation and animal welfare.

 

I could also talk about Babyrousas, Tasmanian Devils, Pangolins and more, that have recently been imported in European zoos to launch or revive breeding programs.
And about many species of birds, herps and fish (e.g. the West Indies Iguanas).

 

And I could talk about the various incidents that didn't work; the Mountain tapir you're about to feature being a prominent example. And it is still doubtful whether the species you have just named can be established in European zoos in the long run. There used to be a reproducing zoo population of Tasmanian devils in Europe in the 1970s. Let's hope that the collaboration with Australia for the sake of Ex Situ conservation will not decline in the years to come; otherwise the current European population might meet the same fate.
There are certain "new" species that will probably make their zoo debut in European zoos in the years to come. I just doubt it's going to be the one you wish for, and certainly not that many as depicted in your Masterplan.