I find that quite remarkable, even more so given they have had such an exceptional breeding record over the years.
The reason why the Oregon Zoo hasn't been in serious hot water over their elephant exhibit is because of their excellent beeding record that includes 27 calves. I think that Packy was the first elephant born in the western hemisphere (1962) in many, many decades, and he's still alive and kicking at the zoo. The Calgary Zoo regularly experiences temperatures below freezing, and in the past week the temperature there has been between minus 5 and minus 15 degrees. They have 4 elephants at that zoo, and I can guess that they have all been kept locked inside their barn 100% of the time during the awful weather. The Edmonton Zoo has a single elephant left named Lucy, and she also spends 100% of her life locked in her barn due to the even colder temperatures. The very idea of keeping elephants in Canadian climates is ridiculous, and even though the Calgary Zoo spent $10 million on expanding their elephant enclosure this year, it doesn't justify keeping such massive animals indoors for entire winters. A month can go by without the elephants spending much time at all outdoors. Even if given the choice many times it's simply too damn cold for the pachyderms! Many other large animals face the same predicament. The gorillas, giraffes, hippos, etc at the Calgary Zoo spend months and months locked inside because there is two feet of snow in their outdoor paddocks. Even fairly progressive zoos in Seattle and Oregon have to keep their ungulates inside on days with frost or in heavy downpours. It was a joy for me to tour many zoos in Australia and witness the beautiful weather that allows for large mammals to choose where they spend their days. There isn't snow to worry about, and if anything the only weather-related problems that zoos face is how to keep their creatures comfortable in the searing Aussie heat. The giant pandas arriving in Adelaide in 2009 might get a shock in the hot summer months.
you know snow leopard, you are the first person from the northern hemishere on this forum who i have heard admit that really, zoos that find themselves knee deep in snow really can't provide for large tropical mammals. i have always maintained a position that i think temperate zoos should focus (and that doesn't mean EXCLUSIVELY) on temperate species and warm weather zoos should focus on tropical and subtropical species. usually i find myself up against americans and europeans aggressively defending their right to keep elephants and giraffes, though personally i think it comes down to a personal desire to see them on their part than a true belief that keeping them locked in barns for months on end is actually fair. and the funny thing is - even though i say it goes both ways (i'm not a fan of polar bears on the queensland goldcoast either), it doesn't seem to get any levelof agreement, becase lets face it - most of our zoo favorites, gorillas, elephants, giraffe and rhino - all come from warm climates. still. i'm unshaken. i don't much care how well they breed in europe. if you need to keep you elephants indoors for months on end then i really don't think you have a right to keep them.
Yeah Patrick, it's really too bad that others can't see that many hot-weather, tropical animals struggle in the colder climates. There was a study done on the two elephants at the Edmonton Zoo by Zoocheck.com that found that the elephants spent 75% of their lives locked inside their barn. That includes all four seasons, and the tiny zoo in Edmonton (a city of almost one million people) has finally shipped one of the pachyderms off to the southern United States. Unfortunately now there is one elephant all alone in the frigid climate, being locked in after zoo hours, locked in whenever the temperature dips below freezing, and therefore could possibly spend a few months at a time without ever leaving the barn. Edmonton is similar to Calgary in that they experience horrific winters, and I lived in Edmonton for the first ten years of my life. One year in the early eighties we had snow on the ground for 8 months of the year, and so what does the zoo do? They used to shut down half of the exhibits, and all of the animals that came from warmer climates would be squeezed into their "winter enclosures"...which were usually a third of the size of their summer exhibits. And now that I'm in my early thirties and can comprehend how damaging that is for the elephants...well it is truly appalling. Either the zoo lets the animals outside and risks freezing temperatures, or they are locked indoors without any natural light whatsoever. It also works both ways, as you pointed out. The solitary polar bear that is sweating it out in the Singapore Zoo is evidence of animal cruelty. I've never been to Singapore, but they claim to be a progressive zoo and have at least agreed not to import any more polar bears after the one they have dies.
That may be because you are talking here about animals in really extreme cold climates e.g. Canada. In the Uk we rarely, if ever experience, snowfall nowadays apart from the North & Scotland,(and even there its diminishing each year) and I doubt a Uk zoo has been knee deep in snow since about the 1950's. So although we have long, damp and rather miserable winters, they're usually mild with intervals of fine weather. Most of the larger exotic species are able to use their outdoor enclosures for at least some of the time throughout the year. Probably the same applies in Europe too, though their winters are colder and more snowy than ours the further North and East you travel. I do agree the situation in zoos in countries much colder than the UK is far from ideal for these same species.
San Diego is an excellent example of how a zoo can thrive in a warm climate. For those who haven't been there, an interesting fact is that besides the massive reptile building the ENTIRE zoo is open air. Each and every exhibit has fresh air, sunshine, and is wide open to the elements. There are indoor buildings for the animals' night quarters, but I don't recall being able to view any of them. It is a much better practice as compared to cold climate zoos where the animals don't actually gain a glimpse of sunshine or even fresh, outdoor air for months at a time. The Metro Toronto Zoo has over 5,000 animals but many of them are contained in large pavilions that are arranged geographically. Due to the harsh Canadian winters that zoo has coped well with the use of such enormous buildings, but I still think that the San Diego climate has so much more to offer the animals.
its funny. the whole concept of a "monkey house" or a "pachyderm house" is completely foreign to us australians. like san diego with the exception of reptile and invertebrate houses, all our zoo exhibits are open-air, year round. somehow an indoor zoo doesn't seem like a real zoo to me! grant - i agree with you that the UK is much milder in climate. and obviously believe that affords them a greater range of animals they can care for. what those animals are i'm not going to distinguish, but suffice to say once again if it need be locked up indoors or shivering cold, then its unsuitable. what often supprises me is that many big charismatic animals are temperates or have temperate counterparts. it always supprises me when northern zoos have collections that don't take advantage of this. asia has a wealth of temperate species that are completely exotic to europeans and americans.
In the northern cities of North America and Europe almost every single zoo has at least one large building that accomodates tropical animals. There are zoos like Toronto where people basically walk from one structure to another, and in the winter it's simply too cold to spend much time outdoors. Many cold-climate zoos have purposefully built even more buildings in order to entice visitors during the colder months. Seattle's zoo sees 65% of its business in May, June, July and August, when the weather is much nicer and the kids are out of school. It is a struggle throughout the rest of the year to get folks through the turnstiles. The addition of "indoor exhibits" creates more business... For the sake of the animals there perhaps should be more of a focus on geography, as in the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park that only showcases North American wildlife in their natural environment.
here in Scotland we have the Highland wildlife park which is now specialising in tundra and mountain species, it has since its opening held Scottish native species and animals that were native to Scotland at one time, also the Edinburgh zoo in recent years have accomodated species into their masterplan that are more suitable to the climate e.g Steller's sea eagle, wolverine, Japanese serow, Chinese grey goral, Pallas cat and the likes of the Bactrian wapiti and Amur leopard that are in the process or have already moved to the highland wildlife park. Big money is required to exhibit tropical species in suitable housing, money that very few British zoos have, so maybe the time is right with a whole new raft of zoos in the process of masterplanning to look at their collections in the future to consider this point as Edinburgh has.
I dare to state that the American & European zoos do not "aggressively" defend their "right" (if there is something like that at all) to keep exotic species because they enjoy tormenting animals and love keeping them indoors all the time. The reason for this is rather the factor that keeps zoos running-the paying audience. It's Your Average Joe who wants to see elephants, lions, zebras, giraffes, gorillas, hippos, crocs etc. All these species are nicely labelled in American "zoo-slang" as the "Charismatic Megafauna"-a term well fitting one might say. Additionally, smaller animals like monkeys, parrots, flamingos, kangaroos, iguanas are also popular-because they're vividly colourful, show interesting behaviour-and simply because they're EXOTIC-so to say unfamiliar for that particular local audience. The definition of being exotic is most often determined by the location where the subject is displayed and by the individual jugdement; for a European, an Australian Bearded Dragon is as much an exotic as a Roe Deer for an Australian-or Simmental Cattle for Indians... Let's face it: in comparison to other continents, Africa still has most of the spectacular and popular larger vertebrates a zoo "should" have to please its visitors. And "Africa" in general is still considered an "exotic wild place" by the people of the 1.World. When it comes to popular vertebrates, Asia, in comparison, does have quite a nice bunch of species to contribute to the popular "Megafauna" at the zoo-but they usually play second fiddle to Africa. This is even more true when it comes to the Americas and especially in the case of Europe. Keeping in mind that the most popular attractions in a zoo are large "wild" mammals, colourful birds, dangerous reptiles or funny monkeys (speaking from the average visitor's point of view), one can see that there isn't actually much of that among Europe's wildlife to qualify for that category. And that certain European species like said Roe Deer, Capercaillie or Ptarmigan aren't the easiest animals to be kept in a zoo doesn't help either. There already exist quite a few European wild animal parks and zoos (Lohberg, Innsbruck etc.) mainly displaying European wild animals -but the zoos with the large numbers of visitors and the international fame are usually the ones in the big cities with the exotic animals. Therefore one can observe: in general, the zoo udience wants to see exotic animals, especially the "crowd-pleasers"-and is disappointed if these are not kept in the zoo they visit. Best example: Frankfurt Zoo wisely decided to quit keeping elephants due to not having enough space and ressources. Nowadays still visitors at Frankfurt zoo complain about not being able to watch elephants... In another zoo forum (Animal knows what I'm talkin about), I speculated whether the display of animals in zoos would differ today if the giant Pleistocene Megafauna would not have died/ been wiped out, leaving only fragments in the form of the African, the Asian and the few Euroepan/American larger vetrebrates behind. Maybe Europeans and Americans as well as Australians (who would f.e. keep Diprotodons instead of rhinos, maybe ) would not feel any need to see African larger mammals in their local zoo-as they would then have similar or even more spectacular animals "in their neighbourhood", growing up and being familiar to these. The "exotic" factor might jump in now and then (f.e. in thec ase of the Great Apes or the Giraffe), but most likely "Africa" as a theme wouldn't be so dominant in zoos (if zoos actually existed) as it's today. Maybe Calgary would keep mastodons or megatheriums instead of elephants, and in Berlin "Knut" would be the name for a bottle-fed Cave Bear. And tourists would travel to Kansas instead of Kenia to go on a big game safari... However, this is just dreamful speculation. The reality is different: European & American big zoos need exotic animals-just like all the other zoos worldwide. And I think that considering the "ambassodor role" for their habitat and the educational and of the course the amusement value, exotic animals DO have a place in non-tropical zoos-and can most often be kept adequately. In another topic I mentioned the term acclimatisation in connection with the ability of especially mammals to cope with different temperatures. This doesn't mean that You should keep a Bongo or a pygmy hippo outside all year long; it is rather based on observations considering the climate in the original habitats of certain species(!) and their behaviour in zoos in Europe or the USA. Zoos like Hamburg or Paris already kept this in mind in the late 19th and early 20th century: certain species like spotted hyenas, Bat-Eared foxes or addax antelopes actually seem not mind cold weather (as long as they have warm spot to get to once it's too cold) and grow quite thick fur in response to the cold. The key, however, to keeping these animals healthy while having them outside is resonsible management and the local humidity; it's most often the humid, not the dry cold which can lead to weather-related health problems. One should also not assume that the location closer to the equator means that the weather there has to be always hot: Desert as well as African savannah nights can be quite chilly; African animals like the African leopard, the Black Rhino and the African Hunting Dog have been observed in mountainous areas with snowfall in their natural habitat, and Striped Hyenas or Caracals f.e. have populations in areas wth much rougher climates than in say UK or Denmark. Not to mention African mountain animals like Geladas... I do agree that it's a waste of money, energy and too much discomfort for the individual animal to keep species such as polar bears in Singapure or Australia ( I think btw that overheating is actually much more of a problem in many animals, even in temperate zoos in the summer-see Musk ox!) or large herds of elephants or huge crocodilians in temperate or highly cold climates, locked in most of the year. I do not, however, support the idea to force temperate zoos to keep only animals from temperate climates (I know You didn't say this, pat; I just wanted to state that in general); if said Bongo or Pygmy hippo can be kept comfortably and with not too much trouble in an European or American zoo (and is niot locked in all year long), that's fine with me. In the case of a conservation program with the actual goal to reintroduce the species or in teh case of the Canadian (or the single one kept in Alaska) elephants, I dare to differ and support the idea of keeping the animals at weather conditions closer to their natural habitat's. And if zoos like Miami Metrozoo decide in consideration of their local climate just to keep tropical animals(and zoos like Korkeasarri prefer animals from colder climates), I do welcome the idea-just like I criticise LA getting Golden Snub-nosed monkeys or San Diego for having to keep Tundra animals in Sunny California. One should not forget that the money of the visitors keep the zoo going. That doesn't mean that You have to keep elephants in a concrete "cupboard" or that every zoo should not take the local conditions into account when choosing animals. However, the obvious appeal and preference of "exotic" in comparison to "native" species by most visitors (outside of Australia, maybe...) should not be forgotten. As a fan of Asian animals from temperate or colder habitats, I could instantly name a bunch I'd love to see in zoos (unless they are, as it's quite often the case, already displayed). But this favoritism should not make me ignore that this is not shared by most of the visitors; their priorities in this case might be different from mine. Zoo fans might marvel at the sight of Shensi takins; for many visitors, these are just odd creatures that look like a large cross of a "goat-cow" and a Golden Retriever...and not half as interesting as the giraffes they, after looking for 5s at the takin, are more willing to see. If I were a zoo director in a zoo in a colder climate, I would choose animals that are both well suited (and will cost me less money on heating to the local weather AND have a general appeal to the public: Chilean or James' Flamingo instead of African/Cuban Flamingo, Bennett's wallaby instead of Roo, Amur tiger instead of Sumatran, Japanese Snow Monkey instead of Douc langur etc.; but a certain percentage of exotic tropical animals (kept in greenhouses etc.) is neverless unavoidable if trying to please most visitors.
Lengthy and informative reply Sun Wukong. It appears that the majority of individuals on this website support the notion that tropical zoos should specialize in tropical animals, and that northern zoos should focus on tundra/mountain animals. Alas, each zoo usually has a wide range of mammals from across the globe, regardless of the climate that they are forced to survive in. I do agree with some of your points on how specific animals are hardy in poor weather conditions, and your example on how pgymy hippos can thrive in adverse conditions is valid. A temperate-based zoo is the answer, with the climate being fairly moderate and thus manageable for all concerned. However, as you also mentioned, there is no excuse for the Calgary Zoo to lock 4 elephants inside for months at a time, or for the Singapore Zoo to have a lonely polar bear spending 80% of its life panting in the steaming heat. Such exhibits are ridiculous, and yet zoo visitors love to see bears and elephants. The vast majority of zoo patrons spend about 1 minute in front of an enclosure, too busy on their annoying cell phones, or patiently explaining to their children that they are looking at monkeys when in reality they are ignoring red-ruffed lemurs. Attendance is of course crucial to all zoos, and even though I've never been to Scotland I can basically guarantee that the Highland Wildlife Park doesn't receive nearly as many visitors as the Edinburgh Zoo. Folks want the mega-fauna, and they'd rather see animals in tiny urban zoos than sprawling open range wildlife parks. The London Zoo is only about 35 acres in size, and in the wild their 3 gorillas would spread through that territory over their lifespans. But at the zoo they share it with thousands and thousands of other animals. How many of those creatures actually enjoy the rainy, downcast London weather? This all sounds a little negative, but it's difficult not to feel sorry for animals who are locked up and forced to endure a particular climate that is obviously completely alien to them.
After this "lenghty" post just a short one: yes, I think Calgary should better swap to keeping mastodons or mammoths-and Singapure should paint a Sun Bear white and give that "poor lonely" Polar Bear (who happens to belong to a species that isn't too social anyway) to a nice ice-cool zoo...
The polar bear at Singapore Zoo is a victim of animal cruelty, and the enclosure is just awful. The Calgary Zoo would gladly take the bear as soon as they are finished with their $135 million arctic/antarctic construction. As the most northerly accredited zoo in North America (Alaska's isn't accredited) Calgary are well positioned to put more of a focus on cold-climate mammals. With your reference to a mastodon, it is interesting that the Oregon Zoo have a full-sized skeleton of one in their elephant museum.
@snowleopard: Well, with $135 million (once again: Are they nuts????) You sure could make a polar bear happy...though I can tell You a little secret You might know: there are plenty of polar bears in zoos worldwide that are kept at far worse conditions than the Singapure one-may it be in very hot or very cold zoos. So before getting that bear out, let's first help these poor fellows. The 135 mill could come in handy for that... And about the mastodon: see? So it's just the next step...
i'm a firm believer that if you take away animals liek elephants and giraffes zoo visitors get used to it and just learn to be content with teh other great animals on offer. adelaide zoo has survived for over a decade without elephants and i'm sure the people of adelaide visit their zoo as much as anyone else. so long as there isn't another elephant-holding zoo on the other side of town (which there isn't) the public really has not much choice do they? but i very much doutbt they will stop going to teh zoo altogether, maybe just appreciate the sunbears a little more. in fact, the adelaide zoo seems so relaxed about its animal collection, that it is soon to be moving its chimps, hippo and giraffe all to monarto zoo. adelaidians will probably not notice since they will have giant pandas soon arriving to keep them occupied. and even if the open range monarto zoo, with all its big megafauna made a dint in the adelaide zoo visitor numbers, who cares!!! both zoos are run by the same body...essentially they are the same zoo on two different sites.
I have been enjoying this thread, even though it has veered off course from the original piece about the Oregon Zoo. Since the Adelaide Zoo has been cropping up in this extended conversation...what else is planned for 2009? I know all about the multi-million dollar giant panda exhibit (only one in the southern hemisphere?) and that the front entrance is going to be expanded with possibly a gift shop, cafe, etc. If Adelaide is planning on pouring $20 million into their zoo, are there any more exhibits planned for 2009? Is the educational facility/wildlife centre still going up in late 2008? Combined with Monarto's massive chimpanzee setup, South Australia will really be on the map in terms of zoos. And the fact that the larger mammals are flourishing at Monarto won't hurt the urban zoo at all, as in the long-term it will be much better in terms of spacious exhibits for the captives.
monarto used to be miles behind werribee, who used to be miles behind western plains. but all thats changing now. whilst dubbo undenaibaly has the far, far better animal collection monarto and werribee, with their close to city loactions are set to take bigger lead in the future. it was becuse of this close location to the city (and its sister city counterpart) that i thought it was a shame melbourne isn't 100% devoted to following adelaides lead. melbournes elephants really should have been relocated to werribee, where they could have formed the centrepiece to a new asian grasslands zone. unfortunatley narrow-mindedness, the prestige element and logic did not prevail and melbournes elephants got a new exhibit that as much as an improvement as it is, in my opinion represents a mere shadow of what could have been done for around the same cost out at werribee. nontheless, there is talk of long term building a second asian elephant exhibit out there, even if in teh short-term it will only serve as a holding facility for surplus bulls born to the melbourne program. monarto has no elephants anymore, the sole animal moved out there in the 90's from adelaide died when she fell into a moat, but they are talking elephants long term. unfortunatley both ideas put forward so far (sumatran asian elephants and now africans) are not in any way helpful to the mainland asian elephant program now operating amongst perth, melbourne and taronga zoos.
I doubt that. There are animals You can't make exciting-no matter how many educational tricks You shake out of the cuff. Or do You think You can make sea cucumbers, mites or flatworms into crowd pleasers? You're not the first one to suggest that, though: Dr. Conway told this very charming story about exhibit design and Bullfrogs in 1973: http://www.zoolex.org/publication/conway/how_to_exhibit_a_bullfrog.pdf Still, one can only wonder why nobody has built this kind of exhibit yet? Because after spending 5s in this building, pressing buttons, the people would demand to see "the real animals"-i.e. lions, hippos etc. People do not just adapt when You take all "the fancy animals" away-they just won't go to Your zoo and You'll have to close the zoo with all the marvelous little-known creatures inside after a while. That doesn't mean that every zoo has to have elephants and the like-but do You really think that a zoo that formerly kept everything from A like Apes to Z like Zebra and now switched over to only keeping hutias, Madagascar teals or White-lipped Deer would be appretiated by the public? Even zoos like Jersey with their renowned conservation program have to keep at least a few "crowd pleasurers". And if You happen to live in an area where many zoos are rather closeby (like the Ruhr Area in Germany), the possibilty that at least one zoo won't play the game of "Let's quit keeping elephants , giraffes and lions and the like" and will get the audience who can't just relate to small brown tortoises hidden in mud? Best example for that: Frankfurt <-> Kronberg... Another thing is the expectation of the modern audience nursed by the media: after watching "Animal Planet" and "The Lion King" all day long, kids & dragged behind parents are eager to see the animals they just saw on TV in real life. But when did anyone make a documentary mainly about sea cucumbers? Or Cloudrunners? Or mountain chickens? The closest to that was a french documentary about ticks (and Microcosmos of course) -but that had to be "spiced up" with many more prominent "cameos". Zoo visitors don't just adapt; they come into a zoo with certain expectations, and are disappointed and won't come back too soon if ever if these are not at least partly fulfilled. Don't think though that I'm an elephant advocate; a zoo without elephants, giraffes, apes etc. can be a very, very,very nice zoo for me-and is probably less stressful to work at. But one should not judge from the zoo "geek"'s, but also from the Average Joe's perspective-and these two can differ considerably from time to time.
well sun wukong, you certinaly did pick some truly boring animals there didn't you? so in the event that you ACTUALLY thought i was suggesting zoos phase out all mammals in favour of earths lowest lifeforms, let me explain myself better. no, i didn't expect that zoos would phase out smaller animals, in fact have a re-read of my last post and you'll see that i didn't really mention anything that even alluded to that idea. i would certainly expect zoos keep their meerkats, otters, binturongs red pandas and even tapirs and gorillas. these are all animals that are both very popular and yet are also ethically housed in smaller city zoos. instead i was suggesting this however, in scenarios like san diego, adelaide and melbourne zoos, where the city zoo owns a close by larger open-range park, moving the larger animals there isn't as big a concern as most zoo directors would think. this is because since both zoos are one and the same a drop in attendance at one zoo is only going to result in a higher attendance at the other and since they are one and the same, so what? i did however mention that this only works so long as there isn't another competeing zoo within closer range than the city zoo is to its sister open-range version. obviously if there were two good zoos in one city and one had all the elephants and giraffes people may be inclined to chose that one, but we don't have this problem in australia. so in light that i excluded the prospect of two closely sistuated competing zoos and i never really suggested we all keep sea cucumbers we are going to have agree to disagree on this one. i think people would still happily visit a good zoo full of apes, tapirs pygmy hippos, okapis, kangaroos, monkeys, sea lions and all the other smaller mammals that make up the bulk of any zoos collection. i also think people would accept that they could still see elephants, hippo rhino and giraffe if they drove an extra half hour, since it was better for the animals. i think the clear definition between the two styles of zoo would also keep both popular with the public.
