Darling Downs Zoo Tawny Lions

ZYben, I know this isn't exactly the right place to bring this up, but it is clear to me urmumzagoat isn't going to get his question answered here.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it was recently brought to my attention that you are employed by Steve Robinson at the Darling Downs zoo.

You are also a zoo chat moderator. I feel this is a direct conflict of interest especially when I see a post from you telling your boss that his pathetic response was "best post of the day!" It was pointed out to me that it's up to the individual whether they want to answer the question, fair enough nobody is under interrogation here. But how many times does this poor kid have to ask?, how many times does his request have to be turned into a private joke?

In one of the post UrMumzaGoat has a concern about the way somebody uses his handle. As far as I can see someone has harmlessly shortened his handle to just goat.

I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make. To me shortening the handle to goat seems harmless but the owner has stated he has a problem with it.

It's not all harmless banter, especially on the Internet in a forum. Things are misconstrued, statements taken out of context and its a fine line between a joke and bullying.

Please correct me if wrong but as I understand it your job is to prevent threads like the one above, not add to them. Is this a fair statement?.

Anyways, you know where to find me. I will be looking forward to your response.

 

Lighten up a bit mate.

UMAG asked a question about my private property.

I don't have to answer that question to an anonymous asker if I don't want to.

I have privately explained to UMAG that, unless he is a species co-ordinator with a "need to know" and a name, then I have no intention of revealing in house details to him or any other anonymouse.

As for losing business because of my reticence - not true. If someone claims that they will not visit the zoo because they don't know the names and birth dates of the lions in advance, then they weren't fair dinkum about coming in the first place.

Some harmless fun was had following UMAG's initial question. It's called FUN! You and peacock added the vitriol and the bitchiness. I hope your livers are cleaner now and won't give you so much trouble in the future.

For the record, I have had none of your bitchiness from UMAG.

 

G'day,

I am no longer employed by Steve and Stephanie at the Darling Downs Zoo, not that it is any of your Business at all. I am however self employed now.

It seems to me, that Yourself and other new members, tend to jump the gun very quickly, long standing members got the humour.

This thread hasnot gotten out of hand at all. Steve has politley declined to share the information about his Private Property online, which I respect, I'm not going to ask you to post your CV and Bank Statements online, the deed to some propety maybe!

If you can't take the joke, even as light hearted at this one, maybe reconsider your need to be involved in the discussion.

Feel free to join in the fun of the forum, but don't join just to nitpick...

 

Hey Steve... let me just slip in a question while this thread is active.

I'm all for wildlife encounters, and I see (according to the website) that DDZ offers a lion feeding encounter. Are there any other encounters? Maybe with the macaws or native wildlife or something?

Cheers.

 

Sorry Steve, but I haven't till now posted on this thread nor made any comment specifically about it.

But since ZYBen chose to close the last thread (and obviously your reference to me regards such)- The way I see it, you misconstrued a comment made by bris. A comment that in its context (which was explained to you rather rationally) made perfect sense. It was you that made a big deal of the use of the word "hell", It was you who found its use so offensive. So i find it rather funny that both yourself and Ben are trying to flip that accusation on its back.

Lets be honest, you snapped. You snapped at bris because you had made the assumption (wrongly) that the former owner of CWSR was being criticised. And after the comment was put in context, you have just about said anything to make it sound as if, no matter what context the word "hell" was used in - your offense to its usage is justified.

I totally respect that you, unlike most, post freely on this forum without hiding your identity. Likewise, I respect that you chose to weigh into debates so freely. However, its your willingness to freely add heavy criticism of others that I think does you no service.

Jumping into an attack on a potential zoo volunteer, over something as trivial as the use of a word - that doesn't look good. It looks mean spirited.

Teasing a child (be it in jest) who asked a question about the names of your lions (is the information really that sensitive?) - that doesn't look good. It looks irresponsible. Especially when you freely divulge out info you know of others animal stock. that just looks hypocritical. Be honest Steve, how many times have you willingly given out information on others (as you like to put it) "private property"?


Publicly making negative comments about others, only to have them jump on line to defend themselves - doesn't look good. That looks unprofessional. Regardless of whether or not they really did intend of stuffing their jaguar.

And stating your frequent displeasure at your treatment by the ZAA, be it just or not - The same Association in which you seek a membership that is integral to the long term expansion of your business. That doesn't look good either. That just looks unproductive and naive.

But the last two examples - these are your choices. I can't criticise you for that as the only person it hurts, (in my opinion) is you.

So since i feel that you certainly don't hold back when it comes to others, I decided you could handle a little perspective.

You're a zoo owner.

This is a zoo fan site.

If unlike the vast majority of other Australian zoo owners, you chose not to follow their wisdom and post frequently on this forum, do yourself a favour....

Always. Be. Polite.

No matter how curt others may be to you. And before you scoff and throw that comment back at me - I don't have to play by those rules - I don't own a zoo, I don't divulge my identity.

That's my advice. Take it or leave it (as you seem to have chosen to do).

 

African Lion Encounter and Python Photos are the only ones available at the moment.

There are several others in the pipeline but they will have to await approval.

Thanks for asking.

 

Cheers for the answer.

I don't and have never worked in a zoo, so when you say "approval" you mean like from DDZ management or some higher authority?

 

In this case approval has to be given by the regulating authority. Our regulatory authority is the Queensland government with whom we have an excellent working relationship. As they are currently working on new regulations, approvals may be a little way off while they decide on the new regs to govern inter-active experiences.

I'll be crowing on here when the approvals come through so start saving!

 

Haha. Cheers.

Good luck with the approval. We have a rainy day fund for zoo experiences, so I hope you come out with something that will make me want to fly up there immediately just for a day (like we did for the National Zoo encounter as my wife's birthday present - I got a watch for my birthday )!!

Surely you don't need approval to bring out a few native or exotic parrots though?

 

Yep - we will need approval for EVERY type of interactive experience. Even us old senior cits who have been doing this kind of thing for years!
Had a meeting with the government people last week and, even though it's early days yet, it is apparent that the new procedures are going to be quite different to the existing ones.

 

Dear Ben, thank you for getting back to me. Although I am a little disappointed with your attitude. I believe I brought to you very valid concerns about what was going on in this thread. If you choose to deny these facts and write the whole thing off as just a joke, I won't say anything more on the subject.

I would just like to make a couple of points.

If the original thread writer URMUMZAGOAT was involved with this joke, and laughing along with this joke. I would not be concerned in the slightest. But the truth is urmumzagoat was not involved with the joke, he was the butt of the joke with the rest of you guys playing this game at his expense. If you think you should be playing these kinds of jokes as a zoo chat moderator, I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't.Is it true Umumzagoat is only a child,could you confirm this for me.Do I need to tell you what I think if this is the case??.

Your job here is to put a stop to the exact kind of behaviour that you have been involved in. You tell me Steve replied privately to urmumzagoat. This may be true, but let's keep the facts straight. This reply happened days after the initial concern I've brought to you. This does not excuse any of the parties involved bad behaviour. Your job here is to be unbiased, and I only offered this as constructive criticism. Ben, I don't have any personal gripe with you, but your last reply to me on this thread did not answer any questions or concerns that I put forward to you. When you took this job of zoo chat moderator, you took on the responsibility of looking after everybody;s well-being on this site. Stop being defensive, stopped defending Steve and start doing the job you signed up to do. These threads should never be allowed to turn into what I've seen over the last few days. At least a positive has come out of all this, regular posting is better than no posting at all.

Ben, I just want to add that it is very difficult to respond to your replies when they are just full of praises and biased opinion about Steve Robinson. This is not about Steve Robertson, this is about you doing your job properly. In your reply you tell us that Steve has every right to be vocal about anything he wants to talk about. In the same reply you tell us new members that we are just troublemakers and nitpickers. Ben you are being completely hypocritical. I won't beat around the bush, one of the newbies you make reference to is Peacock. All I can say about him, is that I find Peacock completely levelheaded and the most articulate person in these Australian forums.

Lastly I would like to thank you Ben for closing of thread about CWSR. I do have a few issues to discuss with you about your last post on that thread. Once again I don't think it's your job to defend Steve,or go out of your way to make sure everybody knows you are not closing the thread because I asked you to and have a personal dig at me about hell being a four letter word not three letter word. Ben, I have to tell you it's one of the few things that you've gotten right. And I stand corrected hell definitely is a four letter word. Thank you for correcting me. Getting back to the reason why the CWSR thread was closed, the reason you give is the threat had gone off topic, good to see we agree on at least one thing. So so why do you allow this thread to continue on and be about everything but tawny lion's. I think it would be a good idea if you took a step back from the forums and just monitored them. Try and be consistent, try to keep individual threads on topic and if anybody is doing the wrong thing give them a polite gentle nudge in the right direction. But of course all this has gone to waste unless you believe this is how you should behave as a zoo chat moderator.

Ben I hope you do not take any thing I've brought up too personally. Believe it or not I just want to see everybody here be treated fairly and to be shown the respect they deserve. Please do not respond if all you are going to do is tell me that I don't respect Steve Robinson and all the good he has done on this site and around the universe blah blah blah.
Ben, my first interaction with Steve Robinson was that first reply he made in my CWSR thread. Steve and I will work things out ourselves, I've already seen a huge improvement in the general tone of postings around here. I hope you will take on board some of the concerns that I've made here to you today. And with a fresh new outlook, and a place where everybody can feel free to share their experiences and opinions without being trodden on or disrespected maybe we can attract some of those guests and make the members.

Best wishes
Briz

 

Briz, I am not going to take the time to deal with your whole reply point by point. I dont have the time in the day to do that.

Here on Zoochat we follow a very loose moderation, why you ask? Because many, if not all, of our members self moderate. For years we have been going along fine, with jokes like this one and many many more. I've been a member here since I was younger, and when you write a silly thread, you get a silly answer, the toungue in cheek humour is fine, all forum staff have no problem with it. It seems of late the only people with a problem are yourself and another member.

Don't tell me how to moderate a thread, we hardly keep anything on topic. Its just the way Zoochat works.

We have been going along well for years, so if you dont like it, leave, its as simple as that.

 

Thank you for getting back to me Ben. I'm done with this topic about Tawny Loins. I'm just somebody who had some concerns about how things run around here. I have no intention of going anywhere and I'll always be on the look out for bad behaviour. You won't have to deal with any of my concerns again. I know you're not up to it. Zoo Moderator is just a title for you and I hope it serves you well. Once again you have inforced the fact that you don't take your position as ZM as seriously as I think you shoud.

 

And they reckon that I'm a smart ass!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

 

You concerns have been noted and filed accordingly

 

Sorry Steve, but what does this mean? Have you had enough of me or "briz"?

 

No UMaG, I'm saying that you did not carry on like briz or peacock.

They made a big mountain out of a molehill, supposedly because you were a "child". In fact, the correspondence that you and I had was more mature than their posts. Don't worry about them. It was not about you. You were just used as an excuse to have a go at me. None of what they said was original, little of it was true, most was out of date re-hashed propaganda put out by our competitors over 5 years ago. It wasn't true then and it's not true now. Now that they have seen that it has had no effect on me they will settle down a bit.

How is Melbourne?

 

Cheers. I think we should leave this thread alone now, it has no purpose what so ever and hast turned from its intended topic to "bash Steve thread".

I am actually leaving tomorrow morning for Melbourne and will be going to the zoo as soon as I get there, which is about 10am!

 

OK. Enjoy your trip and keep us posted.

 

I actually don't think I will be able to, tomorrow I arrive then go to Melbourne Zoo for the whole day. Then on Saturday is a whole day trip to Werribee, and then on Sunday it is getting ready to leave again. So it is a zoo-filled weekend, but I will make sure to write some notes down and try to take some excellent pics with my new camera.