Thylo's Trip to the Land of Tea Drinkers

Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park​

I found this zoo to be a very pleasant little place. Small but choice definitely applies, and not just for the reptiles. I found the collection to be very well balanced between ABC and more odd animals. The enclosures for the most part were quite large and well done as well.

Having more of a hodge podge of enclosures as oppose to actual formal exhibits it's hard to necessarily pick out my favorite parts of the zoo, though the reptile and nocturnal houses are definitely up there. While small, they both have some very choice species such as San Francisco Garter Snake, Chameleon Forest Dragon, Grey Mouse Lemur, Grey-Handed Night-Monkey, and Brazilian Guineapig.

To be honest I don't really have any negatives that I can recall about the place. It's just a very nice small zoo with some seemingly very good people behind it.

Highlight Mammals
Asia Minor Spiny Mouse Acomys cilicicus
Brazilian Guineapig Cavia aperea
Tasmanian Red-Necked Wallaby Macropus rufogriseus fruticus
Golden-Breasted Capuchin Sapajus xanthosternos
Western Sitatunga Tragelaphus gratus

Highlight Birds
Grey Peacock-Pheasant Polyplectron bicalcaratum

Highlight Reptiles
Mandarin Ratsnake Euprepiophis mandarinus
Savu Python Liasis mackloti savuensis
Chinese Bamboo Ratsnake Oreocryptophis porphyraceus vaillanti
Aldabra Day Gecko Phelsuma abbotti
San Francisco Garter Snake Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia

~Thylo

 

It almost blew up in my drive a few years ago.

 

Not the Tasmanian subspecies. In fact, to my knowledge these are the only subspecies-level Red-Necked Wallabies I've ever seen.

~Thylo

 

Rodbaston Animal Zone​

The first college zoo I've visited, and it was alright. Not an outstanding place, but it's pretty good. Many of the enclosures are fairly basic, but not bad. There's a small reptile house and aquarium, with basic terrariums and tanks. The animal collection is a decent mix of common and odd species, with a fair few domestics, too.

There's not really too much else to say on this place. It's a nice place for sure with quite a few oddities, but nothing that really stands out apart from the owls.

And by far the most interesting aspect of this zoo is the owl collection. When the World Owl Center closed, a large portion of the collection was sent here, giving the place a fantastic selection of species. Unfortunately, US zoos don't seem to be very interested in keeping large collections of birds of prey, so pickings are a lot slimmer there. Due to this, I obtained 20 owl lifers here alone, more than double what I've seen in the US total.

Highlight Mammals
Common Raccoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides procyonoides

Highlight Birds
Ethiopian Eagle-Owl Bubo dillonii
Lesser Blue-Eared Starling Lamprotornis chloropterus
Indian Scops Owl Otus bakkamoena
Black-Banded Owl Strix huhula
Ashy-Faced Owl Tyto glaucops

Highlight Reptiles
Blotched Blue-Tongued Skink Tiliqua nigrolutea

~Thylo

 

Gentleshaw Wildlife Center​

This zoo is a small rescue center in the back of a garden center, another new type of collection for me (had never even heard of garden centers having zoos until this). This place is small but pretty great in my opinion. The staff are very friendly, there are some very nice and odd species despite the small size of the place, and the animals clearly get top notch care. Not all of the enclosures are the best, but there is clear expansion work going on to correct this. Also if you're a fan of dogs they seem to have a couple that wonder around relatively freely, and towards the end of the day they walk their New Guinea Singing Dog and Wolf-Dog around

Probably the worse part of the zoo is the reptile house, which consists of mostly pet store sized terrariums. Also I'm personally not the biggest fan of tethering birds of prey, but to be fair the conditions these birds are kept in are not bad and they are flown in a small flight display area quite regularly.

Highlight Mammals
Scottish Wildcat Felis silvestris grampia
Stump-Tailed Macaque Macaca arctoides
Japanese Raccoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus

Highlight Birds
Bengal Eagle-Owl Bubo bengalensis
Western Red-Footed Falcon Falco vespertinus

Highlight Reptiles
Oriental Garden Lizard Calotes versicolor
Schneider's Skink Eumeces schneideri
Yellow Anaconda Eunectes notaeus

~Thylo

 

Thought it'd be fun pointing out that 13/15 of the tags on this thread only apply to this thread

~Thylo

 

Its not just the one its all three of the ones they keep!!

 

I would query what test they have used.

 

No test can "prove" an individual is a pure wildcat.


Thanks for all your thoughts, ThylacineAlive; it's always interesting to see your own country's zoos through fresh eyes. However, I can't help but feel it was a long way to come for a lot of very minor collections. Were you disappointed overall by the British zoo scene, and do you regret not crossing the channel to visit some truly great zoos?

 

Bloody hell give thylo a chance to finish before becoming a zoo snob and calling places minor collections at present he is only 2 days into his trip,believe me they weren't all minor collections as you call them unless of course Bristol ,Chester and Paignton are in your eyes minor collections,as somebody that was involved in thylo stay and the planning of it,even the so called minor collections were include for a specific reason,namely at each place there was something thylo wanted to see that he had never seen before!!!

 

Indeed it is, it's always interesting to also see how close your own thoughts on a place match up with the people who live there as well.

I don't think I could have been less disappointed actually While it would have been nice to get to some mainland collections, I enjoyed all but two of the places I visited (and one of them was one of the UK's larger collections). As zg said, I'm only one day two and if you refer back to my itinerary you'll see I did visit some larger collections. Most of the days were planned out long in advance to me coming over and every collection was done either because I very much wanted to visit or because it worked to do it on the same day as one that I very much wanted to visit (and even with that can't say there are any I was particularly not looking forward to).

I'll get to mainland Europe soon enough, and I'll get to more US zoos soon enough. But for now, this trip was exactly what I wanted a first foreign trip on my own to be.

~Thylo

 

The reason I asked in the first place was because the Wildcat Haven Project(which is run by the O'Donaghues) still say the test developed by Paul O'Donaghue is not verified yet and for that reason they cannot reliably test 'wildcats' in their region yet. They say the only other DNA test that until now has been used to test wildcats in captivity, is based on the European wildcat, not grampia and that it is therefore invalid. The newspaper article you quote indicates the O'Donaghue test, which is the one developed in conjunction with Andrew Kitchener, from referencing old true wildcats in museums, is already in use- I don't think it is. I think 'has been developed' is not the same as 'being used' in this case.

They also insist all Scottish Wildcats held in captivity are impure, (with particular reference to HWP.) I am not clear whether a different DNA test (see above-not the O'Donaghue one) has been carried out on them which is how their purity has been gauged, or just on the pelage-scoring technique.

I can believe however that Gentleshaw's cats could well be pure if their provenance goes back to Norfolk Wildlife Park breeding from the 1960's. This would be good news if correct.

P.S. Apologies for diverting Thylo's thread - move this discussion elsewhere if you wish.