Thylo's Trip to the Land of Tea Drinkers

AFAIK its up to date and their test is still not verified.


I suspect if a DNA test was used to gauge purity of the captive wildcats, its the one which the O'Donaghues(at least) state is not reliable. Of course they are only one voice, so to speak- other scientific bodies evidently disagree- hence the statements on which captive cats are, and aren't pure.

Either way I'm encouraged to hear about the ancestry of the Gentleshaw cats- they might just prove to be the purest of the lot.

 

I am still under this impression. Wildcat Haven facebook regularly states they cannot verify the test yet, even as recently as just a few weeks ago.

I maintain the newspaper article you quoted above states that Paul O'Donaghue's test 'has been developed' but fails to mention it has not yet been put into practise.

There is a third option- the usage of the previous DNA test developed in Europe which is believed (by some) to be innaccurate. Unfortunately it seems plans for breeding more wildcats, and even capturing more from the wild if they can find any (this against a tide of criticism incidentally) may hinge on what is still debatable evidence about the purity of some/all the captive cats.

 

This is one of the points used as ammunition in the 'war'( and it is a war) between the two conservation bodies involved in Scottish Wildcat conservation. The smaller Wildcat Haven project wants conservation only in situ- keeping wildcats in the wild. But they also happen to be the originators of the much vaunted, but so far untried, 'accurate' DNA test to determine purity of wildcats.

The much larger body, Scottish Wildcat Action comprises various scientific bodies and including HWP/RZSS and has government funding. This is the partnership that wants to continue with the captive breeding and possible further capture of wildcats to add to the captive (pure or impure?) gene pool, presumably relying on a different, less reliable testing method.

Just thought you might like an overview....

 

Hi zoogiraffe. You may note the words "a lot of" in my post; nowhere did I say they were all minor collections. I read the itinerary in the first post, incidentally, and if I'm a "zoo snob" to call the majority of the listed collections minor, I'd suggest you're being rather too eager to take offence. Rudeness aside, thanks for the explanation

Hi Thylo and thanks for the detailed reply. The itinerary's what prompted the question really, but I'm glad you enjoyed the trip and got what you wanted from it. I'll be interested to hear whether your future adventures colour your thoughts on British zoos.

 

I don't think Giant Panda is being a zoo snob in any way at all! He or she was simply pointing out that this itinerary included a large number of minor collections - which it did: delightful though places such as Hemsley, Reaseheath and Wildwood possibly are, they are minor zoos. That's not to denigrate them, or to suggest they're not worth visiting - sometimes minor zoos can be every bit as interesting as bigger, more established places - but it is a fact that a trip of a smiliar length to the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany would have enabled a visit to a "major" zoo every day for three weeks, rather than visits to places such as the Newquay Blue Reef Aquarium and Tropiquaria. And while I'm sure that these places did all include creatures that needed to be seen, I'm sure that the same would have been true of an itinerary including Antwerp, Blijdorp, Arnhem and Wuppertal....

This is not in any way to criticise this choice of itinerary - it sounds like a brilliant venture, and, as I say, I love visiting funny little quirky zoos too. It is merely to suggest that your (ZG's) response to Giant Panda was a little precipitous!

Edit: I have now read GP's own response, which says essentially the same thing!

 

In the context of planning a zoo trip to Europe in which one could (in theory at least) visit Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, etc, I'd only say Chester and London. The latter for historical reasons. In terms of the European zoo scene, I think the rest are varying shades of minor (from a visitor standpoint). That's not meant in a derogative sense; I just don't think they're in the same league.

As for the major UK zoos he visited: Chester, London, Paignton, Bristol, Whipsnade, Howletts, Port Lympne, Twycross, Edinburgh, Colchester, and Highland Wildlife Park. Possibly also Cotswolds. Of those he didn't, Belfast, Marwell and the safari parks seem the most obvious omissions. Durrell perhaps, too.

Much as they (and I) may love many of the collections, I'd be surprised if anyone seriously disagreed that most are pretty minor places.

EDIT: Many thanks, Sooty. I think you put it rather less toxically than I managed.

 

This question was directed at Giant Panda, but, for me, I think this itinerary does cover pretty much everything of interest in England and Scotland - even if shouts could certainly be made for Dudley, Banham and Kessingland.

"Major"? Chester, London, Whipsnade.
Decent second division? Paignton, Cotswolds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Twycross, Colchester, Edinburgh.
Hard to classify: Howletts, Port Lympne, Slimbridge.
The rest? Pretty minor, really (although, in some cases - eg Newquay, Cotswold Falconry - quite excellent).

Without wanting to sound a little bit too Anthony Sheridan about it all, if you were to pick up one of those 'second division' zoos, and plonk it down in the middle of Nord Rhine Westphalia, or the Netherlands, or the Czech Republic, it wouldn't in any way stand out as being especially interesting in comparison to the other zoos in the locale.

 

It's a question of scale, I think. Looking just within the UK, maybe a third to half of Thylo's list could be described as 'major zoos' (and so more than half the 'zoo days' are at least partially 'major').

On a European scale, I'd say probably only Chester and ZSL are unambiguously 'major zoos'. Depending on where the line was drawn, you might be able to include Colchester and Paignton. Edinburgh, Twycross and the Aspinalls might scrape it if you're happy for a major zoo to be dominated by (or almost exclusively concerned with) mammals, and Bristol is certainly a significant zoo, if not really a major zoo in terms of species.

On a worldwide scale I think we can't really look any further than Chester and ZSL.

I still think the most speciose 'week-to-ten-day' zoo trip you could do with no 'internal' flights would be Berlin, Berlin, Leipzig, Wroclaw, Poznan, Dvur, Prague, Plzen - no really massive journeys, and you could even extend it to Copenhagen and Vienna without pushing the boat out too far (I did once actually do Copenhagen, the Berlins, Vienna, Innsbruck and Rome on the same trip when I was Interrailling, which is close!).


All that said, when I was in Florida (my closest equivalent trip to Thylo's) I also filled out the trip with smaller, obscure collections alongside the big hitters if they were a) convenient and b) had at least one particularly interesting species to see - so, given a UK trip was the aim, I can't really argue with his strategy!

 

Ha! Was writing my post while my ursid and cercopithecid colleagues were as well - and we seem to have achieved a remarkably close consensus!

 

No worries The known purity of these animals is definitely of much interest to me.

~Thylo

 

I think I know what I want my next trip to be!

As TLD mentioned earlier, both Belfast and Marwell were on my list for some time and were only removed very late in the planning process. I mention that in the prologue as well as having actually considered doing one or two continental collections (the Berlins or Parc de Felis being ones I thought about at various times) but dropped them quite quickly for the same reasons as Belfast and Marwell.

~Thylo

 

That wasn't my intention, but fair enough. In terms of designing a trip purely to see zoos, I think the point still stands. I frankly don't know how you'd consider most of those collections if not "minor", certainly compared to the "major" zoos of Europe. Perhaps I'll stop using the terms when I see you or zoogiraffe rank Shaldon Wildlife Trust, Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park, or Crocodiles of the World up there with Blijdorp or the Berlins. Until then, nice as they are, minor they remain in my eyes.

I would also point out (perhaps flippantly) that the "criticism" was rather less "implicit" in a post which began with swearing, didn't include a full stop and called me a "zoo snob". If I can survive, I'm sure Newquay will, too

Oh, absolutely. As Sooty points out, it's a pretty comprehensive trip for seeing the best the UK has to offer. I just don't think the UK has as much to offer as three weeks on the continent (or, indeed, three weeks across the US). I'm not entirely sure why that should be regarded as either inconceivable or insulting.

Durrell was something of an afterthought, although personally I'd rather visit Jersey than the three collections you mentioned. The inclusion was based on its historical role and place in the popular consciousness, which surely puts it in the upper echelon of UK zoos to visit; no?

Hi Thylo. I really don't mean to criticize your trip, particularly as you clearly had such a great time. I was just interested why you choose to do it the way you did. I've now heard various reasons, all of which make a lot of sense, so question answered. Apologies for derailing your thread.

Anyway, since Sooty, Maguari and myself have had a crack, care to share what you consider the UK's "major" zoos? Or will you keep us guessing until all the reviews are posted?

 

No worries

Well I certainly can't speak in terms of compared to continental collections but in terms of what I saw in the UK I would say the Chester, Colchester, Edinburgh, Twycross, Whipsnade, and potentially Bristol and Paignton. Perhaps the Aspinalls as well but they're a different breed from everything else it seems. I think one issue here is that there's such a wide variety of collections in the UK that are completely different from one another. Places like HWP and Living Coasts are very difficult to compare to say Cotswold or Hamerton because, while still zoos, they're completely different kinds of zoos. Chester and Colchester, while definitely what one pictures when they think "zoo", are still completely different from anything else I saw while over there.

While "minor" is perhaps too strong a word for places like Newquay, I would agree that many of the places I visited are smaller places and some definitely are minor. However, as zoogiraffe pointed out at the very beginning of this, almost every collection was added on for a specific reason and, if you note, only the more major collections had days entirely to themselves for the majority of the trip.

One of my main purposes for this trip was to see a wide variety of UK collections and see as many new and exciting species as I could. I won't disagree that keeping Belfast and Marwell wouldn't have added to that, and certainly won't argue that heading over to the continent wouldn't have added to that a great deal, but I was looking for a single country trip (with this being my first big zoo trip and first abroad trip) that was relatively easy to do and offered a lot and I think we can all agree that with that in mind I couldn't have really formed a better trip.

Many of these places are indeed quite specialized, but coming from the US (where we don't really have too many specialized places and lack an abundance of certain animals such as birds of prey) collections like Paradise Park, the Scottish Owl Centrep), and Wildwood were a must for me that I chose because I wanted to do them. The fact that most of these places could be done with others with more stuff that I wanted to see just made it a no brainer for me.

~Thylo

 

I would also just like to pose the question, how many of you Europeans wouldn't want to visit more North American wildlife centered places such as Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum or ZooAmerica if they could be reasonably done with places like Phoenix Zoo or Pittsburgh Zoo?

(They can't to my knowledge, but just used them as an example)

~Thylo

 

To American zoo enthusiasts in their 40s and older, Gerald Durrell would likely be well known. His books were read over here and his television shows were shown on our equivalent of the BBC, PBS.

I doubt that most younger Americans would know of Durrell or his importance unfortunately. Do young Britons even know who he was? Hopefully they do. It's hard to imagine, but he has been gone for over 20 years now.