Holiday Special: Right on time for the local Salzburg holidays, WdG is going to be open from 10 am till 4 pm during next week. This will give our new extern, an animal keeper trainee from the local private Paracelsus Medical University, enough time to learn more about venomous & poisonous animal husbandry firsthand. So if you, dear ZooChatter, happen to be in the neighbourhood (or in a closeby alpine country like @zoomaniac ), then feel free to visit.
So the first and final week of our very first animal keeper externship is over, with the conclusion: so far, so good. The extern, a young local woman, really enjoyed her time at WdG and wants to help out whenever she can.
Very nice indeed - a pity I shall miss it when next in Austria, but it just gives me an extra thing to look forward to in future
For the first time, we participated in this year's Museum Weekend, organized by the local museum association. So this sunday (which happened to be Mother's Day, cloudy & rainy), we opened WdG from 10 am till 5 pm, free of charge. The result was way better than expected: we got hundreds of guests, up to the point that visitors had to queque and we had to encourage people (as politely as possible) to leave to make room for the next wave. In the end, the museum association officially confirmed that among the particapting institutions that day, we had achieved the highest attendance number. While the business owner in me is crying when thinking about all the potential money we could have earned, the opportunistic optimist hopes that at least a few of those visitors will come back and pay for a guided tour...
Sadly, I fear not. American research shows that the higher the discount offered by a museum, the less likely the user of that discount will make a paying visit later, and that visitors who come in for free are the least likely of all. Hopefully for you, Germans are different from Americans.
@MRJ: That's what I'm afraid of - and that’s why I charmingly insisted on not offering guided tours during the event (despite people firing questions at my staff and me non-stop). I just hope that this event at least helped to booster our public visibility. We had quite a bunch of foreign visitors as well on that day - including folks from Australia, Bulgaria, Bavaria, China, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, Slowakia, South Africa, the UK, the Ukraine...I somehow doubt that those'll be back any time soon.
Yes of course Austrians. I must admit that I have been to Saltsburg only once, a couple of hours one evening to change trains. The difference was not altogether noticeable to this Aussie. The number of foreign visitors is a good sign though, shows you may well have a good market amongst international tourists.
So - like the difference between Aussies and Kiwis? The general popularity of Salzburg among international tourists (thanks to Mozart & the Alps) does help; and maybe also the temporary closure of HdN's reptile zoo due renovations.
Actually similar in many ways, not only language. Up until 1841, New Zealand was part of the British colony of New South Wales. New Zealand was a party to early negotiations for Federation in Australia, but withdrew. A clause in the Australian constitution gives New Zealand the right to join the Federation as a state. I would think most casual visitors to Australia and New Zealand would be struck more by the similarities than the differences.
Wheras the Austrians and Germans tend to accentuate their differences. Even more so depending on the federal states, with Upper Baviarians often being considered the most "acceptable" by Austrians due to certain similarities.
Current species list (June 2023) Snakes: Agkistrodon contortix Aspidelaps lubricus lubricus Bitis gabonica Bothriechis schlegelii Bothrops erythromelas Bungarus candidus Cerastes cerastes Crotalus adamanteus Crotalus ornatus Crotalus pyrrhus Crotalus vegrandis Echis coloratus Heterodon nasicus Naja annulifera Naja nivea Naja siamensis Naja sumatrana Oxyuranus microlepidotus Vipera ammodytes ammodytes Vipera aspis Vipera seoanei Trimerusurus insularis Trimerusurus purpureomaculatus Xenodon pulcher Euprepiophis mandarinus Lampropeltis knoblochi Lampropeltis ruthveni Lampropeltis mexicanus x ruthveni Pantherophis obsoletus "lindheimeri" Lizards: Heloderma suspectum Heloderma exasperatum Amphibians: Dendrobates tinctorius "azureus" Incilius alvarius Phyllobates terribilis Pleurodeles waltl Rhinella marina Taricha granulosa Fish: Corydoras aeneus Corydoras sterbai Platydoras armatulus Tetraodon schouteni Spiders: Ceratogyrus cornuatus Cupiennius salei Latrodectus elegans, menavodi & tredecimguttatus Lasiodora parahybana Loxosceles laeta Monocentropus balfouri Sicarius terrosus Scorpions: Androctonus australis Alpiscorpius germanus Hadogenes bicolor Hottentotta hottentotta Hottentotta jayakari Hottentotta judaicus Hottentotta tamulus Parabuthus villosus Myriapoda: Archispirostreptus gigas Scolopendra subspinipes Insects: Archimandrita tesselata Peruphasma schultei Planned for 2023/2024 Amphiprion ocellaris Dendroaspis angusticeps Entacmaea quadricolor Meiacanthus grammistes / smithi Nephila sp. (Ampulex compressa) (Neoponera apicalis)
Would just like to say how much Linda and myself enjoyed our visit to Welt Der Gifte a few weeks ago - in 910 zoos it was one of the most different and unique experiences I have had. And I would further say that Salzburg in general is not only rather lovely but a very decent zoological destination.
Six years ago, we opened WdG for the first time to the public, back then in a room in Greifswald, Germany. Thank you for your ongoing support and visits.
You would know better than me, but wasn't it six years ago? Regardless, congratulations on an amazing achievement.