What is your Home Zoo? What do you want in it?

You're not wrong. They were in that area for a period. I believe by the later period with Mei-lan, they were in Bear Grottos, but I'm not completely sure which area was first, as the map I have placing pandas at Bear Grottos is undated.

 

Oakland zoo is my home zoo. Since they are opening a whole new area in the zoo, I wouldn't expect them to add anything anytime soon. But what I want to see is a better bird collection. Maybe more birds of prey or a walk through aviary. A larger herps collection would be nice also. The zoo doesn't have a large collection compairing to sf zoo so anything at this point would be great.

 

Unfortunately, I do not have a home zoo. The nearest zoo is Haugaland Zoo (I only recently found out about it so I haven't visited it) which is only 2 hours and a few ferry trips away. Kristiansand is 3 and a half hours away and the collection is not that big, partially because the focus of the attraction is not just the zoo, but the amusement park as well. Unrealistically I would like to see civets (especially otter civets), langurs, pangolins, linsangs, Asiatic cheetahs, Malay weasels, marbled polecats and marbled cats in Kristiansand (if any zoo had all of those species I would be more than happy anyway). I would like to see some rarer, smaller and not as well known species in Kristiansand (as they focus a lot on common animals such as giraffes and chimpanzees) if I had to be more realistic.

 

Currently for the next year or so its Edinburgh Zoo.

I think id like a leopard. Not fussy which one or a Jaguar. They recently have got the Red pandas back and they are in my top five so Im pretty happy at the moment.

 

My home zoo is Yorkshire Wildlife Park, England. I live a 30 minute walk away or 7 minutes by bus. It's a new zoo - opened only in 2009 - but it has developed tremendously since then and continues to expand in innovative ways. Space is premium but there is probably another 100 acres to add. Got to go to work now but I will say more later....

 

"Into Africa" - formerly "African Plains" is a cool walk-through mini safari at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. In a unique turn-around for the park, where once many of the hoofed animals lived separately, now, since June, the species are interacting with each other as they would in the wild. The staff are so amazing because they try their best - within the very limited space - to design a landscape that would suit the animals as much as possible and the animals have claimed their own territories within the shared space. It is an experiment that appears to have succeeded. At the beginning, the animals were nervous because they had not mixed together before at the park. But each species had a share of a much larger enclosure now. The eland were nervous of the giraffes and steered well clear at the beginning. The zebras kept to themselves entirely and the emus and ostriches didn't seem to fit in at all. However, after a few weeks, they got used to each other. The lechwe and eland mingle freely amongst the giraffes and the zebras seem to settle down. However, the zebras seem to prefer to have a run of the main section of the enclosure when the giraffes are not there. The giraffes socialise easily with the other animals, too. Obviously, the predators are kept securely locked up, but the Amur Leopards stalk the zebras whenever they seem. and the zebras seem to enjoy teasing the leopards by running up and down the side of the leopard enclosure.

The park is exceeding my expectations - the lemurs have an enlarged enclosure and there is major development of the polar bear enclosures.

 

Memphis Zoo is my home zoo. Individual membership is cheap, 2 visits and it's basically paid for. Although, I don't consider myself a, "zoo nerd", I love zoos and animal photography. Memphis has an outstanding collection, and is a great zoo for photography with lots of open, unobstructed, ground levels views.

They just added mandrills which were on my list. I would like to see cape buffalos, wilderbeast, and chimpanzees (they do have bonobos in a very poor exhibit). I'm sure there are others of which I can't think of right now.

 

Mine is the Pittsburgh zoo even through there aren't many birds I don't really want them because of the aviary around 15 minutes away. I would like to see more savannah animals more bears the river (common) hippo jaguar bonobos or chimpanzees and okapi

 

Also tapirs and many more Asian and South American primates

 

Also return of the wild dogs plus with many more new primate exhibits

 

My biggest problem with Edinburgh Zoo is its lack of reptiles (I know it has more pressing issues, but it could really benefit from more than two on-display species, one of which is a pet)

I think the Budongo trail has excellent potential for a few African Reptile terrariums on the ground floor, which seems pretty bare (there's construction going on on the ground floor just now, and I couldn't help crossing my fingers)

I also think the enclosure across from Brilliant Birds could easily be made into a medium-sized reptile enclosure. Maybe if they got their African Dwarf Crocodiles back from Five Sister's Zoo (I hope not though, as they've become kind of a symbol for the smaller zoo after surviving the fire). I was personally hoping Edinburgh would get one of the Five Sisters Alligators, but I believe they've all moved on now.

The exhibit next to the Margay that seems to switch between Dwarf Mongooses and Meerkats could also I think work for a medium-sized monitor lizard.

Like I mentioned yesterday too, it would be cool to see the former cat walkway turned into a section for Scottish wildlife: maybe with a golden eagle aviary, and exhibits for lynx and pine marten (maybe European badgers but the zoo already has those living wild)

 

My home zoo is the Bramble Park Zoo, it has Siberian tigers, black bears, monkeys, kangaroos, Alligators, and we work for injured birds of prey like bald eagles and release them back into the wild.

But adding a few more animals won't hurt at all either, we have three ponds connected to each other which would be perfect for flamingos. Capybaras would also be a good feature to add and to also create an exhibit for rock hyraxes with rocks for plenty of climbing, they could live in the Diversity of Life Complex were our birds and ring tailed lemurs live separately.

 

Detroit and Toledo, even though Toledo's a state border over. I would love to see spotted hyenas, civets, genets, maybe even a pangolin or 2 sometime in the future. I'll be happy seeing wombats as well

 

My home zoo is Chester, i don't live to far away from it. With the Islands expansion i personally would like them to add Clouded leopards to their collection as it is a particularly rare species in the UK as very few collections have them on show.

 

I consider the NEW Zoo my home zoo (even thought there are other, closer zoos) and am very exited to see what animals are coming with the master plan.

 

Hamerton and Linton are joint closest, and both are pretty well fixed for species not found anywhere else in the country. Both could do with some bears I feel. I spoke to a keeper at Linton who said he was personally holding out for a pair of sun bears somewhere down the line, and Hamerton has an ex-tiger enclosure sitting empty as of my last visit, and sun bears might theme nicely with their Malayan tigers. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the paddock space used by Bennett's wallaby and giant tortoise respectively given over to some interesting gazelle species either.

However, even if Hamerton and Linton are closest to me my heart still lies at Whipsnade and on that front I'd just be pleased to get some wolves back. Beyond that, I think if the UK is going to start going back into polar bears Whipsnade is certainly one of the best places for it. Maybe some caprids as well? I could see markhor or takin there easily.