Where are we all making a bee line for when this is all over?

Hey everyone,

I was just thinking to myself about what I was going to do once we had the all-clear, and it got me thinking, where is the first place you all intend to go when you're free to go wherever you like and everything is open for business? Zoo or otherwise.

I'll be making the trek across the country to Chester as early as I can, and will be taking plenty of photographs and a goodly amount of video, so if anyone want's images of anything in particular do let me know.

Before that, though, I quite fancy checking in on Woodside which is reasonably local to us, being in Lincolnshire. I haven't been since they got a pair of tigers, one of which has sadly passed away since. From what I hear they've done a good deal of development since then, too.

 

If you head to Chester zoo could you try to get pictures of the exhibit for the following?
Elephant
Lion
Tiger

Thanks

 

Hoping to go back to the Wildwood Trust (Kent), but if not then doing a mini zoo tour in North West England may be on the cards - but this is a few months down the line.

 

Without a doubt I will be nipping down to Montpellier over the winter and will slip in a zoo visit. Might also try to get to somewhere in Germany or Czechia soon after that. I have a lot of catching up to do. This lockdown has only whetted my appetite for more zoo-going.

 

Several National parks in Southern Brazil hopefully.

 

Sure will!

That sounds like a great plan. But yes, all plans are subject to a safe situation and I'm not anticipating that to be any time soon, frankly! It's nice to think about the future, sometimes. It reminds me that this isn't how it will always be.

Slightly higher flying plans, there. Good stuff! I know what you mean about whetting the appetite. I was primed and ready to go to Chester just as this all started.
Just had a quick look at Montpellier and it looks wonderful. Saw someone say that the zoo is largely free. Is that right?

Sounds like a trip worth taking!

 

Yes, the zoo is entirely free except for the Rainforest House (which is the best part and well worth visiting - the best small zoo tropical building I have seen) and so joggers and elderly people use the zoo for exercise whilst learning a thing or two about the animals and watching them for short periods. It is quite a nice place and holds a special place in my heart since I kind of consider it my 'home zoo'.

 

I’ll either be heading south to see the big Californian three (San Diego zoo, Safari park, Seaworld) and add some species to my lifelist or head north for a long overdue visit of Oregon zoo.

 

Thinking about the future is keeping me (reasonably) sane through this! I am very much looking forward to my zoo trips and anticipating travelling again.
But I'm in no real rush, as the health of people is important

 

I couldn't agree with you more. It's important not to lose sight of the fact that it will end, but it's even more important not to rush anything. Doing so just pushes that end point further out of sight. Fingers crossed enough people continue to agree.

 

I wanna go campinggggggggg!!!!!!! I'd like to go to Bastrop State Park for a few nights, or even just Padre Island National Seashore. Can't get too extravagant, I don't know what my job situation will be like. But I figure camping is an isolated enough activity that it would be safe even if the virus is still out there a little.

My mom and I are hoping to make a trip to South Padre Island in the summer. If that works out, I'll go to the beach, go on at least one dolphin watch tour, and visit the Gladys Porter Zoo. If it doesn't, well, I can at least make a day trip to the zoo, or just go camping to save money.

My little sister just moved to Washington and my parents are hoping to visit in her the summer. They're inviting me to come but I dunno if that's gonna work out. I live with someone at high risk so I have to be extra careful, and I'm not optimistic to think that things will be good enough in summertime to do air travel. Unfortunate for me, it's not often that my parents offer to pay for air travel!

I really want to get to the Houston Zoo and see the Texas Wetlands exhibit! And I'll finally stop putting off the Moody Gardens Aquarium trip, would you believe I STILL haven't seen the renovation?

 

I had a Safari in Kenya scheduled for two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic started where we would've visited Samburu National Reserve, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and the Masai Mara (I would've been landing in Narobi around this time of writing). It's scheduled for next year thankfully instead of being cancelled which i'm thankful for. It will be the second time I'll have been to Africa in my lifetime.

I'm planning on going to my grandparents in Rochester NY when I get the OK to come up, partly to check on them as my grandfather is immunocompromised, and also because the zoo that I identify as my home zoo is Seneca Park Zoo, and I'm close with many of the keepers who work there and animals that are kept.

My family and I are to be going to Taiwan in the fall to hopefully meet my sisters birth-parents; we're all hoping that we won't have to cancel the trip and things look okay to travel and get back into the country by then.

I'm bumbed out that the first got cancelled and the other two may not happen for a while but don't get me wrong though, I'm not in a rush to get going; the healthy of essential workers is the necessity and people still shouldn't be going out unless it's mandatory. Rushing it like many are doing will only push this further and result in a greater wave of cases and deaths resulting in us being back where we started.

 

For me it would be either one of the following United States road trips.

A road trip through New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado.

A road trip through Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

or

A road trip through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

Regardless of the trip, I would choose first, the only activity I would do is visit different zoos, aquariums, natural history museums, science museums, national parks, national monuments, national conservation areas, national wildlife refuges, national recreation areas, national forests, national grasslands, national lakeshores, national seashores, state parks, state forests, state wildlife areas, and even county wilderness parks. The first one I mentioned that would include Nebraska is what I would relish the most. With my keen interest Cenozoic mammal paleontology, visiting Ashfall Fossil Beds State Park and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument would be a pilgrimage or a right of passage for me. Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo which has the largest number of species of any zoo in the US is a must-see for me. I would certainly get plenty of new taxa to check off my life list. The second to the last road trip I took through the state of Texas was going to include Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado, but unfortunately, I got into a bad accident and my truck got totaled when I was on my way to Oklahoma coming from the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Before the pandemic and starting at the new year, I made an effort to take a trip to a different wilderness area in Arizona, New Mexico, and far-western Texas every weekend, but unfortunately, I had to put a stop to it because of this pandemic and the financial constraints this pandemic has placed on me. I hope I am not going on a digression when mentioning this, but some of the destinations on my recent weekend road trips I have taken included the El Paso Zoo, Las Cruces Museum of Nature & Science, White Sands National Park, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, Gila National Forest, and Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, etc. I hope I can resume my local weekend road trips in the future as well.

 

I’m hoping to get to Sydney for visiting zoos (and wildlife), Sydney because Taronga as well as other NSW facilities like Aussie Reptile Park but most importantly cat conservation centre Because I want to see Clouded Leopards and Caracals!

 

Yikes I had no idea it cost that much....

 

I’ve been meaning to visit the Bronx Zoo for a while, and i live farely close to it. But first I’d probably visit Philly zoo just to get back into the mood.

 

Another place I am wanting to make a bee line to is the Mexican state of Sonora.

If I can pull it off, sometime this summer I would like to take a road trip down to the Mexican state of Sonora which borders Arizona to the south to go on some hiking, herping, and wildlife watching trips down there. The southern part of Sonora has biodiversity that would be considered Neotropical zoogeographically such as the Military macaw (Ara militaris), American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), and Grayish mouse opossum (Tlacuatzin canescens) etc. so I would definitely like to go down to localities where I can find such taxa, but my only obstacle on that front is that unlike Arizona, most of the land in Sonora is privately owned. In the northern part of Sonora, as would be expected, the terrestrial biodiversity is more similar to Arizona, particularity in El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve where I could see taxa like Sonoran pronghorn (Antilocapra americana sonoriensis), Desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni), Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum), and Sonoran desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) etc. I would love to take some time to explore the biodiversity and ecology of my neighboring state to the south, Sonora. If or when the Tucson Herpetological Society does field trips down there again, I would love to join in on them! With my interest in paleontology, if I could pull it off, I would like to find a way check out the off display paleontology collections (which I believe include plenty of Pleistocene material) at the University of Sonora in the state's capital city, Hermosillo.

 

Unfortunately Sonora seems to be out of this picture this year.

Luckily I have been able to save up enough for this, so soon I will be embarking on a road trip through Nevada to visit different National Recreation Areas (Lake Mead NCA), National Parks (Great Basin NP), National Forests (Humboldt-Toiyabe NF), National Conservation Areas (Red Rock Canyon NCA), National Wildlife Refuges (ie Moapa Valley NWR and Desert NWR), National Monuments (ie Gold Butte NM and Tule Springs Fossil Beds NM), State Parks (ie Valley of Fire and Ice Age Fossils), State Wildlife Management Areas (ie Key Pitman WMA and Mason Valley WMA), and if I can pull it off somehow, a few Natural History Museums (the Nevada State Museum in Carson City and the University of Nevada Reno Museum of Natural History) and National Fish Hatcheries (Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery). Little do people realize, Nevada is actually a great state for biodiversity and ecotourism and is home to a number of endemic taxa that are threatened and endangered such as the Dixie Valley toad (Anaxyrus williamsi), Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis), Moapa dace (Moapa coriacea), and the Mount Charleston blue butterfly (Icaricia shasta charlestonensis) etc. I am looking forward to this.

 

To be honest, personally I am starting to think that this pandemic probably won't be completely over anytime soon, and that we will just be entering a different phase (or phases) that I do hope and think will come with far fewer restrictions and far more opportunities, but also still some limitations. I doubt that we will be completely back to a situation like the pre-Covid days soon, and in some respects there migth be long-term change.

That said, as far as zoos goes, once it is possibly again to travel abroad, I really want to visit some Dutch zoos again. GaiaZoo, Zie-Zoo, Avifauna and Burgers' Zoo are high on my list for revisits. However given that I won't be able to easily travel abroad until mid-August, when I will be fully vaccinated, I doubt that will be happening before autumn, if at all in 2021. It is not impossible to travel to the Netherlands from Belgium right now for day trips, but I don't want to get into unnecessary trouble and I would rather let the Dutch enjoy their zoos for the time being.

I also still want to do the "northern Germany" multi-day (mini) zoo road trip we've considered for some years, which would include at least Weltvogelpark Walsrode. I probably also want to (re)visit some other German zoos at some point. But those plans are definitely not going to be happening until 2022 at least.