Worst Zoo Misses, Regrets and Gut Punches

You missed a whole lot of goof!

 

The worst one for me was not getting to visit the Barcelona Zoo when Snowflake was there. This was three years before he died.

 

I try to be as zen as possible when I miss a species, accepting that one never sees everything at every zoo anyway. This is, however, frustrated by the fact that occasionally (especially with non-ectotherms and multiple returns to the same enclosure) a "full house" is possible and where I'm unlikley to re-visit for a while(i.e. European collections). A handful of memorable misses still sting including:

1. Both Siaga (Cologne) and King Cheetah (Wuppertal, I know it's a morph, not a species) dying months before my first visit to the Rhur valley zoos in 2010. Still saw a lot of nice stuff though (but not the Yellow-backed Duiker (Wuppertal);

2. Black-footed cats -visited Belfast not long after they'd gone out and, more frustratingly, visited RSCC when then held them but they were cordoned off as they'd just had kittens (very frustrating as I could still see the enclosure not many feet away);

3. Himalayan Palm Civet (Dortmund) -less annoying than the other two as everyone struggles with this.

 

I too had wished to have seen Snowflake, indeed it truly would of been a trip! I still finding myself longing, though I know he has passed.

 

At the San Antonio Zoo seeing only faint glimpse of a Grizzlied Gray Tree Kangaroo barely visible inside it's interior building hiding of course.

 

Brookfield Zoo, Chicago. I wish I had opportunity to see Ziggy the male bull asian elephant back in the day. He was famous for being locked up for years inside cause he was a bad boy. What we didn't know back then essential elephant behaviors, and proper housing requirements, and socialization of elephants.

 

I already participated here mentioning the off-show California condors at San Diego, but I can add some more things, maybe less frustrating than the condors:

-In my most recent zoo visit (Köln+Duisburg+Wüppertal), not seeing the Malagasy jumping rats at Duisburg even when I had the privilege of being inside their enclosure and look inside their possible dens, going to Wüppertal and find than the free-flight aviary with horneros, lesser kiskadees, etc. was closed for reformation, and overall, that most of the rare amphibians at Köln zoo are behind the scenes.

-At SeaWorld San Diego, tough I knew much before visiting it, knowing that Commerson's dolphins was moved to Orlando.

-At Prague zoo, the fact of not having yet a good camera with decent zoom, and hence missing some photo oportunities, especially the black dorcopsis, that I was able to see, but not to focus in, and I ended without pics of it.

-At Madrid zoo-aquarium, looking in the zoo map that there is a shelter for Lesser Kestrels (Falco naumanni) somewhere in the kid farm, but not being able to find it nor find a zookeeper to ask in the zone.

-Visiting Paris Menagerie-Jardin des Plantes little time before they imported McQueen's Bustards. Maybe a gap that I can fill in near future...

-Not having the chance of visiting Terra Natura Murcia before both the Nocturnal Curassow and Whistling Heron died. Not it don't worth the visit.

-Visiting Aquarium Barcelona but no seeing the angular rough shark anywhere, and very little after, a friend visited it and made a good photo of the species...

-Doing the stupid thing of save my photos at 300 pixels width before 2007. Thus meaning than in my visit to Taipei zoo some photos are atonishingly bad, and the most important is the Black Eagle (Ictinaetus malayensis), that I could have done much better.

-Knowing that in my future planning for visit Japanese zoos I can't count with the already died Bulwer's pheasant.

-Not in a zoo, but also related with animal photography. When visited London in 2006, I was obsessed with bird feathers and when visiting the Natural History Museum I didn't photographed much else than most remarkable bird specimens. I was not interested in fossils by the time, and didn't took photos of the incredible ichthyosaur collection that are concentrated in one wall.

 

My biggest miss is another rhino than most people here. I was in San Diego in 2010 and could go to two of the three zoos, unfortunately for me those did not include the one with Northern white rhinos...

Another huge miss is two long-beaked echidna species. Not visiting Taronga in 2009 but opting instead for the wildlife and aquarium, and visiting Batu Secret Zoo in 2016, when theirs weren't on show yet.

I can live without most other things, I think. The bare-necked fruitcrow in Veldhoven until 2016 (a few months before I got into birds, and cotingas in particular) will always sting a little, but I'll survive.

 

Has to be Sumatran Rhinoceros when they were in the UK.

 

Definitely the Uakaris in LA this summer.

 

I record the dates I visit zoos so that my pictures can be accurately dated.

 

Still, being able to recall them offhand the way you do is quite impressive!

 

not knowing that Nordens arks Reptile building had an upstairs area and
not asking any of the Havets hus keepers where the cuttlefish that had several merchandise
and pictures based on them in the aquarium where located

 

Not a zoo one, but still a very frustrating case for me; the jack snipe.
I apparently, am meant to have been able to see them twice. The first time, I was visiting RSPB Burton Mere with some friends, and as we were leaving the reserve we were discussing the species we had seen, one of my friends said that he'd got an excellent picture of a jack snipe. He showed me on his camera, and sure enough, he had! I hadn't seen it, despite sitting in the hide right next to him- he claims he called out that he'd seen it, but I have no recollection of him doing so.

The second was a much busier day at the reserve, with the hide full of birders. This time, someone did call out Jack snipe, and everyone turned to look and photograph it, but despite the best directions of my fellow birders, I was entirely unable to see anything I could convince myself was a jack snipe.

 

Well, in fact it was a small mammal section. It was found upstairs on two sides the central hall, like @TeaLovingDave mentioned. During my first two visits, short-eared elephant shrews and several rodents (gundi, mice, hamsters) were kept. Kowaris, short-tailed opossums and hedgehogs are mentioned in the zoo guide of my first visit, but I didn't see these species. The elephant shrews and some of the rodents are now kept at the Pachyderm House, after the renovation of the central hall of the Alfred Brehm House some years ago.

 

Hello Rayane. You would have liked the saki and uakari house at Cologne Zoo in 1982. Red-backed, white-nosed and monk sakis and white, red and Neblina uakaris. There were other saki species in 1981, but I missed those.

 

That is a tough one, although I got lucky and got a prolonged look at one in December at LA. Although I was quite mad because the Uakari exhibit is in such a weird place, and getting a good view of one through the thick netting is almost impossible.

 

Yeah I've been around Zootierliste, I wasn't born in 81 though lol. I now check the lists of the zoo I'm about to visit on Zootierliste, since I live in Europe, to make sure I don't miss any interesting species.