"Wrong" subspecies in geographically themed exhibits.

What do you think of geographic themed exhibits having a subspecies not native to their area included? For example, say there was an India themed exhibit and someone wanted a predator area. In the United States anyway, there are no Asiatic lions, pure Bengal tigers, Indian leopards, or Indian gray wolves but there are African lions, Malayan, Amur, and Sumatran tigers, Amur leopards, and (likely) generic gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves. While the average zoo visitor likely wouldn't know the difference, what would you think of these nonnative subspecies being placed in this exhibit as stand ins? This doesn't bother me personally and I know it has been done with Amur leopards frequently. What about you? Are you a purist?

 

I know that I’m probably in the minority here but I don’t particularly like geographically themed zoo exhibits; personally, I much prefer to see animals displayed taxonomically rather than geographically.

However, to use your example, an Indian themed exhibit featuring African lions, Siberian tigers and Mexican wolves seems completely pointless to me; if a zoo is planning a geographic exhibit then do it properly or don’t attempt it at all.

 

Make do and mend. (Make the best of what is to hand.)

 

The basic concepts ignore the rules of zoogeography in favour of popular notions of five continents, this is almost like a law of modern zoo design in itself. This means that although regionally-themed design is promoted as educational, it actually promotes falsehoods.

World's Zoogeographical Regions Confirmed by Cross-Taxon Analyses | BioScience | Oxford Academic

An Update of Wallace’s Zoogeographic Regions of the World

 

I could see not including Siberian tigers or Mexican wolves since they don't resemble their Indian counterparts, but Asiatic and African lions look virtually identical. I take it you're not a fan of Amur leopards in places like the Living Desert in Palm Desert, CA? Amur leopards there are a stand in for ones native to desert regions.

 

I guarantee that 99.99% of people who are bothered about such things will read this thread.

 

I'm sure they will. It's a nice discussion I think.

 

I am not that bothered by this. With the lion thing, African and Asian Lions are no longer considered different subspecies. But what about stand-in species. For example Brookfield has Rodrigues Flying Foxes and Egyptian Fruit Bats in their Australia House in place of native bat species.

 

Not quite. There appears to be a natural genetic separation - an East/South African clade and a North/West Africa/Indian clade. These would be ranked as at least two subspecies by most experts.

 

I know you don't like geographic themed exhibits, but inaccuracies are not tied to the concept, it is done by indiviual collections, often for good reasons (like breeding programmes or difficulties in obtaining the "right" species).

Furthermore, while it is true that many (most?) zoos don't have exactly correct geographical mixes, the overall idea stays the same. Take for example your average "african savannah" exhibit, with a big cat enclosure, a vulture aviary and a mixed hoofstock paddock. It shows a visitor some of the animal components of the ecosystem, even if the big cat and the vultures have slightly different distributions and the antilope isn't even a true "savannah species". If well presented, it gives visitors the general idea of the (mega)fauna of the African savannah, as well as the ecosystem and it's components. And naturally, if badly executed the visitor sees nothing but a random arrangement of enclosures.

If you look at other ways of theming, they are not exactly more or less educational or correct. Take taxonomic based theming: how eductional is for example a "monkey house" or "bird house"? Surely visitors see the first house has monkeys and the second has birds, but have they learned anything? Is that teaching taxonomy? Just like with the geographic themed exhibit, you need to do more than just line up exhibits. And for my own experience: geographic or habitat based education is often easier to get across to your visitors than taxonomy.

While I'm defending the geographic themed exhibit, I don't really have a clear preference myself. I've seen great taxonomic based exhibits (like Berlin's Welt der Vögel), but also amazing geographic based exhibits (like many of Burgers' exhibits). And of course I've seen more or less "failed" examples of both. I'm fine with any theming as long as the general idea is well executed and reaches the visitor. Even if the "wrong" (sub)species is displayed.

 

Some of the issues are down to availability. In the example above, US zoos don't necessarily have access to an Australian species of flying fox to fit in with an Australian exhibit. But to most people one flying fox is pretty much the same as the next (indeed I'd expect this would be the case for many zoochatters). Many zoos will fudge mixed African plains exhibits including both North and South African species which would never overlap in range. A generic African savanna display is better than not.
Another issue comes down to compatibility. Some species just don't work as well together, while distant relatives/analogues might work better. Zoos may prefer to keep their highly endangered species in a single species exhibit to limit problems arising.
Personally as long as the zoo has tried to keep within their theme, then I don't have a problem with fudged exhibits. I feel that when zoos have mixed completely random species on the basis they are compatible to be worse. What message is the zoo conveying to the visitor?
Anyway Mr. Zootycoon has summarised it better then me while our messages were overlapping!!!

 

I should make it clear that I agree: reptile houses, for example, often house amphibians and even invertebrates as well as reptiles. So I am cynical of the whole idea of theming entire zoos by any 'educational' template. And my gripe is with the homogenisation of so many collections along certain lines, in this case being justified by saying something is more educational, than what came before: in this case it (usually) isn't.

The very presence of zoos and museums will stimulate interest in their contents: but how much do ppl learn from a visit? Prbly not much: ppl learn best when they have to explore, or if an interest is already there. On that note stimulating ppl's curiosity, and critical thought, has to be infinitely more important than just presenting facts.

Do ppl learn anything from visiting a bird house or a reptile house? Well in theory they learn phylogeny: I don't understand why phylogeny is less important nowadays, than are biogeography or ecology. But its not really a preference of mine, per se.

 

Why assume there is or should be an intended message? I'm sure we all mixed aquarium fishes or similar.

 

Savanna exhibits are a good example of stand in species or subspecies. The Hogle Zoo comes to mind with that. There are reticulated giraffes, mountain zebras, and ostriches sharing an exhibit. Those three would not be found in the wild in the same place but it is a nice exhibit. The animals at least resemble those that could be found in the wild and are educational.

This may be taking it off topic, but going back to the India exhibit in the initial post, what would your opinions be on including something like cheetahs, a species now extinct there. An African cheetah would of course have to be a stand in there.

 

Maybe because there is a point as to why zoos keep animals on display? Private fish tanks have no need to contain educational/conservational messages.

 

Very difficult to explain complex relationships with a handful of living animal exhibits, which might not even be on show for the visitor. Classification/evolution/phylogenetics are all probably better displayed and explained via museum displays. This doesn't preclude zoos from having such a display.

 

I would rather say, that right from their onset as serious institutions, zoos were living museums of a sort. The only claim to an educational function being inherent to zoos, comes from the association with other museums, in fact.

Surely the same applies with ecology as with phylogentics - you can't represent the complex relationships. It doesn't mean you can't begin.

 

Does every exhibit have to have educational, conservational or other messages? Why?

How much of a message is minimally sufficient, and can message-ness even be measured? Are all exhibits in a collection, thinking realistically, to be held to the same standards?

 

I think exhibits should be somewhat educational. At least to the point of explaining a little about the animal on display.

 

Right: somewhat and should. But some exhibits are primarily, and even entirely, space fillers. Lots of bird exhibits in zoos are or were this way. Tetrapod assumes idealism before practicalities, of course not everything in an average zoo that takes education seriously, is educational. That's like thinking there are, and should be, only endangered species in conservation zoos.