I've seen a thread for specific 'dream' enclosures but does anyone have ideas about where they would build their 'dream zoo' and how it would look, what species they would include etc?
For my zoo, I would have everything arranged geographically, much like the Toronto Zoo but on a more intimate scale, while still having large, spacious enclosures (shorter walking distance between exhibits). I would probably build it in Stoney Creek, Ontario, or Binbrook. Species that I'd like to have include ones that would do well in the winter, and aside from rescued big cats, ones not found in too many other Canadian zoos. These include the African Wild Dogs, Takin, Moose, Wisent, Steller's Sea Lion, and Spanish Lynx.
A greenhouse the size of Burgers Bush, with a huge stream running through it with clear water holding manatees, river dolphins and giant otters in a mixed exhibit (with the water part so large they don't have to meet). Tree's filled with sloths, pygmy anteaters, prehensile-tailed porcupine and a load of bird species...
A bit like Durrell's original plan: a zoo on an island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea-with a decent seafood restaurant. Animal collection: mostly islands' fauna (Madagacar, the West Indies, New Caledonia, Nicobars, New Guinea, the Philippines, Seychelles... etc.).
jwer, altough I like the species you namend, it's not a good idea to keep manatees together with river dolphins and giant otters. The otters are to stressful for the other two species, and probably the dolphins are to stressful for the manatees either. You can't keep pygmy anteaters a long time in zoos,because you can't feed them and most of them die during the first weeks, even in south american zoos.
Some private island in Carribean with freeflying tropical birds. Or a zoo of ten habitats: Tundra of Canada - polar bears, walruses, arctic wolves, wolverines. Rainforest of West Africa - gorillas, chimps, drills, okapi, bongo, nile and pygmy hippos. Semi-desert of Namibia - lions, giraffe, hartmann zebra, meerkat, african penguins, sealions. Mountains of West Himalaya - snow leopard, red panda, markhor, lammergeier, monal pheasant, camel, kulan. Wetlands of Assam - elephants, rhinos, swamp deer, tiger, dhole, gharial, sloth bear, gibbon. Coral reef of Komodo - sharks, groupers, nautilius, sea turtles, komodo dragons. Spiny thicket of Madagascar - lemurs, fossa, ground-rollers, cameleons. Night hall - aye-aye, flying foxes, golden cats, fennec foxes, jerboa. Mangroves of Indonesia - orangutan, langurs, malayan tapir, fishing cats, hornbills, siamese crocodiles, fiddler crabs. Mulga desert of East Australia: - red kangaroos, yellow-footed wallabies, koalas, rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras.
Considering this is a "dream" thread, i don't know why i bother to react But although i think you might be right, I wonder if keeping these species together would be a problem in the space my "dream" has for them. If you recreate an amazon river that's say at least a 100 meters long, with many side runs and everything and hold only a few animals, they would meet each other perhaps a few times a day. I don't think the animals could hurt each other, and as long as it's big enough i think it should be possible to keep the stress levels down... About the pygmy anteaters. I've heared often enough that these animals are impossible to keep, but i'm still amazed at the amount of "pet" photographs that seem to circulate the internet. Not so long ago, some of these animals where for sale in the England pet trade! So now i'm confused about the possibilities of keeping this species... Then again, it's only a dream
Mine changes all the time and because i live in Australia this would be a dream list for any zoo. It would be a medium zoo with only a few geographic zones and the rest would be a more traditional zoo layout with gardens and lawn and none of the animals in geographic or taxanomic order. *Asia-Rotating exhibit for sun bears and orang-utans, walk-through aviary, Javan langurs, Ganges river dolphin and white-handed gibbons on an island. *Africa-Okapi, Aardvark, lions, dwarf crocadile and Gorillas. *Islands-This would be a large building with glass roof and a tropical tempurature/humidity with free range ring-tail lemurs inside and you would look through windows to see tassie devils, Giant tortoises (Aldabra or Galapagos), Fijian iguanas and Komodo Dragons. Animals in other exhibits would be manatees, Giant otter, koalas, Grizzly bears, baikal seal and a walkthrough kangaroo, rock wallaby and emu. exhibit.
I think you have Pygmy Anteaters confused with Tamanduas. There's pictures on flickr of them as pets, and I think there's about 4 zoos in the UK with them. I wish there were more, they're amazing (not to mention really cute!) animals.
Not necessarily, I seem to think I've heard of pymgy anteaters as pets, but can't find any evidence of it. Tamanduas are certainly more common. My zoo would be four sections: Eurasia, with Mongolian paddock, Amur leopards, European Night House and wisent as well as various small animals birds and reptiles. Oriental (maybe more correctly termed IndoMalayan) with Orangutan House, Indian Rhino, Chinese Jungle and Islands wildlife like komodos/birds. Neotropical Central American house with jags, howlers, flamingos and stuff, Amazon house with day and night sections and a Tierra del Fuego ocean exhibit. African African underground section with aadvarks and bat-eared foxes etc, giraffe paddock, pygmy hippo house and African wild dogs.
