Zoo Highlights of 2013!

For me the highlight would have to be finally seeing the famous (infamous?) Henry Doorly Zoo. If ever a zoo were "over the top", than this zoo surely is it.

 

What about the Arizona trip with our good friend jb?

~Thylo

 

That was fun too, but as far as zoos are concerned, all the ones visited on that trip I have been to many, many times before.

 

Zoowise the highlight was my first visit to Walsrode, since my first real Berlin visit in 2007, I have never seen so much new species on one day.... But the park itself is also really beautyfull.

Also nice were the visits to some German zoos I hadn't visited before: Krefeld, Hannover (did someone here say over the top??), ZOOM, aquazoo Dusseldorf. And with 2 zoos here in Madagascar I am now at 91 zoos, so the highlight next year should be zoo nr. 100 .

 

For me, visiting the St. Louis Zoo for the first time back in early July was my biggest Zoo highlight of 2013. Seeing an Asian elephant calf, a few new species (like the bush dog and Coquerel's sifaka), and some top notch complexes (like River's Edge and Penguin and Puffin Coast) all contributed to this great day.

Other highlights include my first visit to Knoxville Zoo (as part of a Smokey Mountain vacation back in early April) and my first winter zoo trip (to my home zoo - Milwaukee).

 

For me, my biggest zoo highlight for 2013 was visiting the Gladys Porter Zoo, interesting species I saw included Jentinks duiker, West african bushbuck, Central american red brocket, Bornean bearded pig, and many others!, I very much enjoyed it!

Another big zoo highlight was Los Angeles Zoo and Santa Ana Zoo seeing Calamian deer at the former and Margay at the latter

For 2014, my possible long term goals are Shadow Nursery to see MacNeills deer, Gayal, Southern bushpig, Persian fallow deer, Altai wapiti and others, Larry Johnson's Place to see Gray rhebok, Javan rusa, Bharal and others, San Antonio Zoo to see Topi and African palm civet, and the Capitol of Texas Zoo to see Fanalokas and if they still have them African civets

As for a short term goals, I am going to the Living Desert tommorow to see Slender horned gazelles, but on another day I also need to photograph the Northern white rhinoceros, Barbary red deer, Red fronted gazelle, Uganda kob, Giant elands and Kordofan aoudads at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

 

For me, my biggest zoo highlight for 2013 was visiting the Gladys Porter Zoo, interesting species I saw included Jentinks duiker, West african bushbuck, Central american red brocket, Bornean bearded pig, and many others!, I very much enjoyed it!

Another big zoo highlight was Los Angeles Zoo and Santa Ana Zoo seeing Calamian deer and Mountain tapir at the former and Margay at the latter

For 2014, my possible long term goals are Shadow Nursery to see MacNeills deer, Gayal, Southern bushpig, Persian fallow deer, Altai wapiti, Kiang, Kulan, Nubian wild ass, North indian muntjac, Brazilian tapir and others, Larry Johnson's Place to see Gray rhebok, Javan rusa, Bharal and others, San Antonio Zoo to see Topi and African palm civet, and the Capitol of Texas Zoo to see Fanalokas and if they still have them African civets

As for a short term goals, I am going to the Living Desert tommorow to see Slender horned gazelles, but on another day I also need to photograph the Northern white rhinoceros, Barbary red deer, Red fronted gazelle, Uganda kob, Giant elands and Kordofan aoudads at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

 

And how exactly do you plan on getting into Shadow Nursery and Larry Johnson's place?

~Thylo

 

My visit to Borneo indefinitely!

 

For Shadow Nursery, I would call the owner and tell him that I am a serious animal enthusiast, and mention animals I want to see and ask him if I can come by his facility and see and photograph them, for Larry Johnson I would do the same but through email

The reason for calling Mr. Shadow instead of emailing him is because I hear that is a better way to reach him

 

hehe easier said than done, of course. Good luck with that all the same. Where is Larry Johnson's place anyway?

~Thylo

 

I am just going by the advice that I was given by a freind of mine that went to Shadow Nursery, as for Larry Johnson's Place, it is just outside of San Antonio

 

Just because you were one of the first people to see it.

 

The hghlights for me were seeing gayal at close quarters, seeing a water shrew at Slimbridge, and being asked to count bongos at Chester.

My non-zoo highlight is seeing 2 subspecies of three-horned chameleon and a black-headed python in a pet shop.

 

My zoo highlights of 2013 have got to be all of the baby animal sightings I had on my visits to the Bronx Zoo. On March 30th, 2013, I was able to not only catch a glimpse of the gibbons in Jungleworld for the first time, but their baby suckling while nestled in its mother's arms. During my August 3rd visit, I was fortunate enough to see a juvenile tiger, a baby silver leaf monkey being groomed by an adult, and fortunate enough to get some nice close-ups of a sea lion pup as it sunbathed along side its family.

As for wild animals, I didn't really get out much this year, unfortunately. However, any sighting I had of the mockingbird my father and I rescued always made me happy. It's good to see that even eight months after we saved him, he's still alive and well.

 

2013 has been a great zoo year for me, I made 40 visits to a total of 30zoos and other wildlife collections, of which 22 were new collections (20 in Australia, 2 in NZ). This took my total number of zoos visited to 101! Highlights were my first visits to Melbourne Zoo and Adelaide Zoo, as well as visits to many smaller zoos where I saw a good number of new species, especially Australian native species. My favourite visit was to Taronga Zoo on Christmas Day. Most exciting species viewings this year have been long-beaked echidna (Taronga), giant pandas (Adelaide), numbat (Healesville) and elephants (Melbourne).

I also got to do a lot of travelling, in NZ and Australia, to some very awesome places (central Australia being the highlight). I saw almost 150 species of wild birds, many of them new, and 20 mammals, as part of the ZooChat 2013 Big Year which has been great fun.

Definitely looking forward to 2014!

 

I have had an incredibly fortunate year.
I've yet to count but I think I neared 180 visits to around 150 different collections, about 100 of which were new to me.
I'm ridiculously spoilt for choice for highlights; in truth, many of my travels were highlights in themselves.
I never thought I'd have to choose between a list which includes a private tour of Plzen's off-show area, a personal encounter with Iberian lynx (the largest cat species I hadn't met yet - and one I hadn't expected to meet for many years), my first visits to some incredible zoos, being treated like a king at Khao Kheow in Thailand, fascinating trips to some amazing private facilities, Zoohistorica 2013 and meeting other enthusiasts throughout the year, personal tours and discussions with various professionals, including directors, curators, vets and keepers. For all these things, and all the other experiences, I'm very thankful - and I look forward to the next year which is as fantastic as 2013.

 

For me it was visiting Koalafornia at San Diego zoo, easily the best display of koalas anywhere outside or even inside Australia.

San Diego Zoo did one hell of a job with a certain Mr Prebys' money.

Conrad Prebys

 

I'm looking forward to seeing San Diego's new koala exhibit, as I have my doubts about it being 'the best in the world', as a couple of people have said. Has anyone who has been to a few koala exhibits in Australia seen Koalafornia yet, and are they able to offer an opinion?

 

I think people are just jumping the gun when they say it's the best in the world as I'm sure Oz has them beat at one or two places. They've already claimed that it has the most Koalas anywhere but that's false and I believe this member in particular is the same that said the LA Zoo was small and not very good....

~Thylo