Zoo Highlights of 2014!

Was I there that day? (An odd person wandering around with the keepers and maybe filling water containers to hand over fences.)

 

We had our eyes peeled but no sign!

It was lunchtimeish on the 28th September, after we'd been on the shearwater cruise from Brid.

 

I went to Bronx Zoo in April and was very impressed with the enclosures, not so much the other visitors though.

Since then I’ve been volunteering at Howletts in England, making friends with a very naughty black and white ruffed lemur called Aramis has been my highlight. There was also a crowned lemur born in July so I’ve been watching him grow up.

Being there a lot I also get to see things that others may not eg. a tapir running around going crazy then jumping in a pool and swimming.

 

Oh, it is usually about 3 o'clock when I go in. I was there that Sunday - well, I have been there every Sunday this year!

 

My zoo highlight was definetely my trip to Zurich, on which I also visited Basel, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Landau, Mulhouse & Heidelberg. But Zurich was definetely the highlight of that trip, apart from being zoo nr. 100. This was due to the Masoala rainforest, which is imo way better than Gondwanaland and also better than Burgers Zoo.

Apart from that zoo trip, I also really enjoyed the visits to Pairi Daiza, Artis, Blijdorp and the several visits to Apenheul & Burgers Zoo.

In terms of new species in captivity, it hasn't been the best year, but African civet, northern luzon cloud rat (finally....) & indian mungo were quite nice and on a reptile fair I saw over 20 new species for me including elephant trunk snake, sunbeam snake, legless lizard (lialis) & 2-toed amphiuma.

The real highlights were backpacking through Madagascar in April for a month and doing research there the whole winter and in september backpacking/ hitchiking all over Iceland 2 weeks long, were we saw northern lights and the active volcano and lots more.

Highlights of wild species include indri, 4 species of sifaka, fossa + 3 other Euplerids, sickle-billed vangas, 3 species of ground roller, all 3 mesite species, tropicbirds, humpback whale, harlequin duck, atlantic puffin and closer to home: finding new localities for rare species as yellow necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) & the snail Vitrinobrachium breve.

Plans for next year include the zoos Berlin, Leipzig, Nurnberg & Vienna, but I will start with a week in Morocco in January and after that hopefully finishing my MSc. degree soon

 

Let's see if I can make it at least as international as @Childonias, @Maguari and @Lintworm:

My zoo and aquaria visit list 2014:

-Zoo Zurich (many times)
-Knies Kinderzoo Rapperswil
-Tierpark Daehlhoelzli Bern
-Zoo Basel

-Zoo Plznen*

-Tiergarten Nuernberg
-Zoo Heidelberg
-Zoom Gelsenkirchen

-Tiergarten Schoenbrunn Wien
-Haus des Meeres Wien

-Burgers Zoo Arnhem

- Palm Beach Zoo, West Palm Beach*
- Seaworld Orlando
- Jacksonville Zoo*
- St. Augustine Alligator Farm & Zoo*
- Naples Zoo
- Chicago Lincoln Park Zoo*
- Chicago Brookfield Zoo*
- Shedd Aquarium Chicago*
- Milwaukee Zoo*

* = indicates first visit ever. Brings my total of zoos and aquarias to 177 (plus 3 Sea Life Centers which I don't count because they don't deserve it. Or do you count McDonalds or Burger King for a real restaurant list??!!)

 

My Highlights for zoos and captive animals:
- I now have a local zoo! (This is since moving to Warsaw, Poland from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where there is no zoo as such)
-Seeing 5 very nice marsupial species in Barna Mia, Western Australia. Three of which were lifers:
Burrowing Bettong/Boodie (Bettongia lesueur)
Rufous Hare-wallaby/Mala (Lagorchestes hirsutus)
Brush-tailed Bettong/Woylie (Bettongia penicillata)
Southern Brown Bandicoot/Quenda (Isoodon obesulus)
Bilby/Dalgyte (Macrotis lagotis)

My highlights for wild animals:
-Seeing echidna and malleefowl among other species in the Dryandra Woodland, Western Australia
-Seeing numerous green sea turtles in the UAE
-Seeing wild European bison in the Bialowieza Forest

I hope to get one more collection in this year which will be a UK collection that I will probably visit next week but overall I have kept this list as short as possible but I have had a good year and hope to have an even better one next year.

 

I have had a fairly quiet year. My best zoo experience was my first visit to Newquay: I enjoyed the blue-crowned hanging parrots and the narrow-striped mongooses, but the highlight was seeing the Owston's palm civets being fed.


My best wildlife experience was a boat trip in the English Channel, when the boat was surrounded by short-beaked common dolphins.


I was pleased that I managed to get one or two decent photos on both occasions.

Alan

 

You should meet the visitors that go to Central Park then There you can find parents telling their children to just push people out of the way if they want to see animal. Though you can also find some very nice keepers and people with large cameras

When did you visit Bronx in April?

~Thylo

 

How exciting - I'm very envious! I've been watching the eruption on the Mila webcams since it started. How close did you get?

 

@Gigit, in distance not close at all. I think we haven't got closer than 100 km, but it was close enough to see a red glow the whole night and we saw the ash cloud coming from the volcano and we also drove through the ash on our way east. There are many small planes that bring you really up close to the volcano, but they were to expensive unfortunately....

 

An outrageous exaggeration!!!! I am now up to a mere 178 days this year on which I have set foot in the zoo itself - generally it is Friday, Saturday and Sunday each week plus Bank Holidays, but there have been more extras this year. I have just got back from doing my exercise routine on the steps from the clifftop to the beach (using my front bicycle light for illumination [holding it I should add]) and when I finished I could not resist scouting around the outside of the clifftop paddocks to see if the deer were in range for a photograph or two - that does not count as a zoo visit though.

 

Here's a link to the webcams in case anyone's interested in a grandstand view of Iceland's biggest lava flow since 1783/4:

Bárðarbunga

 

So, I've seen 41 zoos this year (with the 16 that are in bold new collections for me)....

1. Antwerp Zoo Belgium
2. Arundel Wildfowl Trust England
3. Banham Zoo England
4. Birdland, Bourton-on-the-Water England
5. Birdworld, Farnham England
6. Colchester Zoo England
7. Cotswold Falconry Centre, Moreton-in-Marsh England
8. Cotswolds Wildlife Park England
9. Crocodiles of the World, Brize Norton England
10. Hamerton Zoo England
11. Huxley's Birds of Prey Centre, Horsham England
12. London Zoo England
13. Rare Species Conservation Centre, Sandwich England
14. Shorelands Wildlife Gardens England
15. Suffolk Wildlife Park / Africa Alive! England
16. The Raptor Foundation, Woodhurst England
    [*]Tropical World, Leeds England
    [*]Tropiquaria, Watchet England
17. Twycross Zoo England
18. Whipsnade Zoo England
19. Wingham Wildlife Park England
20. Jardin des Plantes, Paris France
21. Zoo de Vincennes, Paris France
22. Cologne Zoo Germany
23. Dusiburg Zoo Germany
24. Hannover Zoo Germany
25. Heimattiergarten Bierer Berg, Schonebeck Germany
26. Krefled Zoo Germany
27. Tiergarten Bernburg Germany
    [*]Tiergarten Stassfurt Germany
    [*]Tierpark Fauna, Solingen Germany
    [*]Vogel- und Tierpark Solingen Germany
28. Walsrode Vogelpark Germany
29. Wildpark Luneburger Heide Germany
    [*]Wildpark Schwarze Berge Germany
30. Wuppertal Zoo Germany
31. Zoo Aschersleben Germany
32. Artis Zoo, Amsterdam Netherlands
33. Blijdorp Zoo, Rotterdam Netherlands
34. Uilen en Dierenpark de Paay Netherlands
35. Vogelpark Avifauna, Alphen aan den Rijn Netherlands

The undoubted highlight was spending a couple of days at Walsrode. Honourable mentions for Zoohistorica at Cologne; Artis, looking much better than I have ever previously seen it; Vincennes, which is looking pretty traditional in its rebuild; and Shorelands, which was lovely.

Lowlights were some old favourites which look to be on a downward trajectory: Rotterdam and Wuppertal are still great, but not quite as great as they once were (or it might just e that I visited on an off day).

 

Wow, 41 zoos is impressive. But I beat you in the no. of nations...
Also, I'm a little "handicapted" in this race, because as a family man, I couldn't travel around as much as I did as a single.

 

Ah - this is a "handicap" I (very happily!) share. It does mean that summers driving to a multiplicity of zoos in Slovakia and Hungary are but a memory - although there are compensations.....

 

Cotswold Falconry I liked a great deal: good collection, beautiful setting, excellent flying demonstration, very nice people running the place. It won't win any architectural prizes, though, and - in common with so many UK collections - it does give the impression that a mild autumn storm might bring the whole place down.

COTW was pretty good. Collection obviously quite impressive. Fairly functional, utilitarian feel to it all. A very pleasant 90minutes, but I don't feel any pressing need to rush back.

Tropical World? All a bit meh, to be honest. I was at a conference in Leeds, and there was a 90 minutes session out of which I could duck, so I jumped into a taxi and head for Roundhay Park. I was glad to see the place, but I couldn't help thinking it could all have been so much better. Those big walk-through greenhouses could have been developed with care and love, but just felt a bit thoughtless. The mammal cages were perfunctory. The toilets were fetid. And the shop was (a) enormous and (b) filled with tat. That said, I very much enjoyed watching Madagascan jumping rats (and they were certainly an improvement on the lecture on mindfulness that I would otherwise have been attending).

Other new UK places: a few Birds of Prey centres that were nothing notable at all; Tropiquaria which tries hard but looks like it could do with a serious injection of cash; and Shorelands, which I thought was quite delightful, and to which I very much want to return.

Of the 'new' overseas places, De Paay and Schonebeck both have fantastic collections, although De Paay looks a great deal more British than Dutch! I rather liked the string of small, solid zoos between Halle and Magdeburg - Bernburg is probably the best. And Wildpark Schwarze Berg, just outside Hamburg, gets my prize for having the most beautiful setting, but for doing very little that is interesting with that setting.....

 

@Sooty mangabey, I really like to read that you have never seen Artis Amsterdam in such a good state before. The zoo does not as much attention as it deserves and I find it the Dutch zoo that has made the largest progress in the last 10-15 years.