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Capital of Texas Zoo Capital Of Texas Zoo news

Discussion in 'United States' started by Arizona Docent, 22 Oct 2011.

  1. Arizona Docent

    Arizona Docent Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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  2. joneil238

    joneil238 Member

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    I stopped by the Capital of Texas zoo for the first time this weekend and was surprised by the number of species here that are rare in other US zoos. To name a few:
    Jungle Cat
    African Civet
    Asian Palm Civet
    Brush-Tailed Bettong
    Lechwe
    Blue Wildebeest
    Bornean Bearded Pig
    and, of course, the Fanaloka

    They have also just built a very spacious hippopotamus exhibit.

    I went by the San Antonio Zoo too and they are exhibiting Bush Dogs again, and had a Tayra on display as well.
     
  3. BeardsleyZooFan

    BeardsleyZooFan Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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  4. Milwaukee Man

    Milwaukee Man Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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  5. jayjds2

    jayjds2 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    From the Zoo's Facebook page: "Our newest additions!!!! A mother/daughter pair of Vervet monkeys! They will be on display soon once they have had a chance to get to know our resident male Vervet, who the mother is watching through her window. Come out and see them and all the other wonderful animals here at the zoo!!!"
     
  6. jayjds2

    jayjds2 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    From my visit today:

    1. Somehow, they got their hands on a pair of dingos. The small enclosure is near the Patas monkeys.

    2. A "snakes of Texas" building is being built.
     
  7. Zygodactyl

    Zygodactyl Well-Known Member

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    I went there today. Their newest acquisition is a pair of blue-throated macaws, which were acquired via donation. The owner is currently holding a fundraising drive to buy giraffes. I gave him the loose change from my admission, but also told him that I came to the zoo to see the fossa and falanoka rather than giraffes, at which point he asked if I learned about him through ZooChat. I guess he gets a fair number of us, and knows we're the ones who ask about those.

    It really is in the middle of nowhere, even by Texas standards. It's also got a really run-down look. What signs there are are a mix of professional-looking zoo signs, hand-made wood signs, and printed information sheets in plastic sleeves, however the signage is often inaccurate or completely absent.

    The most bizarre case is the falanoka exhibit. The main sign is for the falanouc, and predates the split of the species in 2010. The smaller sign on the bottom left has the scientific name of the falanoka ans is mostly covered by weeds. He told me that the falanoka was off-exhibit because it's twenty-one years old, but there was a striped mongoose-looking animal curled up by the front, so I think it's the falanouc that's off-exhibit.

    There's no maps or signs telling you where to find animals, and organization seems almost random. Like parrots are often grouped together, the big cats are grouped together, the wallaby, cockatoo, and the dingoes are in one exhibit, and the fossa, falanoka, and ring-tailed lemurs are together, but then you have other animals in those same exhibits and the brown lemurs and several parrots are elsewhere. I wandered around and did not see the brush-tailed bettong. I forgot to ask about it, but there was one exhibit which looked about the right size for the bettong where I couldn't see any animal, so it might have been it its hide.

    There's two big aviary buildings filled with at least three species of curassow, a couple guinea fowl (most of the guinea fowl are free-roaming), and one domestic heirloom turkey. The signage is completely off and there's a sign for an occelated turkey but no occelated turkey present.

    Personally, I like the idea of small private zoos, and this one made me considerably less uncomfortable than Lupa Zoo (founded as a private zoo though now a municipal one) did. And the prairie dogs have tunneled out of their exhibit and constructed a warren which stretches from the camel to one of the brown lemurs, which I find equal parts awesome, adorable, and amusing. The presentation is an absolute mess, but the owner is charming and the animal care standards for the most part seem to be decent. Most of the animals seemed to have ample space, the dingoes--for example--had almost as much as Zoo Miami gives the New Guinea singing dog.

    There are only three things that concerned me. The first was the mountain coatis (yet another rare species the zoo has), which he breeds for other zoos. However it turns out that (except for fully adult males), mountain coatis are social, and since most other enclosure sizes looked fine to me I imagine that the enclosure he has them in is appropriate. My second concern still is the bats, which I believe are Egyptian fruit bats. When I was there they kept flying into the window and you could see the smudges from their body oil where they hit. They can't echolocate of course, but I've never seen them do it in wire enclosures, so I'm guessing they can see wire and not glass.

    My biggest concern in terms of animal care is the parrots. I didn't see much in the way of enrichment (other than sticks to chew on and other birds to preen) for most of them. Most of them didn't seem to be negatively affected, but two of the four blue-and-gold macaws had feather-plucking issues. Unlike the cockatoo, African gray, and sun conure, who all seemed fine, the blue and golds didn't seem to have anywhere to hide to avoid visitors, so I'm wondering if that's the cause of the feather-plucking.

    For such a small zoo, the variety is impressive, particularly with mammals. Blue-throated macaws, fossa, falanoka, mountain coati, African civet, and dingo are all fairly rare in zoos (as would be the occelated turkey if he actually has one). There was a sign for a collared lemur (in addition to the two common brown lemurs, but in a different exhibit), but it was asleep so I couldn't confirm it. And I'd have to double check this also, but I think he has three species of coatimundi. He also has a white tiger and a black leopard, as well as a hippo, an Asian black bear, a wallaby, and Egyptian fruit bats.
     
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  8. Coelacanth18

    Coelacanth18 Well-Known Member Premium Member 5+ year member

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    Thanks for the review @Zygodactyl . The information about the Egyptian fruit bats is interesting. I don't know that I've ever seen them in a wire or mesh enclosure, but I have seen them multiple times behind glass, and I've never observed that behavior. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with bat husbandry would know if this is common.
     
  9. jayjds2

    jayjds2 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I think your review is mostly spot on. I feel the larger mammals (leopard, Asian black bear, tiger, and dingo) especially could use some more space, though. Did you see the jungle cats or Bornean bearded pigs? They are also extremely rare. Also, there are no mountain coatis in the US. I'm not knowledgeable about coati species but that seems to be the general consensus on this site. I also enjoyed the prairie dog "exhibit", and I'd actually go as far as to say it's the best I've seen for the species. I think with more money, this zoo could develop into something great, though as you mentioned it truly is in the middle of nowhere. I agree that both the large parrot and the bat husbandry are concerns- I've never seen that problem with bat species, nor did I see the bats being active at all on my three visits to the zoo. They desperately need more flight space.

    Also, I'm jealous that you saw the falanouc/fanaloka. I never did!
     
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  10. Zygodactyl

    Zygodactyl Well-Known Member

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    Unless I'm misremembering, the owner told me that they are mountain coatis, and they're considerably smaller than the white-nosed coatis in the adjacent exhibit. He does do a lot of importing both for his own zoo and other Texas zoos, so it's entirely possible he imported some fairly recently. However looking at pictures, their coloring is much closer to South American coatis than mountain coatis. So either the owner is wrong about what species he has (which wouldn't shock me tremendously) or I'm misremembering what he told me (which also wouldn't shock me).

    I feel like it would be nice if he gave the tiger a place to swim, however I wasn't bothered by the size of the tiger enclosure. The leopard and dingo enclosures seemed on the small side but not unreasonably small. For the Asian black bear, don't they not move unless they have to? I've never seen one move and I thought that--like panda bears--they are largely sedentary.

    The bat enclosure and patas monkey enclosures are the only ones which are smaller than enclosures for the same animals at Lupa Zoo. I think the patas monkey exhibit is adequate (the Old World monkeys and the binturong were the only mammals at Lupa Zoo I was sure had adequate space), but the bat one probably wasn't. The only bats I've seen kept in enclosures of that size are microbats. (Miami has Neotropical fruit bats in two such enclosures with a tunnel between them, Dr. Spooky's Animal Museum also somehow got ahold of a group of small insect-eating bats which Dr. Spooky kept in an even smaller enclosure.)

    What I forgot to mention is that the enclosure I thought was most unreasonably small was the cage for the lone sun conure. It's smaller than the one I kept mine in, and I let him out of it whenever I was home. The sun conure seemed very well adjusted though, it called like a normal sun conure, it chatted back and forth with me it played tug-of-war, and it didn't try to bite my finger when I stuck it in. (I try to scratch heads and/or play tug-of-war with parrots whenever the parrots seem friendly and I can at/into their cages. One of the things I loved about the old Parrot Jungle is that a lot of cages had wide bars, which meant I gave a lot of head scritches to a lot of parrots--mostly cockatoos--in clear violation of the signs. This cage made it impossible for me get my finger in past the first knuckle, but there was only one layer so I could stick the toothpicks in to play tug-of-war.)

    I also forgot to mention that among the vervet monkeys currently there are an adult male, an adult female, and two juveniles of the same size. I don't know if one of the other adult female was hiding or missing. I did see one jungle cat. (It looks like someone stuck a domestic cat's head on a caracal's body.) Its head was poking out of its house, then when it saw me it came out to investigate. If there was another jungle cat it was still in the house. The bearded pig was hiding when I was at its exhibit.

    Edit: I forgot to mention that the owner was socializing one of the blue and gold macaws in the front office when I left. The sun conure may be so well-adjusted because he plays with it after hours.

    Edit 2: The zoo could be substantially improved if someone took the time to draw up a proper map, post proper signs (even paper laminated ones), and put more detailed information on the website. That wouldn't take a lot of money, but it would take time. Since the owner runs the zoo, runs education programs, runs an import business, and breeds at least some of the animals, he apparently doesn't have the time for that. The only other "employee" I saw was a girl who looked to be about 8-12 whom I assume is his daughter. Maybe when she gets older she'll take the initiative and do it.
     
    Last edited: 27 Nov 2016
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  11. jbnbsn99

    jbnbsn99 Well-Known Member

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    They aren't Mountain Coatis (Nasuella), but are indeed South American or Ring-Tailed Coati (Nasua nasua). CoTZ isn't alone in this misidentification. I saw the San Diego Wild Animal Park do exactly the same thing. They could be Nasua nasua montana, which, since montana means mountain, means that are a mountain coati, but not the Mountain Coati.
     
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  12. jayjds2

    jayjds2 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    On the contrary about Asian black bears, I don't think I've ever seen one that wasn't active, with the exception of one sleeping individual and one that was in an exhibit even smaller than that of CoTZ. They can be both nocturnal and diurnal, so perhaps that explains the lack of activity you've seen of them.
     
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  13. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    Nah, its a straight-up example of a mislabelled exhibit borne of whoever was responsible for producing the sign assuming "fanaloka" and "falanouc" are the same thing :p the collection has never held falanouc of either species, only fanaloka.
     
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  14. Zygodactyl

    Zygodactyl Well-Known Member

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    Anyone know how its exhibits compare to ZAA enclosure standards? The ZAA standards seem pretty easy to meet and a lot of small zoos get ZAA accreditation, but unlike the AZA the ZAA sets out explicit size standards for various groups of animals. I'm wondering whether the enclosure size standards aren't the reason the CoTZ isn't ZAA-accredited.
     
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  15. AbileneBoy

    AbileneBoy Well-Known Member

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    the keeper told me the fanaloka is in there, but it must been sleeping in its house. i was surprised the signage also said there was falanouc in there, but looking thru comments it seems that is not so.

    Reply mt coati: the signage just says they are all N. nasua, and the keeper himself told me same thing, although he did tell me some of them had initially been sold to him as mt coati

    the biggest surprise were the newly added wild asses, which the keeper claims are not Somali but NUBIAN, among only a handful in the states

    I definitely thought the fanaloka and patas needed bigger cages. Few of the cages are huge, but most are at least as big as comparable cages I have seen at smaller AZA facilities. The nilgai/fallow deer had the roomiest exhibit

    the keeper also told me the zoo no longer holds African civet or Palm civet. Also, someone mentioned there being 2 dingoes, there are now three

    here is a lit of mammal and bird species; note many animals I failed to find signs for, or were hiding in houses due to heat. I didn't write down most reptiles, but there were Madagascar and Morelet crocs

    =BOVIDS=
    1) domestic goat
    2) nilgai
    3) scimitarhorn oryx (didn't see)
    4) domestic sheep
    5) white beard gnu (didn't see)

    =DEER=
    6) fallow
    7) Reeve's muntjac (didn't see)
    =CAMELIDS=
    8) dromedary
    9) guanaco

    =WHIPPOMORPHS=
    10) river hippo (didn't see; costs 9 dollars extra)

    =SUIDS=
    11) bearded pig
    12) Vietnam potbelly pig
    13) wild boar

    =EQUIDS=
    14) Grant's zebra (didn't see)
    15) Nubian ass (note exhibit not built yet but visibile at a distance; luckily I had brought binoculars, and species confirmed by owner/keeper)

    =CANIFORM CARNIVORES=
    16) Asiatic moon bear
    17) dingo
    18) kinkajou
    19) raccoon (didn't see, but still on exhibit acc. to ower)
    20) South American coatimundi [now correctly labelled!]

    =FELIFORM CARNIVORES=
    *LOTS OF THESE SEEMED TO BE SLEEPING IN HOUSES DUE HEAT*
    21) Asian leopard (didn't see)
    22) Bengal tiger (didn't see)
    23) bobcat (didn't see)
    24) fanaloka (didn't see)
    25) fossa (didn't see)
    26) jungle cat (didn't see, but still signed, maybe in house)
    27) lion
    28) serval

    =RODENTS=
    29) African crested porcupine
    30) blacktail prairie dog
    31) capybara
    32) guineapig
    33) Patagonian mara

    =PRIMATES=
    34) brown lemur (didn't see)
    35) patas monkey
    36) red-fronted lemur
    37) ringtail lemur (didn't see)
    38) vervet

    =MARSUPIAL=
    39) Bennetts wallaby
    40) tammar wallaby (didn't see)

    =PARROTS=
    41) blue and gold macaw
    42) bluethroat macaw
    43) budgerigar
    44) citron-crest cockatoo(didn't see)
    45) Congo grey
    46) lesser sulfur-crest cockatoo
    47) military macaw
    48) monk parakeet
    49) sun conure
    50) umbrella cockatoo
    51) yellownape Amazon

    ==GALLIFORM GROUNDFOWL=
    52) blue peafowl
    53) chicken (from the defunct Bastrop Chicken Santuary!)
    54) golden pheasant
    55) great currasow (didn't see)
    56) green peafowl (didn't see)
    57) helmet guinea
    58) Northern helmet curassow (didn't see)
    59) ocellated turkey (didn't see)
    60) silver pheasant

    =OTHER BIRDS=
    61) domestic swan goose
    62) emu
    63) Eurasian eagleowl
     
    Last edited: 9 Aug 2019
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  16. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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  17. Yi Qi

    Yi Qi Well-Known Member

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  18. Cassasauresrex

    Cassasauresrex New Member

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    Mountain Coati | Texas Exotic Animals
     
  19. Brum

    Brum Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    That's just a standard Ring-tailed Coati, they even call it that in the article. I think the confusion arises from the fact that they are found in the Andes, and are Coatis, therefore "Mountain" Coatis from mountains, but not actually a Nasuella species.
     
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  20. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    There are dozens of places in the US with "mountain" coati. They are all Nasua nasua, a few are even white-nosed.

    Anyone know if they still have the fanaloka?
     
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