ZooChat Challenge (Global) 2019

Welsh Mountain Zoo- 05/01/2018
10) Phantsamal Dart Frog (Epipedobates tricolour)
Chester Zoo- 19/01/2018
11) Yellow Stream Frog (Sylvirana cubitalis)
12) Lake Pátzcuaro Salamander (Ambystoma dumerilii)
13) Sambava Tomato Frog (Dyscophus guineti)

 

It's been a busy January for you so far

 

I think I may have to delete this entry as I've clearly misunderstood the criteria. Sorry about that, but of course the date 2019 should have given me a clue!!

 

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh) 1/20/19

21) Squirrel tree frog (Hyla squirella)
22) Southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris)
23) Barking tree frog (Hyla gratiosa)
24) Golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis)
25) Yellow-banded poison dart frog (Dendrobates leucomelas)
26) Seal salamander (Desmognathus monticola)
27) Red-cheeked salamander (Plethodon jordani)
28) Spring salamander (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus)
29) Greater siren (Siren lacertina)
30) Two-toed amphiuma (Amphiuma means)

 

I visited my first zoo of the year this weekend, and I saw all amphibians they had on show. Sadly, they have only a single individual toad...

Dierenpark Zie-Zoo
1. Rococo toad, Rhinella schneideri

 

Here is my start to the year: a small, local nature center.

Heckrodt Wetland Reserve Nature Center - January 22 2019
1. Northern Leopard Frog Lithobates pipiens
2. American Toad Anaxyrus americanus
3. American Bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus
4. Eastern Gray Tree Frog Hyla chrysoscelis

 

Preserves/wildlife sanctuaries with small native collections don't count, sorry to say.

~Thylo

 

Why not? Surely it still fits the criteria in Rule 6?

 

They're not zoos, they're nature preserves that have a handful of rescue/rehabilitation animals on-site. They're more like Regents Park's duck pond than something like a Slimbridge. To my knowledge they've never counted for any of the challenges (at least I've never been allowed to count them).

~Thylo

 

Your rules don't state that only zoos count though, they mention public zoological collections. In what way is a nature center that keeps a few amphibians not public, zoological, or a collection?

Not letting pets/farm animals/animal stores count (in my opinion) is logical, because their main purpose is not to exhibit the species. Not letting small collections like these nature centres count would, in my opinion, only complicate things further than intended, because where exactly do you draw the line between zoo and nature center? To me, this collection is much more similar to the British wetland centres than to a duck pond...

 

A nature centers main purpose is not to exhibit species either. When the main purpose of the center is to preserve wild lands and their entire captive collection is more or less a single small room with a handful of tanks and/or a few makeshift aviaries, it's not a zoo. It's the same as if you went to a local public park and saw that they keep a couple of random rescued animals captive and had a Koi pond, then tried to count it as a zoo visit. That's where the duck pond comparison came into play. From my limited experience with European nature centers vs US ones, European centers with captive collections will often have an actual zoo on-site operating as a zoo separate from the preserve (ex. WWT), whereas US centers just have a couple of locally rescued animals on display in the main visitor center (ex. Audubon). It's the same logic for why museums with a couple of live animals here and there have never traditionally counted. They do not operate as a zoo nor is it their main purpose.

As I mentioned this is not my rule, they've never counted as zoos as far as I've seen. Rule #6 is a word for word copy from every other past challenge, but has still never included these small centers. Last year for the North American challenge I visited an Audubon Center that had a much larger captive collection than most US nature centers tend to have and double-checked with @jayjds2 to see if it would count, who also insisted on it not.

~Thylo

 

I think you're misinterpreting my words here. Of course I didn't mean to say that the nature centre's main purpose was to display animals. The animals that are there are definitely exhibited, though, in contrast to those at pet stores and agricultural farms - which is what I was going for. For what it's worth, Europe has plenty of small nature centres too, occasionally with a few odd tanks for live animals (often a selection of freshwater fish, sometimes small herps, etc.).

I didn't realize museums were excluded from the challenge, I figured that as a public zoological collection they would count. If you don't mind me asking, what would you do with collections like Skansen in Stockholm, Universeum in Göteborg, and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco? They are significant animal collections, have galleries on this forum and animal lists on zootierliste, but are strictly speaking a part of a museum... Where exactly is the line between collections like that and a "traditional" museum? I can go on, but I think you can see where I'm going with this...

 

I don’t recall insisting this- I do remember the conversation but I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about the center. However I have always allowed nature centers to count in the North American challenge and would personally have no problem with them being counted here either.

 

I can definitely see where you're going with this and it's always been a present issue, just not one that's actually come up before I don't think. I always figured we'd handle things on a case-by-case basis, as the is obviously no set definition for what qualifies as a "zoo" (as the number of threads on this forum regarding the subject have made clear). The problem with allowing all of these to pass, though, is that your point can easily be passed on to public duck ponds, pet stores that also have a permanent exhibition of animals, and local farms that also happen to have permanent exhibit animals. All three of those- along with the aforementioned nature centers- I've asked about counting when participating in past years' challenges for North America and the UK, and for all of them there's been an agreed upon ban.

I tend to draw the line on how exactly the live collection is managed when it comes to museums and nature centers. Is the live animal collection confined in a specific designated area, completely separated from the other facilities? Is it managed separately from the other areas of the institution? Do they work with/programed with other "proper" zoos? Do they even have a zoo license? Or do they just have a rehabilitators license and a handful of local rescues in pet store tanks kept in the visitor information center? Of course, this logic still does not apply in every case, which is why I few it as a case-by-case problem.

~Thylo

 

It's an Audubon Center with a captive collection of rescued native raptors and herps. When I asked about counting species I saw there last year you said something along the lines of "of course not, it's not a zoo "....

I'm all open to allowing them to count if everyone else seems to agree, I just don't see where one can draw the line between these and city park menageries except that a nature preserve "feels" more zoological because it's more environmental.

~Thylo

 

I'm pretty sure someone counted one last year.

I know a lot about this facility. Even though I don't count it on my zoo lists, the facility does have a zoo license.

Either way, if the challenge is amphibians, I think nature centers would kind of have to count, considering they usually keep several species. It would be one of the few ways to tick off some native species.

 

Perhaps I missed it then.

Just because a place keeps a lot of amphibians doesn't mean it has to count, and to me if you don't count it on a zoo for your zoo list then you shouldn't be counting it here.. But again, if everyone wants them to count then they can count, but traditionally they haven't been and I'm still not seeing the line between them and other public non-zoological facilities.

~Thylo

 

Antwerp zoo, 25/01/2019:
1) Mountain chicken, Leptodactylus fallax
2) Yellow-banded poison dart frog, Dendrobates leucomelas
3) Kaiser's spotted newt, Neurergus kaiseri
4) African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis
5) Rio Cauca caecilian, Typhlonectes natans
6) Golden mantella, Mantella aurantiaca
7) Oriental fire-bellied toad, Bombina orientalis
8) Amazon milk frog, Trachycephalus resinifictrix
9) White-lipped tree frog, Litoria infrafrenata
10) Dyeing poison dart frog, Dendrobates tinctorius
11) Green-and-black poison dart frog, Dendrobates auratus

 

With regards to nature centers, what reason is there to not count them? As long as anyone is able to visit them, they do not pose as a problem. Also, something like the Boston Science Center should count, as it has a large collection and is AZA-accredited. Also, if "anything not on your zoo list" should not count, then shouldnt aquariums be included in this list of facilities not allowed? Also, why did this argument start over someone getting four species? It is not enough to make an overall difference in the end. It would be one thing if the center had 30 species, but why have a long debate over FOUR SPECIES?

 

I remember learning about a concept in Maths class. It was called Addition. Basically if you have FOUR species from one place and then you went to another place with a different FOUR species you would actually have EIGHT species! Crazy, right? But it gets better (or worse) because if you kept visiting more places with FOUR species your total would keep increasing. By the time you had visited SEVEN collections your total would be TWENTY EIGHT. Now imagine a zoo with just TWO new species. You might still be thinking that TWO is not a big enough number to make a difference (something else we might need to talk about), but if you add TWO to TWENTY EIGHT you get THIRTY, and we all know that number is arbitrarily large enough to be worth debating.

In other news:

I would like nature centres to count, for the reasons others have put forth. I also see no reason why 'Park Manageries' wouldn't count, as these are surely just free zoos without boundary fences?