It seems that Beauval gets a number of 3-0 voices due to black dots in Omaha. Are Beauval's enclosures really universally at least average and without similar weaknesses?
There have already pictures for some other Australian animals at Beauval being posted - when looking at the annual brochure (page 26/27) also the tasmanian devil enclosure looks realy nice.
Is this part of the new tropical dome? The exhibit looks excellent, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Tasmanian Devil exhibit with a stream in it!
It really is a great exhibit. The Tasmanian Devils are in another part of the zoo. You can see the tropical dome in the background in the picture posted by @amur leopard
Yes, it is a great development. Tomorrow is the opening of the Dome to the general public, at which point I believe I will finally get to talk about it Sorry about all the earlier annoyance caused. Quick preface to tomorrow's post - Seychelles fauna involved!
They would indeed, I should imagine hopefully people will post shots online with alacrity. I was just forestalling any risk of overenthusiasm!
Under Lee Simmons, Omaha imported numerous relevant species and expended vast sums on relevant exhibits which fail basic husbandry standards (no outdoor access, no soft substrates, lack of space, lack of structure...). Why would I reward that with a point?
Thank you to @amur leopard , @lintworm and @Giant Panda for your photos and/or explanation for your 3-0 Beauval votes. I enjoyed your responses and the voting is fairly tight in this match except for the 5 individuals who voted 3-0 for Beauval. Obviously the French zoo is going to win and I suppose that the vote from @Fatduck (zero posts ever before on ZooChat) won't be a determining factor. Without a doubt Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo needs to tweak a number of all-indoor mammal enclosures in the future if that zoo wants to lift the ZooChat Cup in another installment of the competition. As things stand there are at least a half-dozen exhibits in the Desert Dome, another 4-5 in Expedition Madagascar, and probably a few in Lied Jungle, which would really elevate those buildings in terms of animal husbandry. Omaha is a fantastic zoo and in my opinion the second-best I've ever visited, but for sure there are some all-indoor mammal exhibits that are outdated and in many ways those deficiencies have cost the establishment the ZooChat Cup.
And now the Dome is open! So, the exhibit that I know of that is definitely relevant is one for Rodrigues/Aldabra flying foxes (CR/EN) and Aldabra giant tortoises, mixed in a huge netted enclosure. Madagascan species were also mentioned several times and more Seychelles species will also be present from what I have been told be zookeepers and frequent visitors, but for now, that is all we know and all that is relevant to the tie. Will post some pictures of the enclosure later
Eager little thing aren't you technically you posted this 2 minutes before the zoo opened so there definitely aren't any shots online of the open exhibit yet
Very wily - but now there are! Sadly, there aren't many photos, but one can get a vague idea of the size of the exhibit.
In order to get a sense for the size of the exhibits, here are the exhibits on the map of the zoo: Flying fox and tortoise exhibit I also forgot about two other species in the Dome that qualify. There will be many more involved in the insect, reptile, small mammal and bird groups, but these are the megafauna that I know about: Komodo dragons Radiated tortoise (Madagascar) And here is the map of the entire Dome to put the size of these exhibits into context:
The dome looks pretty packed, even with 12 000 m2. It seems however that Beauval has no black dots comparable to those in Omaha, so I vote 2-1.
I highly doubt Beauval actually has Aldabra Flying Foxes and from what I can tell it's only Rodrigues, which are classified as EN by the IUCN. ~Thylo
It is rather hard to tell given that several videos mention them being Critically endangered and being from the same island, yet another says that the area is centred around the Seychelles. I guess we'll just call them Rodrigues flying foxes for now.
If someone is curious, the first visitors started to share pictures of the new Dome on the Beauval Facebook page.
