Why must you do these things to me @CGSwans the choice that lies before me is to either underplay the massive superiority of Plzen or otherwise sit this one out in the hope it keeps Chester in the game, or produce posts weighing up both collections knowing I will be putting the dagger into Chester myself..... Ah well, I survived you doing the same with Chester vs Prague It's an easy 3-0 to Plzen in this category.
I'll produce proper posts anon, when not on my phone, but for now I'll note that as far as species counts go (granted this is biome-focused so this is not the be-all-and-end-all) Chester's offering for this category is as follows going by a quick ZTL flickthrough: Mammals: 2 taxa (1 onshow) Birds: 6 taxa (plus 5 borderline waterfowl) Reptiles: 3 taxa (2 onshow) Amphibians: 2 taxa (0 onshow) Plzen on the other hand.....
Yep, though I have just remembered another onshow temperate reptile though only theoretically onshow given time of year.
Spectacled Bear and red panda have counted in this category previously, is one of these temporarily offshow at Chester? Not that it will make much difference!
I notice I'm the only one giving Chester at least 1 point at the moment: I haven't been, but I based that mainly on this aviary with a nice selection of European mountainous and forest species (red-legged partridge, rock dove, northern bald ibis, black stork, griffon vulture, cinereous vulture, red-billed chough). Does this aviary still exist, with the same species or a similar focus? Either way, it definitely looks like Plzen is miles ahead in this specific category, with a very nice collection of Temperate birds, reptiles, rodents, ungulates, and likely the best brown bear enclosure I've seen. I'd love to see more pictures of the few exhibits in Chester that would count, however!
Sadly this specific aviary no longer exists. However the majority of the species in there now live in an aviary that is markedly similar, and was formerly used for condors.
It does not; as @ShonenJake13 notes there is now a similar (but significantly smaller) aviary containing some of the same species, but nowhere near the same quantity; of the species you specified it contains the cinereous vulture, waldrapp and dove.
It was definitely mentioned in the Vienna match on Temperates. If Spectacled Bear doesn't count in this category, I don't see where it would?
Tropical Forests perhaps? In any case, it sadly doesn't save Chester if we do include that species too
