No it's not? Off the top of my head the only US zoos I've seen de-flighted vultures of any kind at is St. Augustine, SDZ Safari Park, and Franklin Park Zoo (one bird). Bronx, Dallas, Fort Worth, and many others keep their vultures in meshed aviaries. Again, 70+ species, three large walk-through aviaries, an amazing penguin enclosure, and various other individual aviaries plus ratite yards spread out across the zoo. ~Thylo
Milwaukee as well. I should note that Detroit has A TON of flightless vultures. There must be at least 30 and all are crowded into a relatively small yard with a pair of Sandhill Cranes.
Yes regarding the vultures at Detroit, when I visited I found it very peculiar how they were all sitting around outside in open pens in a manor one would exhibit hoofstock. The penguin house is very nice but given it is closed for now I will not be taking it into consideration. Its a shame considering how strong this zoo is in almost every aspect other than birds. My vote is 3-0 Wroclaw.
Cincinnati has them, as do Smithsonian, Toronto, Atlanta, Saint Louis and that's just off the top of my head. Sorry, missed your original post about Wroclaw. It sounds great, hence me giving it the win, but I can't see how Detroit doesn't at least deserve one point. I personally think that the house should be counted for this game. It's not as if the house is permanently closing, it's undergoing renovations. I also seem to recall another match-up where a exhibit not currently open to the public was counted.
I remembered seeing King Vulture in a meshed aviary at Atlanta, but I wasn't sure on the Lappet-Faced. I thought it was a meshed enclosure but I could be wrong. I do remember Cincinnati getting them now but that was after my visit so I (thankfully) never got to see that mess in its full glory. I think the issue isn't so much Detroit not deserving a point for its strengths, but rather people feeling it deserves to lose said point for its shortcomings. Wroclaw's strength alone already put this match at at least the 2-1 mark, so it's up to Detroit to maintain that point. If their weaknesses outweigh their strengths, people may feel as though that single point isn't deserved. The same sort of thing is simultaneously happening in the Berlin Zoo vs San Diego Zoo Safari Park match where people feel the sometimes poor exhibitry at Berlin robs it of a 3 point sweep despite it have 24 species to SDZSP's 2. SDZSP hasn't done anything to deserve that single point, but some people feel Berlin's shortcoming means it doesn't deserve all three. I agree that the penguin house should count, I personally am counting it. ~Thylo
That's definitely fair, I just personally think that the Polk Penguin Center is great enough that despite the wing-clipped birds it still merits a point. I'm not entirely sure, I've never been to the Atlanta Zoo, I saw a video in which it looks like the vultures wings are clipped. And apart from the wing-clipped vulture bit, I actually liked that particular exhibit as a whole.
Given something closed was counted in a previous challenge, I will count the penguin exhibit here then, however it still does not sway my vote given the sheer lack of competition from the rest of Detroit zoo species and exhibit wise. I simply don't think one great exhibit warrants a zoo at least one point when said zoo has many problems itself and its competitor has a vastly larger collection and overall much better exhibits.
If you are referring to Zurich vs Leipzig, we didn't really reach a decision as such but more like a consensus that everyone was allowed to think what they wanted about it. In this particular thread, I think that it should be included, because it existed before and after - it is not a new building. In that sense I think Berlin zoo's defeat on carnivores was unfair because imo the carnivore house should have been included.
I find this quite shocking to be honest. I do not like pioned waterfowl, I can hardly stand pioned cranes and storks and I find pioned vultures truly unacceptable. I reckon even a small aviary where they can at least fly from their perch to their food is better than having vultures hopping around in even a very large paddock. Does Detroit actively pion their birds, or are these animals the result from practices decades ago? That would make quite a difference for me.
At this point my impression is that pinioned or wing-clipped vultures are rare in Europe. I can only think of Duisburg as a place I've seen them, although there are others obviously.
