The topic? Ungulates (and elephants). The rules: You have three votes to award. If you think it's a tight match, award 2 votes to the stronger zoo and 1 to the weaker one. But if you think it's a wider margin than that, award all 3 votes to the winner. Your criteria for how you make your decision is entirely up to you, *except* that you must stay only within the given category. That includes ignoring the results of the other match: no strategic voting. All votes are public, and all votes can be changed. The purpose of the game is to provoke debate, so make your case for why people should vote the same way as you do. Be open to reconsidering your vote.
Looking at Beauval. Large elephant exhibit, large rhino exhibit, large tapir exhibit, large giraffe exhibit, amazing hippo aviary and plenty of other species. San Diego has some really cool species yet I was disappointed with most of the ungulate exhibits, especially those in "Urban Jungle."
I can only speak for Jan. 2018 San Diego's species list: -Peninsular Pronghorn -Sichuan Takin -Nubian Ibex -Black Duiker -Yellow-Backed Duiker -Cuvier's Gazelle -Speke's Gazelle -Soemmerring's Gazelle -Eastern Giant Eland (1 individual) -Southern Lesser Kudu -Dromedary Camel -Guanaco -Domestic Reindeer -Masai Giraffe -Okapi -Pygmy Hippopotamus -Common Hippopotamus -Siberian Musk-Deer (off-show) -North Sulawesi Babirusa -Red River Hog -Domesticated Pig -Chacoan Peccary -Domestic Donkey -Grévy's Zebra -Grant's Zebra -Indian Rhinoceros -Malayan Tapir -Baird's Tapir -Indian Elephant (0.1) -Sri Lankan Elephant (0.1) -South African Bush Elephant (0.2) With 31 taxa, I'd imagine SDZ is the expected choice (probably was regardless tbh). I'm curious to hear what Beauval has to offer, though, as I think it has a good shot at winning if the species list is at least somewhat comparable and it beats SDZ in exhibitry-- which is not a hard task at times when it comes to their ungulates. The species list is juicy, yes, but to be fair, SDZ fall flat with their husbandry sometimes. Many of the enclosures are rather small and/or barren with unnatural substrate; Pronghorn/camel, takin, Cuvier's Gazelle, giraffe/Soemmerring's Gazelle, eland/Grevy's Zebra, Reindeer, hippo (pool is great, land area isn't), donkey/Grant's Zebra, rhino, and Malayan Tapir. The ibex, Okapi/duiker, Pygmy Hippo, and Baird's Tapir/Guanaco enclosures are all good, though. The elephant exhibit is ok. It's about 2 acres but split into about three yards (I think). The viewing is horrible, though. Additionally, the zoo keeps a mixed herd of African and Asian Elephants which is pretty bad, even if the zoo does function as more or less a retirement home for elephants. As far as hippos go, they have 1.2 if memory serves but I'd imagine the second female is the calf born there meaning they usually only have 1.1 which violates AZA standards for keeping hippos. The Grant's Zebra/donkey enclosure is probably one of the worst in the zoo and they only have one individual of each iirc. The giraffe/gazelle yard is horribly overcrowded for its size (or was at the time of my visit, with more or less six individuals of each species present). There is another side to the rhinoceros yard not photographed, but it's even smaller and mainly includes their housing and pool. As a final note for the species list, four of those 31 taxa are domestics, though tbf I'm pretty sure there are at least three other taxa kept bts. For now I'm going to vote 2-1 SDZ but very tentatively, since I know almost nothing about Beauval. I will probably change my vote if new information comes in. ~Thylo
From a look in the gallery I'm thinking 3-0 Beauval. San Diego have a decent collection but their exhibits for hoofstock aren't exactly amazing bar the couple of exceptions mentioned by Thylo above. On the other hand Beauval have that hippo/nyala/red river hog aviary, a huge elephant enclosure, the greenest savannah exhibit I've ever seen, and some unusual taxa as well.
Because its an extremely slow Sunday, I quickly went through the gallery and using @Maguari 2018 visit, I compiled this list of ungulates. Their may very well be more species. Lesser Malay Chevrotain White rhino Sable antelope Grevy's Zebra Springbok Reticulated Giraffe Common wildebeest Indian Rhino Hog deer Reeve's muntjac Malayan Tapir Nilgai Blackbuck Axis Deer African Elephant Dromedary Camel Bactrain Camel Mishimi Takin Okapi Common Hippo Bongo Lesser Kudu Nyala Red-river hog Somali Wild Ass Beisa Oryx Kafue Lechwe Sitatunga So 28 species compared to San Diego with less if we ignore domestic species, like horse and pig. Plus the exhibits are larger and innovative. Seems like an easy win for Beauval.
Went back and checked my notes from the trip and you can also add Brazilian Tapir (the enclosure is actually in my gallery photos, but I didn't specify tapir species: Tapir, Capybara and Rhea Enclosure at Beauval, 12/06/18 - ZooChat) For those wanting to include all domestics (and they are ungulates kept and displayed at the zoo at the end of the day), Beauval also displayed domestic donkeys, pigs, cattle, goats and sheep at the time - so the figure that would be comparable with San Diego's 31 above would be 34.
I think it is a tough one between 2-1 Beauval and 3-0 Beauval. I personally went for 3-0 Beauval. I think I went for this decision because: 1. Beauval has an incredibly well-done hippo exhibit. 2. Beauval has a much better breeding group of elephants. 3. San Diego's ungulate enclosures are boring, if not sub-standard. 4. Beauval's ungulate enclosures are (generally) geographically arranged (e.g. Mishmi takins) 5. Beauval has had more success at ungulate breeding (okapi, white rhino...etc.) 6. Beauval has better mixed species combinations (looking at San Diego's Linnaeus two-toed sloth and Kirk's dik dik combo ) 7. San Diego's enclosures don't give as much space as Beauval's enclosures. 8. There is living, green grass in Beauval's enclosures; San Diego's enclosures are uncharacteristically badly-planted. 9. At Beauval, the ungulates can graze on natural living grass as they would in the wild, whereas San Diego's unfortunate herbivores have to feed off (dead) hay. 10. Beauval's enclosures encourage natural behaviours (like grazing) whereas San Diego's don't especially. 11. There are places to hide in Beauval's enclosures. 12. Many of the San Diego ungulate enclosures are just for a single species, not allowing inter-species interactions like in the wild. 13. The San Diego infrastructure dealing with the enclosures is old and worn. Many of the Beauval indoor houses are accessible (or at least visible) to visitors. 14. The walkways around (and through, in the case of Beauval's Asian hoofstock enclosure) are better and allow viewing easily whilst still giving the exhibited animals privacy. Other viewing platforms include the Beauval hippo underwater viewing (fantastic) and the massive themed building looking over the hippo enclosure in Beauval allowing an above-water view. And there are all my Fourteen Points. What do you think to that, Woodrow Wilson? (Those of you who did History until the end of high school might well understand this unfunny joke) There is a species missing from San Diego's list I think :Kirk's dik-dik (housed in the crazy combo with Linnaeus' two toed sloth )
You are right, I forgot to add them and they weren't already in my notes because I didn't see any. For the record, though, that mix is apart of Elephant Odyssey, which is based on Pleistocene California. The dik-dik is a modern-day stand-in for a prehistoric ungulate. This is also why they have Pronghorn mixed with camel. I'm going with a 2-1 vote for Beauval. To me it's a little ridiculous to not give any credit to zoos when they clearly still have something to show for themselves (I mean, if SDZSP deserved a point for only have gorillas and Ring-Tailed Lemurs in decent enclosures then surely SDZ deserves a point here ) ~Thylo
I’m voting 3-0 Beauval. Ungulates aren’t one of San Diego’s strongest categories. They have some strong exhibits; Common and Pygmy Hippos have very good enclosures, Okapi/Duiker exhibit is good, Tapir/Guanaco enclosure is nice and the Klipspringer exhibit in Africa Rocks is tremendous. Elephants are pretty decent as well. Other than that the other enclosures range from bad (Rhinos and Giraffe) to boring (the run of hoofstock enclosures near the Polar Bears). The collection is alright, but nothing like it was 15-20 years ago. Judging from photos Beauval has some brilliant enclosures and a good species list, giving them the 3-0 victory.
Here are some more photos from Beauval taken by @Maguari Okapi Oryx/Wild Ass/Lechwe Sitatunga Nyala Hippo The hippo enclosure is incredible and that sitatunga exhibit is beautiful with the large trees. I'm extremely impressed with the exhibits and species list at Beauval. Meanwhile, I agree with others on San Diego's exhibits, with some variations. I think the stark, sandy yards are actually fine for some of the gazelles and other hoofstock, but I'm not a fan of the okapi exhibit (which doesn't feel lushly planted enough) or the tapir exhibit (which is not well-shaded). The only hoofstock exhibit I saw there and really liked was for pygmy hippos, although I haven't yet seen the new Africa Rocks area myself. It's close for me, but I'll vote 3-0 for Beauval until someone makes a compelling case for San Diego to get a point.
2-1, 3-0 wouldn't have been fair to Antwerp. From memory the only match up where I voted 3-0 was the aforementioned SDZSP vs Berlin Zoo because the latter just overwhelmingly beat out the former. I also don't find SDZSP's gorilla habitat to be anything special personally. ~Thylo
I have a different philosophy on that, I usually do a 2-1 split if the match approaches a hard call for me and I have to choose one or the other. I might still give San Diego a point, but right now on paper Beauval is a clear winner for me and it's not quite close enough for 2-1, even though SD might have won in ungulates against a different competitor. And I for one was never on board with SDZSP getting a point for having 2 species
Nor was I... I did vote decisively for Berlin, so I believe the same should be applied to this thread...
2-1 Beauval. San Diego has a pretty good lineup of ungulates, but most of them are also in Beauval. From viewing each one's galleries, Beauval seems to win based on enclosures alone. I'm still giving 1 vote to San Diego. After all, it still has one species not found at Beauval: gerenuks!
I visited January of this year, and they still have them on-show (and from photos in the gallery, a calf seems to be present). In fact, my profile picture was from the zoo and not the safari park.
