Tournament heavyweight Pairi Daiza got caught off-suit by Miami in the first round-robin match... and it may just have drawn another American zoo’s strong suit. Carnivores. 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.
This is definately Pairi Daiza's weak point with enclosures ranging from outstanding ( Bears and wolves) to plain bad in the case of the White tigers and Leopards. I am curious to hear what Denver has to offer, but with substandard enclosures for Giant otter, Snowleopard, Hyena, Leopard, Tiger and others just acceptable like Fur seal, Lion, Clouded leopard, Pairi Daiza could be in real trouble here.
So Denver zoo has: Lion African Hunting Dog Spotted Hyena Amur tiger Cheetah Clouded Leopard Fishing Cat Grizzly Bear California Sea Lion Harbor Seal Amur leopard (I believe these are being relocated soon) Banded Mongoose Asian-Small Clawed Otter River Otter I visited this summer and thought the carnivore collection was great, even though the cat building was closed by that time for development. Most of the exhibits are average (Cheetah, Sea Lion, Clouded Leopard, Tiger) and some border on great (Predator ridge a rotation exhibit for lion, wild dog and hyena). The only bad exhibits I would say are the indoor-only fishing cat and small clawed otter exhibits. I'm gonna go 2-1 denver-pairi daiza Below I've included a few pictures from the gallery. Clouded Leopard Fishing Cat Predator Ridge (rotation exhibit) Amur Tiger
Wow, wow, wow. A zoo with 7,000 animals and 700 species (Pairi Daiza) is going to lose back-to-back matches to a pair of top-notch American zoos and almost certainly be knocked out in the first round. A stunning upset, but a fair one due to the nature of the competition. I was at Pairi Daiza this summer and there are a few great carnivore exhibits, many average ones, and a few poor (leopard, giant otter and tiger being the three glaring examples). I've visited Denver Zoo twice (2006, 2012) and Predator Ridge is fantastic. There are several average carnivore exhibits, and the only really poor ones would be the all-indoor affairs for Fishing Cats and Small-Clawed Otters and so my vote would be 2-1 Denver.
I'm gonna play Devil's advocate here and vouch for Pairi Daiza. OK, the white tiger and javan leopard enclosures are mediocre to say the least, but the Giant panda, bears and wolves exhibits are outstanding, with multiple viewpoints and great theming as well as enrichment for the animals. The fur seal, lion, clouded leopard and, if we are counting them as carnivores, the tazzie devil enclosures are all good too...
Denver's Fishing Cat enclosure looks unique but pretty bad from the photo provided. All the other enclosures look really good, whereas Pairi has quite a few bad enclosures. 2-1 Denver for the time being unless I can be convinced otherwise. ~Thylo
Seems like, urged by desire to add more and more to its collection, Pairi daiza shows weakness in two of the most fundamental categories.If zoo with four (soon 5 ) species of bears lose in Carnivores, than they are not doing something right. I am still not sure how to vote, even though the Denver's enclosures look remarkable.
I am yet to hear someone make a genuinely convincing claim for Denver. Like Pairi it has some bad, some good and some middling exhibits. Possibly none of them are as bad as the tiger temple, but then it seems none of them are as good as the new North American complex either. I will vote Pairi 2-1 for now.
I would not call the Giant panda enclosure outstanding, nor the ones for Fur seal lion and Clouded leopard good. None of them are bad, but they all have some serious flaws. Giant panda indoors is impressive, more the setting than the actual enclosure, but outdoors is really quite small and boring, nothing compared with the complex habitats in Berlin, Vienna or Beauval, though certainly par with Copenhagen and Rhenen. The Fur seal enclosure is too small imo, it is one of the oldest enclosures in the zoo and it shows. The Lions is acceptable sizewise, but really boring, with hardly any structure. The Clouded leopard enclosure is pretty good in terms of furnishing, sizewise it is also ok, but to have such a shy animal on such a crowded place with so little space to get away from the crowds is puzzling. Especially as it is hardly visible anyway during the day due to a horrible glare on the windows. That said in the early evening the Leopard was nicely active and seemingly very relaxed when there was nobody around anymore...
From my opinion people are to strict with Pairi Daiza - I do agree that not all enclosures are world-class and some are really predominantly designed to please the visitors and not necessarily the animals - but there are also various very good to excellent enclosures and even the 'not so good' ones are from my opinion better than many in other zoos... At least from the Pictures above I've not the Impression that the enclosures in Denver so much better that this compensate the significantly higher number of species. According to Zootierliste Pairi Daiza currently has the following carnivores: American black bear Bintourong Meerkat European wolf European brown bear Yellow Mongoose Giant Panda (currently holding 5 of them) Indochina clouded leopard Java leopard Asian black bear African lion Raccoon-Dog Puma Raccoon Harbour seal Giant otter Snow leopard Steller's Sea Lion Striped Skunk South african cheetah South african fur seal White tiger Spotted Hyena Red Panda Gray wolf Common dwarf mongoose Small-clawed otter This makes in total 27 species of carnivores - against 14 species at Denver according to the list above. In Addition they are currently constructing enclosures for amur tigers, polar bears and walruses which will open in 6 months from now. Due to the arguments above about how great the enclosures in Denver are and some of the sub-optimal enclosures at Pairi Daiza I'm voting 2-1 for Pairi Daiza.
It was always a close call, but I'm going to change my vote from 2-1 Denver to 2-1 Pairi Daiza, in part due to the excellent list posted by @Jogy above. Pairi Daiza essentially has double the carnivore species in comparison to Denver, which is a significant factor in this competition. Then the focus shifts to exhibit quality, where it seems that everything is in relation to how many species are at each zoo. Both facilities have some excellent, average and poor exhibits, but Pairi Daiza has the quantity to win the match. Denver has African Lion, African Wild Dog and Spotted Hyena in Predator Ridge, but the main yards are smaller than the African Lion and Spotted Hyena exhibits at Pairi Daiza, although Denver's exhibits are better furnished. Plus Denver lacks a plane in its hyena yard. Denver has two excellent carnivore exhibits in Predator Ridge (with a third, smaller yard) and a very impressive Clouded Leopard habitat, but arguably all the rest of the carnivore enclosures are either of average quality or a little on the poor side. Pairi Daiza has excellent carnivore exhibits for European Brown Bear, American Black Bear, Puma, wolves, Steller's Sea Lion and Harbour Seal...so arguably twice as many species overall, twice as many species in excellent exhibits, but on the flip-side also twice as many species in subpar carnivore exhibits in comparison to Denver.
The icing on the cake for Pairi Daiza is that there are some marquee species such as Giant Panda, Asiatic Black Bear, Giant Otter and Steller's Sea Lion. Denver has nothing to compete with those species.
I'm going to break the tie and change mg vote from Denver to Pairi Daiza. Both zoos' carnivore collections are very similar in many regards. Enclosure quality is similar overall some and both have cool species but lack something truly unique. Pairi wins for me, but only because it has more.
Since have been only in one of the zoos, is hard to give objective opinion, especially in such a clash. Had a great time in Pairi and will definitely revisit it soon. Even though not the Carnivores are calling me back, kind of feel that Pairi Daiza has an edge over Denver on its Predators. I have seen my firsts clouded leopard and giant otters eye-to-eye, and agree that the last are exposed way to much, but also feel that resources that Pairi Daiza invests in an animal's well being is immense. Giant Pandas are sensitive subjects, but it is good to mention, that whole army of specialists stays behind them. Obviously the zoo doesn't afraid to take trisks too, even challenging the Eco activists. I will give my vote to Pairi and keep following the debate.2:1.
Wow, it seems that the tide has turned! Seems like a lot of people (myself included) changed their votes to 2-1 Pairi Daiza, or at least enough to give them a lead.
I'm still not changing my in favor of Pairi. The higher number of species is nice but not jaw dropping, and while they maybe have some better habitats than Denver, Denver is much more consistent in its good quality. Some of Pairi's most mouthwatering species do not appear to be kept in adequate housing and a lot of their species are clearly just there to be crowd pleasers or are generic taxa outside of proper breeding programs to meet the zoo's "gotta catch 'em all" mentality. I'm not saying I dislike Pairi, I've yet to visit and I do want to, and I'm not saying either of those things are even inherently bad, I'm just saying that for me those reasons leave it behind the more conservation-oriented Denver. As a side, I'm a little surprised that people seem to be celebrating their pandas and (even more so) white tigers It's been established many times on the forum that pandas in western zoos are no more than a cash grab for China and don't really do all that much for conservation, so the fact that they have five doesn't really mean anything. Their choice to exhibit white tigers as opposed to partaking in a real breeding program also takes major points away from them in my book. Pairi isn't a small, rural zoo like Hamerton that uses white tigers to attract visitors in order to properly finance their programs for much more bizarre taxa (like Malayan Tiger for example), they clearly have the visitation and budget to be doing a lot more and they're choosing not to. That's more than enough reason for me to stick with my initial vote in favor of Denver. ~Thylo
Yes, white tigers costs a zoo a vote in my (personal, not-official-guidance) opinion. I don’t mind white lions, which to the best of my knowledge don’t suffer the same genetic conditions. But perpetuating unhealthy traits because they’re pretty cats is a deal-breaker for me.
White Lions have become pretty inbred in captivity, at least in the US, though unlike white tigers and black Leopards they are not subspecific hybrids afaik. ~Thylo
