this is a updated site, it has details on the new tv show i told yas about, it airs this saturday at 4pm, and theres a preview on site. info on new exhibits and so on, have a look
also keep an eye out for me !!! im on there somewhere. go watch the preview, has kool interactions between debrazzas and gorrillas
hardly an update, just a few new images on the index... full credit to melbourne for being one of the very few that reguarly adds news updates (auckland and australia zoo are the other two that spring to mind) but geez its a bloody boring looking thing!! i wish someone told their web designer that in todays world of broadband, images don't have to be disgustingly low-res and that if ya just bump up the contrast on those photos, they look all teh better for it!!!
oh - i'm sorry i stand corrected. they did add some new content - however removed almost all the old stuff. i may be acting a little unfair since they are obviously halfway through a rebuild but the designer in me just hates those low-contrast faded-looking images they use. but the worst website would have to be adelaides. they just recently re-did it and its still aweful and cheap-looking! spelling errors, bad fonts, bad colours. but the absolute worst thing is that in about 8 years they still haven't updated their species list... the best you may ask. easily perth. nice design, excellnt photographs, good navigation (just need to make that news section a little clearer) and lists pretty much the entire collection, by animal type or by place of origin with teh area they are found in above that. whats more is the fact sheets are informative and have a perth zoo involvement section.
It would be nice, though probably unfeasible if the zoo could give up to date info about their collections. " Perth zoo currently have four rothschilds giraffe, 3 females, Misha, Marama and Mishas daughter Shani, and a young male recently arrived from Orana. The giraffes arrived in ? and Five calves have been successfully born at the zoo, including Makulu who is now the breeding male at Melbourne zoo and Nakuru, the breeding male at Western Plains. " and do this with most of their animals. This is what I trying to do with my website but gave up because I found it very difficult to get the information. I like Perths website and the pictures are great.
oh good old "zoos of australia and new zealand", those were the days! back then we used to communicate via email and you jason, were my first and only zoo friend (though i think you made buddies with nigel first!), bringer of all news zoological into my life. thankyou jason, thankyou for nurturing an obsession that has seen me spend yet another evening in front of the computer and distracts me periodically at work!!!! have a look under my name attached to this post - thats 782 posts! (actually, it'll be 783 after this one) - not even zooboy could beat that... jason, you turned me into a nerd!
damn, i just realised zooboy is on 818 and he joined the forum way after me! jeez that kids ethusiastic!!!
some forum history Yes , Jay and I had been buddies for quite some time , and I even went to QLD to meet him . This was when he had a similar website under development , and I was helping by providing material from NZ He told me that he had met another person who was keen on zoos called Patrick . Not long after that I stumbled across Zoobeat Forums by accident , and recognised Jay from there .... he had also discovered it not that long before I did , and was about to alert me to it . As the website has grown there has been alot of interesting discussions developed . The main reason why you havent heard much from me of recent times is that alot of you have more zoology knowledge than I do , and being in NZ it is limiting to what animals we can actually have in zoos here . I dont have so much new stuff to contribute ! But I still try and read all new posts on regular basis , and contribute where I can . . Next time I go to Australia , I hope to meet some of you in person .....
sorry nigel - we should talk a little more about snakes! the most embarassing part is that i actually spool this stuff straight off my head. the other night a friend and i were out drinking and i discovered that he was secretly a bird fanatic. he has no pet birds, lives in the city, has never said a word about birds to me ever... somehow the converstion went there and the next thing he's throwing me quizes about pheasant distribution... after a few minutes of heated, fast-paced trivia he turned to another one of our friends who asked "does he know his stuff?" and the response was "oh he's good, he's good!"... he then started on how many tiger subspecies their were and were they were found... well, now this was my department!!! we stopped there however since we could see people were at first facinated, but now starting to get bored. my friends fiancee clearly had no prior knowledge of her man to be's secret obsession.... the point is i had no idea that my freind was secretly a bird-brain. like me he must have kept a copy of national geographic stuffed under his matress as a teenager. the forums great in that it does let us crap on about this stuff together, and truth be told, whilst we might be slightly obsessesed and drag our partners to one too many zoos on occasion, at least we arn't into train sets!!!
so does that make Nigel, Pat, zoopro and I the 'elders' of this community? (god forbid!). As a naturally pessimistic post baby boomer, pre x gen person, I am impressed by the young people who contribute to this site. That so many of you, who are still in school, have such passion about zoos and the enviroment at large, with such knowledge and drive gives me hope. So I say More snakes! more birds! more reptiles! and more frogs!
saw the new blue poison dart frogs at melbourne. they were sharing an enclosure with the madagascan day gecko!! kind of a shame because with the exception of this, most of the other reptile exhibits have been re-done to reflect a specific region rather than the hodge-podge of mixups that it used to have (like start tortoises with frilled lizards etc...) anyhow the melbourne reptile house was looking good. they have such a great collection though i think they need to expand, make it more like serpentaria. i'm tempted to say that they should instead place more reptiles in immersion exhibits, i ilike the way they have asian reptiles on the trail of the elephants, but then again there is something attractive about viewing them in all their diversity in one go....
Patrick I am rather ashamed to say that I have never seen the Melbourne Reptile House, somehow in all my visits I have never reached that area
wht, tht was on e of the must do i had on my list, and i wasnt disapointed, though it may be time for a little renovation, attact out doors enclorures, render, so on.
the buildings fine, works well and as i said earlier they have a terrific reptile collection... jason, i can't believe you haven't been in there!!! the thing i like best is the fact that the enclosures, particuarly the larger ones on the outside rim (its a octagonal shaped building) get lots of natural light from the skylights. it definately does need to expand. they added a special "world of frogs" extention some years back and even that has not enough room for all the frog species they have!! no doubt the masterplan will see some form of extention, possibly with outdoors, though our weather in melbourne isn't so great for non-indigenous reptiles like crocodiles. worth noting is that they have recently aquired a bunch of (very cute) baby pig-nosed turtles.. some of my other favorites are... gila monsters the large SE Asian streambank - tortoises, turtles, sail-fin dragons... philippine crocodiles a damn big reticulated python fijian iguanas, in their sandy beach enclosure the arafura file snake and rainbowfish tank basalisks and spiny terrapins jacksons chameleons and rhino vipers if only we had a komodo dragon.....
Melbourne zoos herpyhouse I spent about half an hour in this the last time I was at Melbourne Zoo It certainly is a well designed building , considering its age . But Melbourne Zoo could do with a bigger one , to hold more exhibits . Perhaps you could persuade the zoo staff to ask NZ if they have a dinosaur or two to display adjacent to the other reptiles .( For a 6 month loan ?) Can you imagine the large numbers of people flocking to the zoo to see the "Living Dinosaur" ? But yes , the reptile house is one of the better ones I have seen on my zoo travels
yes they do, or at least did, last time i went there. it lives in a little cave however and rarely comes out. maybe a reversed light cycle would be a better idea - they are nocturnal are they not? melb could definately do with more space in the rptile house and it really only needs a renovation/extention rather than a whole rebuild. i personally like the idea of reptiles, like everything else being immersed in with the rest of teh zoos collection. for example, a research hut in the african rainforest could house the chameleons and rhino vipers. my "indoor amazon" idea would work all the better if the "forest floor" section took you past a series of reptile exhibits, with eyelash vipers, basalisk, boas and dart frogs.. of course we would stil have the issue of what to do with all those american reptiles, there are a lot in our collection and whilst we should think about replacing species like diamondback rattlesnakes with the endangered aruba (sp?) species (that adelaide breed), or carolina box turtles with endangered golden coin box turtles (that melbourne keep), we cant exactly get rid of teh worlds only venomous lizard now can we?!!
well i find zoos vic, does this well, the ele building near bong-su's yard, and at werribee in the community hall at the new hippos, a kool rarray of repts, frogs, and bugs can be found here
