A rare sunny day invited a first visit of the year to London Zoo; many others had the same idea, and the zoo was pleasantly busy. A few items of news to get the year rolling: The western string of aviaries on the northern canal bank - usually home to hornbills, touracos, pheasants, and the Zoe imperial pigeon - are currently empty for "refurbishment" - whether this is a quick spring clean or something more substantial is unclear. The black hornbills are currently to be seen in the macaw aviaries; the rest of the birds are not on show, as far as I can tell. The anoa are no longer in one of the paddocks attached to the Tiger Territory development: both are currently labelled as housing Malayan tapirs, although only the male was visible. The old tapir pen on the Cotton Terraces is still labelled for them too - so some catching up to do. The Casson Pavilion - or whatever it is called these days (Zoo World? Zoo Centre?) is closed. Again - short term or long term, I don't know. Press photographers out in force for the tediously predictable 'stocktake' photocall. At least they were using unexpected animals to illustrate the story. Or maybe not: check your papers tomorrow for pictures of gorillas, meerkats, and invertebrates (the obligatory 'amusing' shot of keeper counting ants or locusts, I am sure). http://www.zoochat.com/43/photocall-stock-take-350471/ No indication on or about the Lion Terraces of forthcoming redevelopment.
Guess this means perhaps the old anoa has passed away? Also, the timing might be right for weaning the tapir calf, is it not? Still would like to see ZSL retain both anoa and acquire babirusa … (at some point for the Asian precinct).
I also noticed today that if you look on ZSL's YouTube channel their most recent video about the stocktake, says that their new Pygmy hippo enclosure will be finished for this year. I am guessing spring or summer holidays
Will this be sited where it would be according to the last Masterplan (next door to the Main Entrance (or still a Mappin Terraces job)?
It even made the Radio news yet again. I think they have a button for this item and just press it on New Year's Day if there isn't much other news.
Journalists from the national press do not like travelling far from their watering holes in the capital, hence why London Zoo will always be the collection that gets the coverage. Does "The Scotsman" cover the same event at Edinburgh, I wonder?
I think a few other UK zoos get similar, if more local coverage. I just can't for the life of me understand why this is event is still regarded as 'news' and presented as if its a novelty, when it comes around year after year just like Christmas! Obviously the zoos will milk it for all its worth as publicity, but I am surprised the news media are still interested enough to roll with it. Its almost a mechanical process....
There is more than one of these 'news' items on the bbc website, oddly they must think this interests someone on an annual basis! No doubt Colchester will get its regular January slot on the local tv 'news' this week too.
It's a nice animal interest story, provides some nice pictures and an easy way to fill some space. With rolling news and extended online content most news providers are glad of this kind of content and they don't even need a journalist for it, they can just tweak the content of a cheerful press release. Of course from the zoos' points of view it's an easy win.
I guess it is just free advertising for the many zoos that use the ' story' year after year, so probably shouldn't knock it! But surely people will get bored by it in the end! It's probably best some of us just avoid newspapers, tv news & news or zoo websites for the 1st week of every year!
Surely too much to hope that the interior could be redefined to fit in with the surrounding S.E Asia theme.
Having just got back to work and read my emails, I notice I got an email from ZSL wishing me a Merry Christmas and containing a retrospective of things that the Society and zoos have done this year. On the final page, they say "The 300 Asian lions left in the wild are the focus of ZSL's fundraising efforts for 2014, with plans well in hand for a huge new lion enclosure at London Zoo, due to open in 2016 and a new conservation programme in India."
Our pygmy hippos need your school’s help to build their new exhibit! Can your school help towards Thug and Nicky's new home? https://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/...-help-to-build-their-new-exhibit,2234,AR.html
Our pygmy hippos need your school’s help to build their new exhibit! Some information from the ZSL Pygmy Hippos Fundraising Pack:- Thug and Nicky are moving house. They aren’t moving far, just across the zoo to an existing area. This means that materials will be reused instead of building a totally new house from scratch. We expect Thug and Nicky will be in their new home by Easter 2014. Thug and Nicky have a number of requirements that they can’t budge on! As they are tropical animals, they need warm water in which to swim in but this can take up a lot of energy. It needs to be cleaned regularly and then reheated each time to their desired temperature. The pygmy hippo keepers help to limit the number of times the water is changed by regularly cleaning the water with nets and by installing filters. This helps to save both energy and water. How your class can help Thug and Nicky As part of the refurbishment, Thug and Nicky will need solar panels to heat a section of their outdoor pool. Solar panels absorb the energy from the sun to form solar radiation. We are then able to convert the sun’s energy into electricity so that we get solar power! As well as this, they will also need an Air Source Heat Pump to heat the inside pools. Air Source Heat Pumps take the warmth from the air outside (even when it’s cold outside!) and warms the pool water by heat transfer. Thug and Nicky‘s keepers have had the builders in and they have provided us with a full list of everything we need to ensure that Thug and Nicky keep warm all throughout the year. We really do hope that by fundraising you can help ZSL reach the target of £30,000 and get the whole list! In total 32 Solar panels are needed to provide Thug and Nicky with enough heat. We have located the best position for these to gain the most sunlight throughout the year. Each solar panel has 60 cells and therefore, we need to fundraise for a total of 1,920 cells! 60 x 32 = 1,920 We have worked this out to be just under £8 per cell which doesn’t sound so hard to fundraise for. If you had a target of fundraising for 10 cells, this would be just £80 and a whole lot closer to us getting everything we need to keep Thug and Nicky happy! There is a huge range of benefits from what ZSL plans to do. Each panel installed will generate 250 watts of electricity. It is predicted this will generate 7,952 kilowatts per annum and give ZSL an annual financial benefit of approximately £1,260.
Is it common to use schools as fundraisers for zoos? I've never seen a zoo target schools for fundraising for an exhibit before (although I imagine they involve them for fundraising for conservation efforts).
I am a teacher and no, it is not common. Sometimes schools that visit are targeted for 'adopt an animal' but not for this sort of campaign. I am on the south coast, not in London, so there may be targeting of London schools that I am not aware of. I am not sure that I am comfortable with it.
Yes, I wasn't sure I was comfortable with it either, but I guess its common for schools to fundraise for other charities/causes, and I'd certainly like them to be fundraising for conservation charities/causes. Just an individual exhibit seems a bit iffy.
I really don't think it makes any difference whether a class/school adopt an animal or support the building of a new enclosure for a specific species. They are still supporting the zoo as a whole in both cases.
