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Stygi

Stygi
Villanelle said:
This is such a good answer. I really hate seeing sad habitats. I actually prefer not to see big headline animals in zoos, such as great apes, elephants, big cats and bears. I just feel so sad for them. Especially African elephants, which are a migtatory species, or animals that naturally roam vast territories. I'm so glad a lot of good zoos are giving up keeping elephants especially. I avoid visiting zoos that I know will make me feel regretful for paying the entrance fee.

I'm much happier looking at smaller critters that can take up more space and be satisfied with lots of enrichment, or (no offense wildebeest guys and friends), dumber animals that won't get depressed or anxious. You can so often tell how an animal is feeling from its behaviour and I just hate seeing a tiger pacing or anyone displaying repetitive stress movements.
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I think it depends some of the larger zoos I have been to have often done a good job at giving these animals large enclosures especially Whipsnade, but these are animals that shouldn’t really be held in city zoos which normally don’t have the space for them, although I have never been the bear enclosures at San Diego in particular I don’t think look great
 

KönigDerKaffeebohnen

K
Villanelle said:
This is such a good answer. I really hate seeing sad habitats. I actually prefer not to see big headline animals in zoos, such as great apes, elephants, big cats and bears. I just feel so sad for them. Especially African elephants, which are a migtatory species, or animals that naturally roam vast territories. I'm so glad a lot of good zoos are giving up keeping elephants especially. I avoid visiting zoos that I know will make me feel regretful for paying the entrance fee.

I'm much happier looking at smaller critters that can take up more space and be satisfied with lots of enrichment, or (no offense wildebeest guys and friends), dumber animals that won't get depressed or anxious. You can so often tell how an animal is feeling from its behaviour and I just hate seeing a tiger pacing or anyone displaying repetitive stress movements.
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I dont mind inteligent animals kept in zoos aslong as they are edequatly stimulated.

Taking the zoo duisburg again, they also keep gorillas, tigers, lions, spec bears and dolphins yet im not feeling sad watching their enclosures.
They are all large, varied and with lots of enritchment.
Just take a look at a part of one of their 2 large tiger habitats. It has lots of space, a shallow creek, climbing possibilitys of both rock and trees, a large waterpool, a cave and lots of other little thing to ensure that the tigers can do whatever they want, whenever they want. It also has enough space that they can easily hide or just be generally not botherd by any visitor, a must imo in mothern zoo design even if there will allways be some karen complaining about no shows, but the ability to not be seen if they want to be is imo one of the most important priviliges that any zoo animal should have imo
1729107349264.jpeg
 

Hugo98

Hugo98
I agree with @KönigDerKaffeebohnen about this issue.
I think the whole topic about animal welfare in zoos is very complex and imo you can't really say species xy doesn't belong in a zoo. It should always be considered in the specific case. And even stereotypes don't mean the animal is suffering. Like some animals with a longer lifespan got stereotypes many years ago and despite living in a much better habitat with lots of enrichment now, the stereotypes can often still be observed although much rarer. But it's nearly impossible to completely prevent wrong, previously learned behaviour after some time. Some animals also show atypical behaviour because of medical conditions. Like I said in the beginning it's very, very complex and in my opinion impossible to judge from an outside perspective.

Overall, I think the way zoos developed in the last 20 to 30 years is great! I only know zoos in (Central) Europe but especially the bigger and medium-sized zoos but also quite a few of smaller ones have really good standards although the perfect zoo probably doesn't exist. Even in very good zoos there are usually a few areas which are not on the same high standards as the rest.
And of course there are still holdings with not so high standards and also some very bad ones.
 

Stygi

Stygi
I also think zoos are definitely working towards improving this recently, for example Artis zoo used to keep lions in an absolutely terrible enclosure which was absolutely minute but they have now upgraded them to a good habitat. Additionally once the heart of Africa section is complete at Chester I believe they intend to expand the Chimpanzee complex and give them access to the old Giraffe habitat effectively doubling their space
1729108491997.png
(New Artis zoo lion enclosure 10x the size of the old one)
 
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Marvinb

Marvinb
KönigDerKaffeebohnen said:
I dont mind inteligent animals kept in zoos aslong as they are edequatly stimulated.

Taking the zoo duisburg again, they also keep gorillas, tigers, lions, spec bears and dolphins yet im not feeling sad watching their enclosures.
They are all large, varied and with lots of enritchment.
Just take a look at a part of one of their 2 large tiger habitats. It has lots of space, a shallow creek, climbing possibilitys of both rock and trees, a large waterpool, a cave and lots of other little thing to ensure that the tigers can do whatever they want, whenever they want. It also has enough space that they can easily hide or just be generally not botherd by any visitor, a must imo in mothern zoo design even if there will allways be some karen complaining about no shows, but the ability to not be seen if they want to be is imo one of the most important priviliges that any zoo animal should have imo
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Yeah thats were im standing aswell. There are some animals that are just really demanding in husbandry, like great apes, elephants or polarbear, and imo not every zoo should have them. But there are also zoos that do a very good job housing these, the pongoland at leipzig and the elephantpark at cologne are two that i come first to my mind.
And yeah i agree that in an ideal world it would be best to not keep animals like this at zoos, but its also important to keep in my that these do an important job of educating and making people care about these animals and there protection, aswell as keeping a "backup population" should the protection in the wild thing not work out
 

KönigDerKaffeebohnen

K
Hugo98 said:
I agree with @KönigDerKaffeebohnen about this issue.
I think the whole topic about animal welfare in zoos is very complex and imo you can't really say species xy doesn't belong in a zoo. It should always be considered in the specific case. And even stereotypes don't mean the animal is suffering. Like some animals with a longer lifespan got stereotypes many years ago and despite living in a much better habitat with lots of enrichment now, the stereotypes can often still be observed although much rarer. But it's nearly impossible to completely prevent wrong, previously learned behaviour after some time. Some animals also show atypical behaviour because of medical conditions. Like I said in the beginning it's very, very complex and in my opinion impossible to judge from an outside perspective.

Overall, I think the way zoos developed in the last 20 to 30 years is great! I only know zoos in (Central) Europe but especially the bigger and medium-sized zoos but also quite a few of smaller ones have really good standards although the perfect zoo probably doesn't exist. Even in very good zoos there are usually a few areas which are not on the same high standards as the rest.
And of course there are still holdings with not so high standards and also some very bad ones.
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Theres 1 that comes close actually!

The ruhr zoo in gelsenkirchen set out to modernise at the turn of the millenia, being one of the ugliest zoos germany and they convinced their city for funding and closed the door for multiple years and reopend with a completly modernised zoo, split into the 4 thematic areas of alasca, petting zoo, africa and asia and since then also the tortoise garden for spurred tortoise and as a home for sliders from the local shelter.
The zoo is the only one i know without any bad apple enclosures and i can recommend it full heartedly.
It also has been winning the price of germanys best zoo for like 10 years in a row so thats also something

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Marvinb

Marvinb
KönigDerKaffeebohnen said:
Theres 1 that comes close actually!

The ruhr zoo in gelsenkirchen set out to modernise at the turn of the millenia, being one of the ugliest zoos germany and they convinced their city for funding and closed the door for multiple years and reopend with a completly modernised zoo, split into the 4 thematic areas of alasca, petting zoo, africa and asia and since then also the tortoise garden for spurred tortoise and as a home for sliders from the local shelter.
The zoo is the only one i know without any bad apple enclosures and i can recommend it full heartedly.
It also has been winning the price of germanys best zoo for like 10 years in a row so thats also something

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Yeah i have heard so much good stuff about zoom, and from videos it looks fantastic.
Definitely very high on my list for zoos to visit next year!
 

Hugo98

Hugo98
KönigDerKaffeebohnen said:
Theres 1 that comes close actually!

The ruhr zoo in gelsenkirchen set out to modernise at the turn of the millenia, being one of the ugliest zoos germany and they convinced their city for funding and closed the door for multiple years and reopend with a completly modernised zoo, split into the 4 thematic areas of alasca, petting zoo, africa and asia and since then also the tortoise garden for spurred tortoise and as a home for sliders from the local shelter.
The zoo is the only one i know without any bad apple enclosures and i can recommend it full heartedly.
It also has been winning the price of germanys best zoo for like 10 years in a row so thats also something

View attachment 404731
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It's a very good zoo, yes. But even there not all habitats are great. We should discuss about the tiger enclosure for example. I was a bit disappointed when I was there considering it's a complete new enclosure. Also not sure about the hippo indoor enclosure and the mini enclosure for the dwarf polar bear (if she's still alive).

But I have to admit something about Zoom: it's not my favourite zoo, sorry...not anymore but it used to be my favourite as a child. But with more and more knowledge I gained about zoos and the more zoos I've visited (plus my own 5 years work experience in a zoo), it unfortunately dropped in my personal ranking. Because imo it's lacking a bit of the other functions zoos have (education, conservation e.g.). And for me personally the collection is not diverse enough, I especially like those zoos that show a diverse cross-section of all animal classes. And Zoom has a very strong focus on (large) mammals but forgets a lot about the other animals.
So, FOR ME it's not close to perfect considering all aspects. :)

Though I still like the overall layout of the zoo and some of the designs of the habitats very much. The orangutan habitat is still one of the best in Europe, for example. I also like the whole boat tour although Hannover managed to design it in a more immersive way. But the baboon island is really cool (and I might steal this idea for PZ).
 
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FlameWizard492

FlameWizard492
Marvinb said:
Random question for you all:
Whats something you would like to see more at zoos? (not specific species but more general stuff)
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Bigger habitats for certain animals such as elephants, rhinos, giraffes, and hippos. I've seen a small handful of habitats that don't seem big enough for their animals.
 

PlanetSoyJak

P
So um.. I found a paw's build planet zoo video thumbnail on my teachers door to show Vocabulary words in the "Wild" because 11th grade is getting DESTROYED in current academic grades to the point our teacher has to teach us about Vocabulary words to use in an Essay. If you want to know our school that mores wilder then a zoo isn't quite the pure American School... [I live in Bronx]
 

Mr-Hyrax 2

Mr-Hyrax 2
PlanetZooLover said:
So um.. I found a paw's build planet zoo video thumbnail on my teachers door to show Vocabulary words in the "Wild" because 11th grade is getting DESTROYED in current academic grades to the point our teacher has to teach us about Vocabulary words to use in an Essay. If you want to know our school that mores wilder then a zoo isn't quite the pure American School... [I live in Bronx]
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Man that's crazy, do you know which one it was?
 

Mr-Hyrax 2

Mr-Hyrax 2
For people with PZ Plus, are these animals giving a size increase and if they are do y'all have any pics compared to all guest and/or there original size
Female Asian Elephant
Both Tortoises
Male Sea Lion
Thanks
 

RightWhale

RightWhale
So I have made a number of new threads on this forum, and I’ve floated the idea around. Do you guys think it would be worth it to make a “Personal DLC/ Packs” thread? We don’t know if DLC 19 or 20 is coming, likewise a sequel is garunteed either. I’m just wondering if it would be cool to make a place where people can still drop DLC ideas, where you don’t have to worry about what others consider “necessary for the game”.

I just think it would be cool as another creative outlet. What would you guys think?
 

Stygi

Stygi
RightWhale said:
So I have made a number of new threads on this forum, and I’ve floated the idea around. Do you guys think it would be worth it to make a “Personal DLC/ Packs” thread? We don’t know if DLC 19 or 20 is coming, likewise a sequel is garunteed either. I’m just wondering if it would be cool to make a place where people can still drop DLC ideas, where you don’t have to worry about what others consider “necessary for the game”.

I just think it would be cool as another creative outlet. What would you guys think?
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Would be pretty cool I can start raving about how a tropical house or Latin America pack would be the best thing ever
 
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