To be fair, Berlin Zoo got them inside their new modern birdhouse. Although in a nocturnal room dedicated to them.
But yes, they are probably more often housed in a building just made for them.
Analysing the current Roster and Meta-wishlist (habitat animals)
- Thread starter yoav_r
- Start date
But yes, they are probably more often housed in a building just made for them.
What is a bird house? I assume just like a reptile house (indoors, separate exhibits for different species (mostly)). But for birds - the only reason I ask is that I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing - generally birds (in my experience) are kept in multi-species aviaries outside or separately, in aviaries that aren’t connected (or not particularly connected) - indeed, I think that the only birds I’ve seen in zoos kept indoors are kiwis - and that’s because they need darkness, which is very unusual for birds.
Something like the Blackburn Pavilion at London Zoo? A mixture of outdoor aviaries, indoor aviaries for tropical birds, and walkthrough areas?
European Zoos used to group animals not by continents but taxonomic orders, so many zoos have or had monkey, cat, bear, antelope, reptile and bird houses.
Many of them have since been repurposed but especally cat, monkey, reptile and bird houses kept staying around.
Birds also are often kept in "Fasanerien" which basicly is a house that has aviarys on the outside, most of the time populated by pheasents or other similar birds, hence the name fasanerie from the german name for pheasents "Fasan".
These are the general all purpose aviarys in many european zoos, but many are gettimg removed because they are often not very pretty and to small for most larger birds.
So if the zoo isnt interested in keeping small to medium sized aviary birds in them, they often are among the first to make space for new projects
Cheers. I haven’t been to London zoo for ~20 years so, if I saw it, I’ve forgotten. Not really the kind of place I’d expect kiwis by the looks of it though, any more than ostriches, emus, rheas or penguins….
It's been a bird house for a while (was a reptile house originally), but was redesigned about 15 years ago, so that may well line up with it being closed when you were there.
I could see kiwis working in one of the walkthrough areas with some modifications (making it more of a 'semi-walkthrough', but mostly making it dark...), but definitely not penguins or other ratites.
None of those are kept in such a house usually.
Rhatites are basicly ungulates in their habitats, penguins often have their own houses or outdoor pools and kiwis just dont exist here.
I only know of kiwis either incorporated in modern bird houses like the one in berlin or night/tropical houses, but in general they arnt kept outdoors in europe, in part because they get start treatment as very rare animals that are small enough to completly live indoors
Well, I know them best from older European city zoos. Typically buildings from back when zoos often were divided into animal types rather than continents.
In many zoos, the old buildings are still kept in use since they tend to be quite beautiful. Some are used more or less as they used to be, and others might have changed over time going to fewer or smaller species. Often the birds got both an indoor and outdoor area, sometimes mixed species, sometimes not. You can also find some that have turned into walk-throughs instead.
The new one in Berlin is like a modern take on that but built from the ground, which you don't see often.
(I see other answers now, but I already started typing)
Last edited:
To explain my reasoning a bit further since I think a lot of people really misunderstood my stance on birds. I first would like to mention, select birds I do think are worthy of being added with or without a bird dlc. Emus for instance, I think are the perfect example. However I think this would also have been hypocritical if I was like "Emu is fine, but Shoebill and Kiwi aren't" so I omitted all birds. As for the "essential" aspect of it. The context is "essential for the game" at this point. Tree Kangaroo, Tasmanian Devil and many others I listed absolutely do not need to be included if Frontier were to stop development after Conservation Pack. However, if they are going to continue, essential-ness is relative to both popularity, realism and animals that both satiate the demands of all aspects of the community (modders, animal lovers, mac or future console players, etc). Plus you need stuff that generally just sells DLCs. Stuff like a Tasmanian Devil is a good poster animal for a pack. As is a Baboon or Dromedary Camel.
Other misconception is that people say "I was just projecting what I wanted, that is far from the case. I actually don't care if we never got a red river hog, tasmanian devil, porcupine, etc. I think they'd be fine and worthy additions but I really did do my research (looking at modding download numbers, demand for unreleased mods (IE Red River Hog being the most demanded mod, mixed with the metawishlist and polling community members in a few sections. I did run this all through my own human eyed (and in fairness, modder) filter but there was a definite clear distinction between the "wishlist stuff I wanted", vs the stuff I genuinely believe the community wants. I would also like to put it out there, I omitted the birds and marine animals for the simple reason of, "I dont need to explain that the community wants those first and foremost, that's obvious". But I also play by Frontier's rules. So I'm not gonna say manatee is essential in a game that has yet to prove they will even be possible. Similarly I'd rule out frankly improbable animals like a sumatran rhino or mountain gorilla because this isn't zoo tycoon where anything goes. Frontier has deliberately said time and time again they want this to be a realistic modern zoo simulator. Lastly I omitted other choices due to as I said, redundancy. I apologize if some people still want lar gibbon or wolverine after similar animals were added, but its important to note that those people also are not the majority. And once "a gibbon" was added, and no one was repolled if they'd like to "remove lar gibbon" from their choice, that's an issue I was just pointing out.
At some point I intend on doing my own system with better numbers. I've already ran a few test polls each getting around 600 votes in a single day. I will say that video I'm not super proud of because even though "I" and many I consulted on the project (including other content creators, redditors, modders and forum users) agreed with the list and the majority of people who watched the video agree, there was an undeniable backlash. But I think that was more towards my poor wording on why I ommited birds and less on the rest of the video and its points.
As much as I think that Muntjac is super cute and also very popular in European zoo’s I just can not live without even one species of typically Asian large deer species - in my case the most interesting of them all is the Père David’s deer.
They could showcase his swampy/aquatic preferences and the fact that it is extinct in the wild and was saved only because of zoo’s and private collections.
It shocks me really that we seem to continue to receive tons of species without any matter to conservation and I know they are cute, I understand they complement nicely biomes where those last ingredients were really missing but still I would be more happy about them if we would get the species important for the conservation first. Conservation status and endangered species breeding programs should be only reason for the very existence of zoo’s today and I think that this game should showcase it just a little bit more than with just one 4 species pack.
Hopefully at least in my opinion Père David’s deer is so distinct and unique that maybe someone at the Fronitier would remember about them even as the filler species.
It is nice that Europe received 4 species of deer because now it’s really complete. Now it’s time for Asia. At least 2 species - one big one small and more focus on conservation status would be much appreciated.
Last edited:
I dunno, isn't it kind of similar to the red deer?
Would have been a good choice instead of the Wild Water Buffalo IMO in the Wetlands Pack
That's exactly what I think, and a Banteng or Gaur (of course in another pack) instead of the water buffalo.
I love the water buffalo, I just wish we got a domestic one instead of the wild one. The majority of domestic water buffalo breeds are extremely similar to the wild species aside from having smaller horns. I've been using the wild water buffalo as a stand-in for domestic ones in my zoos, but it would be better if we had the real deal.
That is also my main issue with it. The model is really good, and an Asian buffalo species is good to have. This is just a rare case where the wild form is worse than the domestic for a zoo game. Personally, I just have a hard time ignoring the small differences between the wild and the domestic form.
Part of this is probably that I am the most used to seeing the South European water buffalo (name according to Zootierliste), and maybe a few other breeds since they are more common in European Zoos. They tend to look more fluffy, darker in color, and got shorter horns.
Yeah that's understandable. Here in Australia all the water buffalo in zoos are, of course, Australian buffalo, which is a feral breed that looks a lot like the wild type - their horns can even get nearly as large, though still not as upturned. Therefore it's easier for me to use them as a stand-in.
I knew you had feral buffaloes in Australia, but I didn't know they looked so close to the wild type. This does actually make them more appealing to me. Being able to find a use for a species in at least one project I could see myself doing one day does kind of justify their inclusion in the game, even when I otherwise don't find them a logical choice for PZ.Yeah that's understandable. Here in Australia all the water buffalo in zoos are, of course, Australian buffalo, which is a feral breed that looks a lot like the wild type - their horns can even get nearly as large, though still not as upturned. Therefore it's easier for me to use them as a stand-in.
And a zoo placed in Australia is among the projects I might want to do whenever I finish my current park.
The Pere David's deer is extinct in the wild, I believe, unlike the deer we currently have, which are either LC or Vulnerable