Aviary Speculation in PZ Megathread
- Thread starter Bearcat9948
- Start date
If i had to choose just one bat, i would take the Kalong, also known as the large flying fox. They are one of the 3 biggest bats living today and inhabit the largest area, stretching from mainland asia on malaysia over pretty much all of indonesia.
This makes them the Most flexible for regional themes, as while they might live in the tropical forests of the mainland, they could also be great for island themed areas.
Another great thing about them is their look. Their black and orangered fur and skin looks like the nominal image of the flying fox, which i think is very important If we get just one animal of a large family.
Lastly they would be a great contrast to the very common in captivity egyptian fruit bat in biome, size, colour and even diet, as the kalongs if available eat mostly the nectar from flowers, another first in the game.
This makes them the Most flexible for regional themes, as while they might live in the tropical forests of the mainland, they could also be great for island themed areas.
Another great thing about them is their look. Their black and orangered fur and skin looks like the nominal image of the flying fox, which i think is very important If we get just one animal of a large family.
Lastly they would be a great contrast to the very common in captivity egyptian fruit bat in biome, size, colour and even diet, as the kalongs if available eat mostly the nectar from flowers, another first in the game.
Looks legitimately like a werewolf haha!
One thing I would hope to see if/when an aviary expansion comes is the ability to keep the current habitat animals within aviaries as well. This would have several uses:
1) It could allow the construction of more realistic netted or roofed enclosures for animals such as primates and some of the big cats (snow and clouded leopards particularly); certainly in the case of the clouded leopard I have never seen them kept in an outdoor enclosure that isn't covered over with a mesh roof.
2) Certainly here in Europe there is an increasing trend in making aviaries for birds previously kept in open-air enclosures, particularly flamingos (Chester Zoo have recently opened their new covered flamingo aviary); this is both for welfare reasons (taking out the need to clip or pinion the birds) and biosecurity (now that bird flu is endemic in Europe, aviaries take away the need to shut away birds during outbreaks). This example from Gaiazoo in the Netherlands shows one example of a new flamingo aviary:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn5vRBTCQhI
3) Perhaps most relevant, there is an increasing fashion in Europe to create large outdoor aviaries that combine free-flying birds with enclosures for large mammals. These are some examples:
- At Doue-la-Fontaine in France, their Okapi Sanctuary is an aviary housing okapis, owl-faced guenons and nineteen species of bird: the picture here shows the okapi with goliath heron, African openbill stork, hamerkop, sacred ibis, Egyptian goose, crested guineafowl and Abdim's stork, but it also includes hooded vultures, African grey parrots, great blue turacos, three species of pigeon and trumpeter hornbill:
- Also at Doue-la-Fontaine, this picture shows part of an enclosure that used to be for giant anteaters (I believe now replaced with armadillos) within Europe's largest aviary, which also contains four species of macaw (you can see a green-winged macaw on top of the cliff), three other parrot species, flamingos, Peruvian pelicans, Andean condors, turkey vultures, nine species of duck and goose, roseate spoonbills, three species of ibis, boat-billed herons, black-necked stilts, Southern screamers, inca terns and grey gulls, with further enclosures within the aviary for pudu and Humboldt penguins:
- At Antwerp Zoo in Belgium, there is an aviary mixing African buffalo with twenty-three bird species; as well as the Abdim's storks, cattle egrets, African spoonbills and glossy ibises in this photo, there are also two species of vulture, two species of turaco, superb starlings, three species of pigeon, two of hornbill, lilac-breasted rollers and various other species of ibis, duck, lapwing, guineafowl, spurfowl and hamerkop:
- Zooparc de Beauval in France has a colossal aviary that encompasses enclosures for hippos, nyala and red river hogs, as well as birds. This view of the hippo area includes pink-backed pelicans, yellow-billed storks, a white-headed duck and a palm-nut vulture, with a view of the nyala section on the right-hand side:
- This better view of the nyala section in the same aviary shows African openbill stork, African spoonbill, sacred and Southern bald ibises, grey crowned cranes, blue-winged geese and hamerkop:
Being able to do this would be another way of making interesting new enclosures for some of the animals already in the game.
1) It could allow the construction of more realistic netted or roofed enclosures for animals such as primates and some of the big cats (snow and clouded leopards particularly); certainly in the case of the clouded leopard I have never seen them kept in an outdoor enclosure that isn't covered over with a mesh roof.
2) Certainly here in Europe there is an increasing trend in making aviaries for birds previously kept in open-air enclosures, particularly flamingos (Chester Zoo have recently opened their new covered flamingo aviary); this is both for welfare reasons (taking out the need to clip or pinion the birds) and biosecurity (now that bird flu is endemic in Europe, aviaries take away the need to shut away birds during outbreaks). This example from Gaiazoo in the Netherlands shows one example of a new flamingo aviary:
3) Perhaps most relevant, there is an increasing fashion in Europe to create large outdoor aviaries that combine free-flying birds with enclosures for large mammals. These are some examples:
- At Doue-la-Fontaine in France, their Okapi Sanctuary is an aviary housing okapis, owl-faced guenons and nineteen species of bird: the picture here shows the okapi with goliath heron, African openbill stork, hamerkop, sacred ibis, Egyptian goose, crested guineafowl and Abdim's stork, but it also includes hooded vultures, African grey parrots, great blue turacos, three species of pigeon and trumpeter hornbill:
- Also at Doue-la-Fontaine, this picture shows part of an enclosure that used to be for giant anteaters (I believe now replaced with armadillos) within Europe's largest aviary, which also contains four species of macaw (you can see a green-winged macaw on top of the cliff), three other parrot species, flamingos, Peruvian pelicans, Andean condors, turkey vultures, nine species of duck and goose, roseate spoonbills, three species of ibis, boat-billed herons, black-necked stilts, Southern screamers, inca terns and grey gulls, with further enclosures within the aviary for pudu and Humboldt penguins:
- At Antwerp Zoo in Belgium, there is an aviary mixing African buffalo with twenty-three bird species; as well as the Abdim's storks, cattle egrets, African spoonbills and glossy ibises in this photo, there are also two species of vulture, two species of turaco, superb starlings, three species of pigeon, two of hornbill, lilac-breasted rollers and various other species of ibis, duck, lapwing, guineafowl, spurfowl and hamerkop:
- Zooparc de Beauval in France has a colossal aviary that encompasses enclosures for hippos, nyala and red river hogs, as well as birds. This view of the hippo area includes pink-backed pelicans, yellow-billed storks, a white-headed duck and a palm-nut vulture, with a view of the nyala section on the right-hand side:
- This better view of the nyala section in the same aviary shows African openbill stork, African spoonbill, sacred and Southern bald ibises, grey crowned cranes, blue-winged geese and hamerkop:
Being able to do this would be another way of making interesting new enclosures for some of the animals already in the game.
Pteranodon field guide. Relevant in that it shows of more free-flying, as well as the animal flying outside of the aviary confines.
This is so exciting. I can't wait for JWE 2 to release.
Frontier will really have to outdo themselves for when they release it so that there's good sales for both JWE and also for the PZ DLC that'll come out around that time, right? If JWE comes out in November/December like some predict, then the DLC will be soe time around them, but sales won't be good for the DLC.
Thinking out loud, here
I don't think they'll compete that much tbh. Especially if the dlc is an aviary pack, it will sell just fine.
Sticking to birds on the alleged leak list posted by Doran, and saving bats for later, I think this would be the best case scenario for an aviary back. Concerned with both having a diversity of species and having species that could function in open-air aviaries together (i.e. multiple tropical South American birds). Bolded are birds that could live outside of aviaries.
- Bali myna
- Hyacinth macaw
- Eclectus parrot
- Great white pelican
- Secretarybird
- Grey crowned crane
- Shoebill
- Rhinoceros hornbill
- Toco toucan
- Bearded barbet
- Andean cơck-of-the-rock
- Laughing kookaburra
- Bald eagle
- California condor
- North Island brown kiwi
- Golden pheasant
- Great blue turaco
- Nicobar pigeon
- Victoria crowned pigeon
- Raggiana bird-of-paradise
Last edited:
I'd say the Victoria Crowned Pigeon and Brown Kiwi could live outside aviaries as well, as the Kiwi is a flightless bird and the Crowned Pigeon is a primarily ground-dwelling species.
Right about the kiwis but the pigeons still roost in trees so I think they should be aviary-only.
So do peafowl, though. In any case I've only seen crowned pigeons kept in tropical aviaries with climate control, so I don't think it matters either way.
If birds do come into Planet Zoo, we need a DLC that has more than 4 to 8 animals and frontier has already destroyed that hope for me with the release of the African pack. I thought it would bring in something new like a 8 animal and scenery DLC but no.
So I think that hoping for a bird pack with like 10 different species and scenery is sadly too much to ask and we shouldn't get our hopes up. Because if this does happen, if a pack with like 10 birds and scenery comes out it would make the other DLC's look small and pointless and anyone new won't probably buy them because what's the point when most of the packs only have 4 large animals and one small animal that does nothing?
So I'm afraid we're stuck with the DLC packs we have now so we'll probably be looking at either a 5 habitat animal pack because I really doubt they can put a poor bird in a exhibit and scenery. And most players will likely be disappointed with that.
Or a 8 bird pack with no scenery
That's it
That's the two options we have
Which is within it's a huge disappointed
I seriously don't think we should hope for anything else than those two options.
So it will probably be like this:
Avairy pack: 5 habitat animals (unless like I said they stick a poor bird into the glass exhibit) with new scenery, enrichment and foliage
Then a Bird Pack with 8 new birds that goes alongside the pack because frontier knows that everyone will buy the two bird packs and doesn't have to worry about people complaining that we have to buy the first to play the second unlike the sims 4 did with their first pet stuff pack. Simply because we're so desperate for birds
So I think that hoping for a bird pack with like 10 different species and scenery is sadly too much to ask and we shouldn't get our hopes up. Because if this does happen, if a pack with like 10 birds and scenery comes out it would make the other DLC's look small and pointless and anyone new won't probably buy them because what's the point when most of the packs only have 4 large animals and one small animal that does nothing?
So I'm afraid we're stuck with the DLC packs we have now so we'll probably be looking at either a 5 habitat animal pack because I really doubt they can put a poor bird in a exhibit and scenery. And most players will likely be disappointed with that.
Or a 8 bird pack with no scenery
That's it
That's the two options we have
Which is within it's a huge disappointed
I seriously don't think we should hope for anything else than those two options.
So it will probably be like this:
Avairy pack: 5 habitat animals (unless like I said they stick a poor bird into the glass exhibit) with new scenery, enrichment and foliage
Then a Bird Pack with 8 new birds that goes alongside the pack because frontier knows that everyone will buy the two bird packs and doesn't have to worry about people complaining that we have to buy the first to play the second unlike the sims 4 did with their first pet stuff pack. Simply because we're so desperate for birds
I agree with this. Flying birds will probably have their own DLC, probably two separate ones to meet the animal count the DLC have. While birds that don't fly will either be skipped or placed within a usual DLC
Did ghostbuster dlc do that? I dont think so. It costed 15$ dollars, but many people anyway bought other packs, because they were much cheaper. It did not stop frontier from releasing the more expensive dlc.
There are various frontier dlc prices: 2.99$, 4.99$, 9.99$, 10.99$, 14,99$ and 19,99$.
Saying that bigger dlc would make other dlc pointless is bad take. With that logic why would anyone buy herbrivore dinosaur pack in JWE for 4.99$ instead of RTJP for 19.99$ or even Dr. Wu secrets? Or Spooky Pack in PlanCo for 10.99$ instead of better Gostbuster dlc? Being cheaper and more affordable is sometimes better option.
Last edited:
Exactly, I agree with this and it's something that would definitely get me back into the game
I don't want the forums to be inundated with tons of threads about aviaries, so I'm just gonna use this one since that's what I intended. Here's my response from other threads with people saying not to expect a lot of birds in an aviary pack:
I cannot even imagine the fury the fanbase would have if the aviary pack is announced with 4-5 birds. Would just take all the wind out of it imo. I keep saying 8-10 is the absolute minimum, so you get a wide variety of species, from different biomes and continents. There are three major priorities that I believe our initial aviary pack must address:
I cannot even imagine the fury the fanbase would have if the aviary pack is announced with 4-5 birds. Would just take all the wind out of it imo. I keep saying 8-10 is the absolute minimum, so you get a wide variety of species, from different biomes and continents. There are three major priorities that I believe our initial aviary pack must address:
- There needs to be a minimum of 3 different types of aviary birds from the Amazon. It is the most biologically diverse place on Earth, and it is by the far the most common theme to base an aviary habitat off of for a zoo. This also allows for massive biodomes that can mix all 3 bird species with the Baird's tapir, capuchin monkeys, giant river otters, dwarf caimans and giant anteaters.
- There also needs to be a minimum of 3 bird species from Australia and New Zealand. NZ has 0 species represented in the game, Australia has tragically few. Rainbow lorikeets or budgies are the two most common walkthrough aviary birds in captivity, and the kookaburra is absolutely too iconic to leave out. That already just leaves us with only 1 spot for NZ.
- There needs to be at least one representative for raptors, and again, that's the absolute minimum
Hmm, I'd say we'll probably have a 8 animal pack for birds since a 4-5 or 7-8 animal pack/DLC are giving us. I think we shouldn't hope for any other option than them two. Because if we were going to get a bigger DLC then the African animal pack should have done it to keep the good trend going after the SEA and aquatic pack