Capybara Species Enrichment is a Tad Overkill

[iloveyourzoos]

I can't speak to the realism, but I love that they allow the bonus in the game. I almost always check to see which animals can go together, and quite often end up putting more than one in every habitat that will allow it.

As a game mechanic, I think of the bonus as being more about guest enjoyment (which is calculated based upon animal welfare), and/or allowing us to offset any conflicting elements of their habitats (like plant coverage or terrain paints that may be different for the two species).

I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the Wetlands pack animals had lots of interspecies bonuses, and have gone into several of my old zoos and added them in with species that I'd already built for over there.

 

[jcp011c]

The Capybaras are probably the most -interspecies social animal in the game at this point. It's no surprise they benefit from it.

 

[Erior]

They be friends alright.

Llamas are domestic animals in any case.

And, IMO, cohabitation bonuses, and plant compatibility, shouldn't affect animal comfort. They should BOOST GUEST EDUCATION INSTEAD.

Meanwhile, related species without overlapping ranges could help with the social need; zoos do that, with, for example, Asian and African elephants:

Or meerkats and banded mongeese:

And it even happens in the wild: https://www.conservationindia.org/gallery/dhole-and-indian-wolf-debrigarh-odisha


It is something that I feel is missing in modern zoo sims, while Jurassic Park Operation Genesis pulled it off in 2003.

 

[SotF]

Another animal that would be neat to include as a kind of enrichment/fun only (Along with stress reduction) that a lot of zoos have which would also fit the put in with many other species is some of the domestic dogs. Various retriever breeds have been highly used to help with cheetahs, elephants, and others. It's the same kind of thing as the capybara working with a LOT of species to make the more exotic animals lives better.

 

[Firestar97]

Another animal that would be neat to include as a kind of enrichment/fun only (Along with stress reduction) that a lot of zoos have which would also fit the put in with many other species is some of the domestic dogs. Various retriever breeds have been highly used to help with cheetahs, elephants, and others. It's the same kind of thing as the capybara working with a LOT of species to make the more exotic animals lives better.

Would really like that. They would probably need to change something about the Elephants though because the Game doesn't allow you to keep them together with Dingos which should probably work, considering the Fact that in Real Life Elephants really enjoy the Company of domesticated Dogs (of course Dingos and domesticated Dogs aren't the same but I doubt they would be a serious Danger for Elephants. At least for adult ones).
Another one that would be nice, would be Chickens. I remember being in a Zoo once where the Partner of some kind of Primate died and they kept some Chickens together with it as some kind of Therapy to make it feel better

 

[SotF]

Would really like that. They would probably need to change something about the Elephants though because the Game doesn't allow you to keep them together with Dingos which should probably work, considering the Fact that in Real Life Elephants really enjoy the Company of domesticated Dogs (of course Dingos and domesticated Dogs aren't the same but I doubt they would be a serious Danger for Elephants. At least for adult ones).
Another one that would be nice, would be Chickens. I remember being in a Zoo once where the Partner of some kind of Primate died and they kept some Chickens together with it as some kind of Therapy to make it feel better

For the chickens, perhaps having them with the various Junglefowl species they're related to and are more of the domestic variety of.

Dingo's don't entirely behave like the domestic dogs due to a lot of things, and are a lot more touchy...which is not what you want to deal with. You have to be careful when interacting with them, though they do end up behaving a lot like feral dogs. If you really want to experience how they act directly, the place I had mine is in Branson, Missouri at Branson's Wild World (At the time, I'd planned on going on one of the DUK rides, but that got cancelled because it was the weekend after the disaster there with one of them), which is interesting for a comparatively low budget zoo setup.

 

[Firestar97]

For the chickens, perhaps having them with the various Junglefowl species they're related to and are more of the domestic variety of.

In a perfect World we'd have both the Red Junglefowl and a Breed of domesticated Chicken
Sad that Frontier doesn't add extremely similar Animals in the same Pack

Dingo's don't entirely behave like the domestic dogs due to a lot of things, and are a lot more touchy...which is not what you want to deal with. You have to be careful when interacting with them, though they do end up behaving a lot like feral dogs. If you really want to experience how they act directly, the place I had mine is in Branson, Missouri at Branson's Wild World (At the time, I'd planned on going on one of the DUK rides, but that got cancelled because it was the weekend after the disaster there with one of them), which is interesting for a comparatively low budget zoo setup.

Didn't really think about the Fact that Dingos are hard to tame and more aggressive. Still wonder though if it would be realistically possible to keep them together with Elephants as long as there are no Juveniles in the Enclosure

 

[SotF]

In a perfect World we'd have both the Red Junglefowl and a Breed of domesticated Chicken
Sad that Frontier doesn't add extremely similar Animals in the same Pack


Didn't really think about the Fact that Dingos are hard to tame and more aggressive. Still wonder though if it would be realistically possible to keep them together with Elephants as long as there are no Juveniles in the Enclosure

yeah, though having the Junglefowl in a pack and a domestic chicken as a bonus freebie in the update might work rather well...or the reverse and having a domestic/petting zoo pack.

Dingos are also less predictable compared to dogs which is part of the reason why they tend to work well as companion animals there, and Dingos still tend to behave more like predators than most animals get along with. Sure, the retrievers tend to be more trained for hunting, they are also common farm dogs and behave more protective there than potential threats...and elephants do have canine and similar threats in their native habitats which would move away there.

 

[Erior]

Dingos are for all intent and purposes wolves rather than dogs.

 

[Firestar97]

Dingos are for all intent and purposes wolves rather than dogs.

Definitely. Just didn't really think it would play that big of a Role in a Herd of Elephants without Juveniles.
Funfact about Dingos: they can't even digest Dry Food for Dogs properly, so they definitely need to be fed with proper Meat instead

 

[coatifan]

Would really like that. They would probably need to change something about the Elephants though because the Game doesn't allow you to keep them together with Dingos which should probably work, considering the Fact that in Real Life Elephants really enjoy the Company of domesticated Dogs (of course Dingos and domesticated Dogs aren't the same but I doubt they would be a serious Danger for Elephants. At least for adult ones).
Another one that would be nice, would be Chickens. I remember being in a Zoo once where the Partner of some kind of Primate died and they kept some Chickens together with it as some kind of Therapy to make it feel better

While dingoes probably couldn’t hurt elephants, it would absolutely stress them both out to keep them together. Housing a hyper carnivore and a hoofstock species together is a bad idea nine times out of ten— imagine if you had to share your house with a pack of intelligent, meat-eating rats (an animal which is about the same size to you as dingoes are to Asian elephants). You probably wouldn’t get hurt, but it would be unpleasant, and you might be tempted to hurt the rats.

 

[Erior]

Another example: Gatorland Orlando has a Nile croc cohabiting to some degree with gators:

Crocodilians seem to treat other crocodilian species the same way they treat cospecifics; comparably-sized ones may be of help with death rolls, quite smaller ones are food, quite larger ones are threats. Then again, salties are emphatically highly aggressive even with their own species.

 

[lunavinceres]

I don't really agree that that is too many animals for the cabybara. I went to a zoo once in the Netherlands where they'd clearly had a population explosion as loads of the herbivore habitats had a few random cabybara. It was pretty amusing and one reason I really wanted capybara in game.

Whether they are actually enriched or not is a different question and not always easy to answer. However PZ is just a game and if you don't want them with so many animals just don't put them together.