It's that time of the year again for a new zoo project! But wait this isn't a recreation, it's my own creative zoo project, a first in 5 years of the playing the game. Finally persuaded by my youtube community, I have decided to have a go at making my own zoo. Knowing where I can test my abilities, we return to the pacific northwest to build a zoo themed around freshwater fish, waterfalls and rugged landscapes. While it may be a creative zoo project, it is by no means less exciting or smaller than my zoo recreations.
Making use of the canva tools, I decided to make a rough plan for the zoo although treat this plan/map as a very rough guide as layouts, animals etc are likely to change. The areas of the zoo marked however are final.
Areas of the zoo:
Olympic Rainforest:
The Olympic Rainforest themed on the Olympic National Park's temperate rainforest regions. Explore waterfall trails, dense temperate foliage and animals such as the cougar, american black bear, elk and striped skunk.
The Alaskan Wilderness:
From the southern coastline to the arctic tundra in the far north, explore the wilderness of Alaska with many of the iconic northern north america animals. At the coast, explore rocky shores with sea lions and sea otters, moose in the woodlands, Grizzly bears and grey wolves in the mountain foothills, dall sheep on the mountain tops, and reindeer in the tundra. Sticking with the theme of the zoo, a diorama of a salmon run and possibly a salmon aquarium in this area aswell.
Tropical Wonders:
Find the tropical animals of the world inside an immersive tropical building. I'm actually pretty unsure how this will turn out as I do not want to go for the lied jungle animal layout but something a little different, this could be focusing on one tropical region such as a south american jungle trek. For example for a south american building we could see two toed sloth, various monkeys such as the howler monkey and squirrel monkey, amazon river fish, tropical birds, ocelot and tapir/capybara. However I don't want to much overlap with the rivers of the world which we find out below.
Asia Forest Trail:
A mix of tropical and temperate forests, explore the animals of the asian forest. Inspiration from similar trails like the national zoo's asia trail, explore animal habitats like red panda, sumatran tiger, binturong and clouded leopard.
Expedition Africa:
Can't miss african animals for these kinds of zoos. Join an expedition of africa and explore the congo rainforest with primates like gorilla and black and white colobus monkeys, the predator ridge where we can find african lions and spotted hyenas, and the savanna where mixed ungulate habitats of giraffe, white rhino, grey crowned crane and more can be found.
Rivers of the World:
I would want to say this would be of my own creativity for a trail through 4 of the world's major rivers but then zoos like St Louis zoo have similar concepts like rivers edge so yeah. This is a trail featuring the diversity of the world's rivers so I can use my freshwater fish packs to a great extent. The mississippi river in north america features channel catfish, american alligator, ducks and north american river otter, the amazon river in south america features jaguar, capybara, red-bellied piranha, and dwarf caiman. The nile river in africa features nile crocodile, nile monitor and nile tilapia. The yangtze river features pere davids deer, chinese alligator, and asian carp species.
Farm at the Zoo:
Yes, the best for last for all you domestic fans. Domestic animals like cattle, horse, chickens and goats can be found at the kids area at the zoo. A rustic red barn, tractors and kid orientated education can be found in this petting zoo farm.
