Has anyone experimented with keeper trasversible areas?

[NZFanatic]

Once upon a time I built a Japanese macaque habitat with a sunken front and a raised back, connected by climbing equipment, rocks, and a fallen dead tree. I noticed then that the keepers were accessing the lower part of the habitat by literally using the fallen tree as a bridge.

Yet recently I have build a flamingo habitat with incredibly shallow water, and put the pond feeders in the water close to the viewing area (in hopes that when they are filled, the birds will flock to the feeders, and the guests will get a great viewing experience seeing the flamingos behave naturally), but the keepers don't seem to get near them. They haven't been filled once since I put them in.

I remember hearing someone on YouTube (might have been the Koali crew) mention that keepers do walk through shallow water to get to feeders, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Has anyone else experienced this? Has anyone tested exactly where keepers can and can't go?

 

[LadyBug77]

Once upon a time I built a Japanese macaque habitat with a sunken front and a raised back, connected by climbing equipment, rocks, and a fallen dead tree. I noticed then that the keepers were accessing the lower part of the habitat by literally using the fallen tree as a bridge.

Yet recently I have build a flamingo habitat with incredibly shallow water, and put the pond feeders in the water close to the viewing area (in hopes that when they are filled, the birds will flock to the feeders, and the guests will get a great viewing experience seeing the flamingos behave naturally), but the keepers don't seem to get near them. They haven't been filled once since I put them in.

I remember hearing someone on YouTube (might have been the Koali crew) mention that keepers do walk through shallow water to get to feeders, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Has anyone else experienced this? Has anyone tested exactly where keepers can and can't go?

One thought I had could be that you may not have enough keepers? I believe that keepers fill the food enrichment items first before putting food on the regular feeders. At least, that's what I've been noticing.

 

[NZFanatic]

One thought I had could be that you may not have enough keepers? I believe that keepers fill the food enrichment items first before putting food on the regular feeders. At least, that's what I've been noticing.

That's not it, but I appreciate the thought. I have two keepers per habitat with every habitat, and the flamingoes are less populated than some of my other habitats. I also don't have any 'regular' feeders in the habitat, so the pond feeder is their only option.

 

[Lea_G]

I'd love to have a heatmap which shows their traversable area. I haven't tested it systematically, but I have seen them walk over rocks and some climbing structures (apparently they can't be too steep).

 

[Cocolori]

I don't think keepers can go through water of any type no matter how deep (I suspect they thought it would look rubbish if they waded through and didn't get wet and routing is already complex enough without them having to add a depth calculation). Plus frankly if I were a keeper I would be very annoyed if I had to get wet every time I wanted to access a feeding platform - not great for staff morale to have to do that every day.

Would be great to have a heatmap for keepers though and eventually it would be good if they could implement multiple keeper doors to one habitat (but I know that may be complex given how the game seems to use them to calculate what a habitat is).

 

[Wistala]

I usually think of my zoo keepers as elephants. If the an elephant can go there, so can my Zoo keeper, with the exception of water which is a no can't do zone. Guess none of them learned to swim.