Highlands Animal Pack - Dreams vs Nightmares

Let me take a whack at it

Dream:
  1. Gelada
  2. Spectacled Bear
  3. Chinese/ Japanese giant salamander (I could argue this could be a first habitat amphibian, though babies may be tough, maybe they skip the small baby stage like with the marsupials)
  4. Golden Takin
  5. Pallas Cat
  6. Chilean Flamingo/ Demoiselle Crane/ Barheaded Goose
  7. Golden Pheasant or Himilayan Monal
  8. Mountain Viper, Chameleon, or Titicaca frog for our exhibit animal. I’m partial to frogs, but a chameleon would be cool.
So for my dream I’m flexible, I would like another two birds in my pack. While I would like the salamanders as a habitat animal (they are as big as the dwarf caiman if I remember right) I’m flexible with them.

Nightmare Pack
I don’t have a set nightmare pack but some things I don’t want
  1. No birds, seriously a perfect time to give us another one. It would also break the “two birds a year” curse.
  2. No monkey, I really want either a baboon or Gelada
  3. All boring colored animals. Like others have said I don’t want the pack to be only brown animals. Wether it be through the birds or exhibit animal I want some color.
  4. Listen, I want more animals from North America, but not for this pack.
 
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My dream: an animal pack with animals from every continents, also there would be at least one bird species.

Roaster:
1. Headliner animal: Wolverine
2. South American habitat animal: Spectacled bear/Guanaco/Darwin's rhea
3. Asian habitat animal: Markhor/Golden snub-nosed monkey/Yak
4. Habitat bird: Himalayan monal/Golden pheasant/Western capercaillie
5. European habitat animal: Alpine marmot/Chamois/European mouflon
6. African habitat animal: Gelada/Ethiopian wolf/Rock hyrax
7. Oceanian habitat animal: Yellow-footed rock wallaby
8. Exhibit animal: Chinese giant salamander

My nightmare: a scenery pack or heavly continent-based animal pack without birds.
 
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If the green iguana went in the box, you can bet the giant salamander would.
Yeah, well you see……
You got to underst……..
It’s just, uh…….
….uh…….
………

Good point

(In hindsight that makes me wish iguanas could be habitat animals. Having a cayman blue iguana in a little habitat would be awesome. Some species grow very big)
 
Dream pack:
Spectacled bear
Gelada
Alpine marmot
Chamois
Pallas’ cat
Himalayan monal
Takin
Northern/Southern corroboree frog

Realistic nightmare pack:
American black bear
Hamadryas baboon
Markhor
Himalayan tahr
Barbary sheep
American bighorn sheep
Muskox
Bat/sloth
 
My basic dream is ×2 caprines, x1 bird, x1 bear, plus Pallas cat and hyrax. I have caprinr, burd, and bear species preferences, but I wouldn't be sad at substitutions.

A nightmare for me would be wolverine, Scottish cat, HBB, x 3 caprines... but in this case the caprines would still be the silver lining, so I guess the true nightmare would be no goats.
 
Dream Highlands Animal Pack
  • Ethiopian Wolf :oops:
  • Tibetan Antelope
  • Rock Hyrax
  • Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo
  • Barbary Sheep
  • Hamadryas Baboon
  • Himalayan Monal
  • Nicobar Pigeon (WE)
Nightmare Animal Pack
  • Mongolian Gazelle (not found too often in zoos and not unique compared to saiga)
  • Rock Monitor
  • Gelada
  • Padamelon (I think he's cute but not unique compared to Tree Kangaroos and Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby)
  • Mountain Goat (personally)
  • Dwarf Cassowary
  • Pyrenean Ibex
  • anything other than a bird
Anything not listed I am indifferent towards. Actually I'd like a highlands pack! So if its not listed in nightmare assume its good!
 
Dream:
  • Matschie's tree kangaroo
  • Pallas's cat
  • Sichuan takin
  • Markhor
  • Hamadryas baboon
  • Rock hyrax
  • Spectacled bear
I think this is an absolutely beautiful pack that offers a little something to most of the world. The hyrax and tree kangaroo would need to be the only brand new rigs, I imagine. Could sub markhor for aoudad. I'd say the yellow-footed rock wallaby would be an okay substitute for most of them, but I need my tree kangaroo so that takes priority. And of course, the mara and rhea are more than welcome, I can just never quite remember how much they'd even genuinely fit the theme and how much of that's a stretch. But I really like this lineup as it stands.

Realist:
  • Pallas's cat
  • Markhor
  • Sichuan takin
  • Rocky mountain goat or bighorn sheep
  • Elk
  • Wolverine
  • Alpine marmot
I'm expecting an almost complete focus on temperate-to-cold-climate mountains. Do they have to? Of course not. Is that going to be easier to market? Certainly. I find it hard to imagine the Pallas and at least one of the good goats not making it in, though. I strongly prefer the Hamadryas to the gelada, but I think the gelada is more likely to show up... but still not that likely overall, so I'm not including it.

Nightmare:
  • Rocky mountain goat
  • Bighorn sheep
  • Elk
  • Guanaco
  • Golden snub-nosed monkey
  • Chiru
  • Japanese serow
Over-dependence on North American species (There are some I want! Just not here. Elk would be ok on its own though), species rare-to-nonexistent in captivity, a redundant camelid, and then the Japanese serow which I have no problem with in a vacuum but I will always see as "not the tanuki".
 
So far it seems that by far the two most popular species are the Spectacled Bear and the Takin, both being in almost every dream list. Rounding out the top 5 are the Markhor, Gelada, and Pallas's Cat.

Also quite popular choices are the following: Hamadryas Baboon, Hyrax, Marmot, Himalayan Monal, Wolverine, Golden Pheasant, Yellow-Footed Rock-Wallaby, Tree-Kangaroo, Rhea, Aoudad and the Giant Salamander as the most popular choice for an exhibit animal.

As for nightmares, only four have appeared significantly: Pallas's Cat, Rocky Mountain Goat, Bighorn Sheep and Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey So the cat appears to be a contentious pick with quite a lot of people both wanting and not wanting it. The other three unfortunately seem to be more nightmare than want, I imagine this is because they are viewed as competition with much more popular picks for a caprine or monkey.
 
It’s not on my dream list but I am flabbergasted at the hare towards the golden snub-nosed monkey…
We haven't gotten a monkey in a very long time and if we get another unrealistic species instead of the huge amount of better realistic options people won't be happy. I'd be pretty disappointed if we got robbed of a baboon again.
 
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It’s not on my dream list but I am flabbergasted at the hare towards the golden snub-nosed monkey…
It's not "hate". Calling it that is just annoying because you're forcing people to defend themselves for not wanting it. It's a matter of simple preference. Not wanting the snub-nosed monkey over a more common-in-captivity species is both very valid and very reasonable, and it doesn't mean people "hate" the snub-nosed monkey. In a vaccuum I'm sure most people would be fine with it, but we're not in a vaccuum.
 
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