Stressed animals, suggestions to solve.

[Helena]

Hello!

I have a large habitat with African animals that I have put together according to their recommendation for cohabitating bonus.

Some of the animals are stressed up from the guests viewing them, I guess from the overhead platform I have in park.
The animals are such as
Pronghorn Antelope, Black Wildeebeast (or was it African Buffalo) and Ostrich.

Are there any way to shield the view from the guests, like with the one-way glass barrier, but on the elevated path going over the habitat? I have built it so that the animals can have shelter under the path which works nicely.

The red lines are where the guests can walk. It is 1 level upstairs.

The blue line is where the animals can hide/shelter, it is on bottom level. The shelters works, the animals get calmed there.

I love the layout as i have spent time building it.... But is it possible somehow to make it better for the animals welfare? At worst case I am just gonna make another habitat for the nervous animals.

Second pix just for the "admiration". LOL!

By the way, these shots are old, I have since then expanded the park, and I have also tried to move out the feeding and play things further from the viewing parts but not much help.

 

[Cocolori]

I think it's possible to put two way glass and designate it a non-habitat barrier but I might let a more competent builder comment on how best to do it! Two other suggestions though:

1. Put some more structures in the habitat for them to hide behind so they may be seen by only a proportion of the guests at one time.

2. Try putting some do not disturb signs on your path in the busier spots to try to get them to be a bit quieter.

Hope that helps!

 

[Helena]

Thank you! Did not realize there's DND signs that are functional. Gotta check.

 

[Klinn]

I recently had a multi-species habitat with animals that were always getting stressed. Tried various fixes including one-way glass without much luck. Turned out that the habitat was just too small for the number of animals. It seemed to meet their requirements but they considered it too crowded. I doubled the size of the habitat and after the sim ran for a few minutes the stress level was almost eliminated. I added guest areas to keep view distances the same, so it wasn't just that the animals were further away, it was the overall size.

As part of expanding the habitat I added a couple more feeders and that may have helped as well, i.e. not as many animals crowded around each feeding station.

I think pronghorn antelope are especially prone to stress, so they're a good test case. Hopefully you've still got room in your zoo to try this out. Your "beauty shot" looks great!

 

[Helena]

Thank you, so maybe I should extend it on the further end, I have room there.

 

[Magenpie]

I'm sure other people have suggested this but if you put objects in the line-of-sight of the window/glass, this can help. So for example I have a habitat with a guest pathway and two hard shelters either side of the path, where the guests are quite close to the animals. Before I'd researched one-way glass, I put logs in an uneven pattern in front of the window, and the animals find it harder to see the guests 'eye line'.

I've attached pics, but the glass barrier isn't in place between the hard shelter and the pathway because orphan barriers don't save over to blueprints, but I hope you can see what I mean?

I believe stress is measured by the number of guests 'eyes' the in game animals register, so perhaps there are other ways you can break this up. Hope this helps!

It's a beautiful building/habitat btw.

P.S. I realise a lot of the info I gave wasn't really necessary x) sorry about that!

 

[Helena]

Thank you for the replies. <3 (and the admiration, haha!) I have extended the habitat, I have added the DND signs to the "bridge" part one side of it (not sure if it helped).

It seemed to make the animals calmer. Maybe it is the area extension, as it is more "area per eye" ratio? (Low area per eye = feeling trapped in cage?
Now I just gotta landscape the extended part. Even if it is meeting the criterias (!) of terrain, it is not pretty with flat lawn that long.

 

[MaximusSC]

Is it possible or have you tried placing or extending a one way glass habitat wall along the elevated path?

I'm not sure if using SHIFT works to raise a habitat wall.

 

[Helena]

I had that in thought but not sure how to accomplish that and still allow for animals to go underneath.

 

[Jileha]

It affects shy animals if you use loudspeakers too close to them. Also, although your pathways serve as shelters, the animals have to pass through the closest most stressful viewing area in order to get there. They recover inside their shelters, but the moment they leave, the stress starts full blast again.

If one-way glass does not help (maybe the guests are also too noisy?), try the signs, but also maybe create shelters as far away from the people as possible and maybe block off the space underneath the elevated paths. Turn the opening of the shelter so that people cannot look into them. HTH!

 

[Helena]

Loudspeakers, would that also include the education info speakers? I only have those.

One-way glass I am not sure how to place the habitat walls to cover the uppstairs level but not the downstairs?

 

[Jileha]

Loudspeakers, would that also include the education info speakers? I only have those.

One-way glass I am not sure how to place the habitat walls to cover the uppstairs level but not the downstairs?

Yes, exactly those. They are easily overlooked when optimizing the habitat.

Re: one-way glass: of course, you’re problem is the overhead path. You won’t be able to use it there. There is some opaque glass available, probably with the modern theme. But I have no idea if that would make a difference.

 

[Magenpie]

Yes, exactly those. They are easily overlooked when optimizing the habitat.

Re: one-way glass: of course, you’re problem is the overhead path. You won’t be able to use it there. There is some opaque glass available, probably with the modern theme. But I have no idea if that would make a difference.

I'm pretty sure it will, because it breaks up the guests eyeline.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

This thread has helped me a lot. I wasn't aware that the signs for do not disturb actually have a real impact but it worked for a grizzly habitat that had on and off stress issues. Also, @Magenpie, your tips about line of sight were very useful. I used a similar approach as what you depicted for a ostrich/warthog habitat where my ostrich's were always stressing out and it worked!

It's nice to have some tools beyond just one-way glass to work with, so I appreciate you guys sharing the info here.

 

[Helena]

I for one would like to have one-way-glass as glass pane we can put together with the other glass building pieces.