Congrats on completing the speed round teams! I will be going through the last three speed rounds and reviewing them as fast as possible, but I must admit a very very dumb mistake...
Today while opening a can of pumpkin to feed to my foxes, I sliced the base of my thumb on the lid of the can (our can opener sucks and so I had to use a knife like an old cowboy) and I sliced right into some tendons (not through thank God) like the idiot I am. I am now stitched up but cannot use my left hand and so I am now typing like a 90 year old one finger on one hand at a time, so please forgive my tardiness. I am alright, mostly just embarrassed but my thumb will be usable again at some point, just not nearly as bendable as it once was. Anyway, enough about that, here's your reviews!
PerGron's Reviews
Team Fantasy- Wings of Wonder
So this round was a rough one for Team Fantasy, we saw essentially everyone except for three players sit this one out and that hit the teamwork aspect really hard. That's disappointing because you had a really passionate leader here and while I completely understand that real life comes first, it's difficult to empathize when we have players dropping the ball day of release. If you have things that come up I fully understand, but in fairness to your team, try to be more timely about when you know something won't get done.
That said, I really appreciate the bold swings this team took. Going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, a park that is notably not accredited by the AZA the way other parks like Disney's Animal Kingdom, all three SeaWorld Parks as well as Busch Gardens Tampa. The AZA is not the end all be all of good zoos, but it does give a lot more freedom of what species can be held (no non-AZA has things like gorillas, okapi, etc.). This didn't affect you guys though because you managed some really solid additions within the confines of a realistic park.
The partnership with Safari West is a smart one. I noted that even Disney partners with Natural Encounters Inc. for their bird presentations so it's very realistic to have a park hire out other facilities to manage certain programs, especially if those programs are better served by said other company. I'm not overly familiar with Safari West beyond name recognition and some cursory research but it seems like a nice facility with a huge collection of species so their partnership works well (I also do have to stay in their safari huts now...)
As someone who wants to run my own zoo one day, birds and aviaries are one of those things I've designed countless times and it's a great way to ethically pack a lot of species into one reasonably sized footprint. There's a reason Animal Kingdom, Discovery Cove, San Diego Zoo, etc. have hundreds of species, a good chunk of them are passerines that all live together and so a really nice aviary fits incredibly well! I also love the educational attachment of including dinosaurs in a bird section. It's a great bit of education that kids can love, adults can recapture their childhood wonder, andrepublicans can complain to the nearest employee about.
Including some of the larger birds in separate aviaries also works really well to get some of those bigger birds in and I can appreciate your work of rescuing these birds which is how a lot of places do it. Using them as the ambassadors for the bird show is a great way to not have to build behind the scenes areas just for ambassador animals and lets guests see all of the animals even if they're not in a show which is great. Y'all KNOW I love a bird show and so I'll never complain at one. (The picture of the keeper with the flying fox on a leash is crazy to me because I've worked with bats before and never had one chill enough to be leash trained, that's super cool and I'm very curious where that pic is from. Also, she's using a dog whistle for training but I 100% thought she had a joint in her mouth...)
I like the commitment to expanding the alligators and flamingos as well, these are two animals that tend to get the shaft in terms of space because they just need a bit of land and water, but I think more facilities need to provide more for these species so I appreciate that. They're also a great way to tie the theme all together.
Overall, a great project helmed by mostly one creator unfortunately. I do appreciate the effort put in here though and as a giant bird nerd myself, I did absolutely love just about all of this without any major flaws.
Team Wish- J. Audubon Woodlore's Animal Exploration Guide to Grizzly Peak
Y'all could've picked a longer name you know...
Joking aside, I really loved your idea you threw out of a pollinator themed set of exhibits at a garden park and while I absolutely would've fell head over heels for that, you guys did end up choosing my absolute favorite style of exhibit design: Zoogeography.
Zoogeography is very self explanatory, it's where zoos design sections with a piece of geography as their center and the species included represent that area, be it a continent, country, state, specific national park, etc. California is filled to the brim with unique species and California Adventure, while not remotely my first pick, actually fit pretty well here and your animal selection was reigned in beautifully. For a California themed animal trail I think it'd be really easy to throw in California condor, grizzly bears (extinct in the state but once native), and sea lions, but you just kept it very realistic and I can appreciate that a lot. So is partnering with the Santa Ana Zoo. Again, it'd be really easy to say "let's partner with San Diego Zoo" but Santa Ana is smaller, less familiar, and probably would benefit a lot from a partnership with Disney where San Diego, LA Zoo, etc. definitely don't need one.
The Conservation Center being themed to a rustic lodge visitor's center type thing is beautiful because a lot of these state-focused animal facilities have that exact thing. I worked for a short time at a state run facility whose native reptile collection was in a log cabin themed discovery center, so just *chef's kiss* in that. Your species you selected are great with San Francisco garter snakes being one of my favorite snakes out there. The rest are pretty iconic California with California newt, western rattlesnake, etc. all filling a pretty great niche and like Team Fantasy's bird aviary is a great way to get a lot of species in a small footprint.
Speaking of aviary, a California native aviary is a great idea and I love the species list you selected. The zoo designer in me admires your restraint in just selecting seven species where I'd probably say no fewer than twelve, but I think for your purposes, fewer is better. I will point out that jays are very territorial and including two species in one aviary is probably going to cause some trouble, but I won't fault you guys for not knowing that. Including the state bird is always a plus and also quails cover the ground really well which adds some great kinetic energy (not something you'd expect but birds on the ground and in the air as well as fish that cover all levels of the water column are how you make multi-species exhibit feel so lived in.)
As for the Redwood Creek Trail, the selection of species here is brilliant. Again, even I would've been searching for every millimeter of space to include one of the big guys like elk or mountain goats or something, but keeping it small and reasonable is a great way to fill the space economically and realistically. The Catalina Island fox is one of those conservation success stories that you may not even be that familiar with but always blows me away. When bald eagles were pushed off the island due to DDT poisoning, golden eagles filled their niche but being bigger and stronger, they preyed on the foxes rather than the fish and rabbits the bald eagles were consuming which led to the fox population drastically dropping. With the banning of DDT and habitat restoration, bald eagles returned and pushed out the golden eagles which allowed full fox recovery. Stuff like that not being well known is a great educational tool and is a good way to fit in local conservation without adding in a grizzly or a condor that needs more space.
The rest of your animal list is super out of the box and interesting but I do like it a lot. Skunks are one of the cutest animals alive though I can't say they make great exhibit animals due to their nocturnal lifestyle, but I have worked with plenty of exhibit skunks and you can do it. Kangaroo rat and ground squirrel are great rodent features and I love a bat so the inclusion here is great. I don't know if y'all know it either, but Mexican free-tailed bats represent California beautifully as they're the famous Carlsbad Caverns bats that darken the skies each night so beautifully.
I like the little touch up of the Grizzly River Run and I loved the animal placcards. Really, this is kind of a flawless project. Both of them are honestly and I had a really really tough time choosing.
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Results
Today while opening a can of pumpkin to feed to my foxes, I sliced the base of my thumb on the lid of the can (our can opener sucks and so I had to use a knife like an old cowboy) and I sliced right into some tendons (not through thank God) like the idiot I am. I am now stitched up but cannot use my left hand and so I am now typing like a 90 year old one finger on one hand at a time, so please forgive my tardiness. I am alright, mostly just embarrassed but my thumb will be usable again at some point, just not nearly as bendable as it once was. Anyway, enough about that, here's your reviews!
PerGron's Reviews
Team Fantasy- Wings of Wonder
So this round was a rough one for Team Fantasy, we saw essentially everyone except for three players sit this one out and that hit the teamwork aspect really hard. That's disappointing because you had a really passionate leader here and while I completely understand that real life comes first, it's difficult to empathize when we have players dropping the ball day of release. If you have things that come up I fully understand, but in fairness to your team, try to be more timely about when you know something won't get done.
That said, I really appreciate the bold swings this team took. Going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, a park that is notably not accredited by the AZA the way other parks like Disney's Animal Kingdom, all three SeaWorld Parks as well as Busch Gardens Tampa. The AZA is not the end all be all of good zoos, but it does give a lot more freedom of what species can be held (no non-AZA has things like gorillas, okapi, etc.). This didn't affect you guys though because you managed some really solid additions within the confines of a realistic park.
The partnership with Safari West is a smart one. I noted that even Disney partners with Natural Encounters Inc. for their bird presentations so it's very realistic to have a park hire out other facilities to manage certain programs, especially if those programs are better served by said other company. I'm not overly familiar with Safari West beyond name recognition and some cursory research but it seems like a nice facility with a huge collection of species so their partnership works well (I also do have to stay in their safari huts now...)
As someone who wants to run my own zoo one day, birds and aviaries are one of those things I've designed countless times and it's a great way to ethically pack a lot of species into one reasonably sized footprint. There's a reason Animal Kingdom, Discovery Cove, San Diego Zoo, etc. have hundreds of species, a good chunk of them are passerines that all live together and so a really nice aviary fits incredibly well! I also love the educational attachment of including dinosaurs in a bird section. It's a great bit of education that kids can love, adults can recapture their childhood wonder, and
Including some of the larger birds in separate aviaries also works really well to get some of those bigger birds in and I can appreciate your work of rescuing these birds which is how a lot of places do it. Using them as the ambassadors for the bird show is a great way to not have to build behind the scenes areas just for ambassador animals and lets guests see all of the animals even if they're not in a show which is great. Y'all KNOW I love a bird show and so I'll never complain at one. (The picture of the keeper with the flying fox on a leash is crazy to me because I've worked with bats before and never had one chill enough to be leash trained, that's super cool and I'm very curious where that pic is from. Also, she's using a dog whistle for training but I 100% thought she had a joint in her mouth...)
I like the commitment to expanding the alligators and flamingos as well, these are two animals that tend to get the shaft in terms of space because they just need a bit of land and water, but I think more facilities need to provide more for these species so I appreciate that. They're also a great way to tie the theme all together.
Overall, a great project helmed by mostly one creator unfortunately. I do appreciate the effort put in here though and as a giant bird nerd myself, I did absolutely love just about all of this without any major flaws.
Team Wish- J. Audubon Woodlore's Animal Exploration Guide to Grizzly Peak
Y'all could've picked a longer name you know...
Joking aside, I really loved your idea you threw out of a pollinator themed set of exhibits at a garden park and while I absolutely would've fell head over heels for that, you guys did end up choosing my absolute favorite style of exhibit design: Zoogeography.
Zoogeography is very self explanatory, it's where zoos design sections with a piece of geography as their center and the species included represent that area, be it a continent, country, state, specific national park, etc. California is filled to the brim with unique species and California Adventure, while not remotely my first pick, actually fit pretty well here and your animal selection was reigned in beautifully. For a California themed animal trail I think it'd be really easy to throw in California condor, grizzly bears (extinct in the state but once native), and sea lions, but you just kept it very realistic and I can appreciate that a lot. So is partnering with the Santa Ana Zoo. Again, it'd be really easy to say "let's partner with San Diego Zoo" but Santa Ana is smaller, less familiar, and probably would benefit a lot from a partnership with Disney where San Diego, LA Zoo, etc. definitely don't need one.
The Conservation Center being themed to a rustic lodge visitor's center type thing is beautiful because a lot of these state-focused animal facilities have that exact thing. I worked for a short time at a state run facility whose native reptile collection was in a log cabin themed discovery center, so just *chef's kiss* in that. Your species you selected are great with San Francisco garter snakes being one of my favorite snakes out there. The rest are pretty iconic California with California newt, western rattlesnake, etc. all filling a pretty great niche and like Team Fantasy's bird aviary is a great way to get a lot of species in a small footprint.
Speaking of aviary, a California native aviary is a great idea and I love the species list you selected. The zoo designer in me admires your restraint in just selecting seven species where I'd probably say no fewer than twelve, but I think for your purposes, fewer is better. I will point out that jays are very territorial and including two species in one aviary is probably going to cause some trouble, but I won't fault you guys for not knowing that. Including the state bird is always a plus and also quails cover the ground really well which adds some great kinetic energy (not something you'd expect but birds on the ground and in the air as well as fish that cover all levels of the water column are how you make multi-species exhibit feel so lived in.)
As for the Redwood Creek Trail, the selection of species here is brilliant. Again, even I would've been searching for every millimeter of space to include one of the big guys like elk or mountain goats or something, but keeping it small and reasonable is a great way to fill the space economically and realistically. The Catalina Island fox is one of those conservation success stories that you may not even be that familiar with but always blows me away. When bald eagles were pushed off the island due to DDT poisoning, golden eagles filled their niche but being bigger and stronger, they preyed on the foxes rather than the fish and rabbits the bald eagles were consuming which led to the fox population drastically dropping. With the banning of DDT and habitat restoration, bald eagles returned and pushed out the golden eagles which allowed full fox recovery. Stuff like that not being well known is a great educational tool and is a good way to fit in local conservation without adding in a grizzly or a condor that needs more space.
The rest of your animal list is super out of the box and interesting but I do like it a lot. Skunks are one of the cutest animals alive though I can't say they make great exhibit animals due to their nocturnal lifestyle, but I have worked with plenty of exhibit skunks and you can do it. Kangaroo rat and ground squirrel are great rodent features and I love a bat so the inclusion here is great. I don't know if y'all know it either, but Mexican free-tailed bats represent California beautifully as they're the famous Carlsbad Caverns bats that darken the skies each night so beautifully.
I like the little touch up of the Grizzly River Run and I loved the animal placcards. Really, this is kind of a flawless project. Both of them are honestly and I had a really really tough time choosing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Results
Team Fantasy- Wings of Wonder
You guys were genuinely really close to taking this one because I do think you had the more realistic proposal, but what really knocked you down to second place was the teamwork here. A huge huge huge round of applause to Tiki for basically doing this whole thing (with some help from Ace and Lizzy of course), but I just had a bad vibe from not seeing more people working together here where the other team worked together flawlessly.
MVP- @TheOriginalTiki- There's literally no other option here. You carried this one on your back and earned MVP, so great work.
You guys were genuinely really close to taking this one because I do think you had the more realistic proposal, but what really knocked you down to second place was the teamwork here. A huge huge huge round of applause to Tiki for basically doing this whole thing (with some help from Ace and Lizzy of course), but I just had a bad vibe from not seeing more people working together here where the other team worked together flawlessly.
MVP- @TheOriginalTiki- There's literally no other option here. You carried this one on your back and earned MVP, so great work.
Team Wish- Woodlore [Name Name Name]
This project is an effort in restraint and while it's less realistic, partially based on the species like island foxes and kangaroo rats not being super common in zoos, they are accessible especially as rescues in their home state so it's far from impossible. I Loved the theming here and the ties to California, plus the teamwork was stellar. All around a flawless project.
MVP- @Architectural Guinea Pig- I waffled between a few people, but where the presentation shined so much here, I had to give it to AGP.
This project is an effort in restraint and while it's less realistic, partially based on the species like island foxes and kangaroo rats not being super common in zoos, they are accessible especially as rescues in their home state so it's far from impossible. I Loved the theming here and the ties to California, plus the teamwork was stellar. All around a flawless project.
MVP- @Architectural Guinea Pig- I waffled between a few people, but where the presentation shined so much here, I had to give it to AGP.
It's basically a variety show of different species. I haven't seen it in a while because my trips to the park have mostly been quick stop offs to hit a couple coasters with my season pass, but the last time I saw the show the flying fox was definitely still in it.
