Been posted before, but, applicable here...
With all the bad press zoos have been getting lately, i am expecting a name change soon to Disney's Animal Kingdom*
*now with 40% less real animals!
They're good until some activist slaps together a "documentary" called "Greytrunk" or some such title to moan about the plight of captive elephants...You are not wrong.
That said, except for the fringe who don't think any type of zoo should exist (who would rather see all zoo animals be euthanized tomorrow and the industry shut down), they really would find very little to complain about in terms of AK and it's animal care. Trust me - if there were, we would be hearing about it, loudly. Just like when someone stubs a toe somewhere on property, it would be huge news because...Disney.
In the Zoo industry, AK is the gold standard. Not in terms of their collection, of course, ROFL - I mean, there isn't a regional zoo in the country that doesn't have more animals and better viewing (just not as pretty - and studies show that in a lot of species, "pretty" is mostly for our benefit, not the animals, but it certainly helps public perception). But in animal care and enrichment.
Like most zoos, they also are active in "species survival plans" - basically, the genetic management of all the collected animals in captivity. And the reason a lot of zoos justify still existing, and holding exotic animals in particular. In addition to issuing best-care manuals for species, etc., these SSP's by the zoo associations primary purpose is to manage the genetic lines between zoos, so species keep as much genetic diversity as possible. Obviously, if you have a long-term collection of animals in one space, inbreeding is a huge problem (especially ones that can live nearly as long as humans). That's why you hear about animals changing zoos sometimes, and over long distances - either infants who need surrogates or males/females to be added to groups that need them but are unrelated.
AK in it's rather short time has become quite influential in both care protocols and even scientific studies. Particularly the with Gorilla's - there is actually something called the "Animal Kingdom Protocol" that has been widely adopted by other zoos to assist Gorilla mothers in raising their own infants. Gorilla's are the most difficult of the Great Apes to breed in captivity, their babies are rejected so much in fact that up until a few decades ago, it was standard practice just to take them at birth for hand-rearing by humans, and introduce them back (often to another zoo) when they were weaned. AK successfully developed positive reinforcement training methods to teach the pregnant mothers how to take care of the infant before they gave birth so they don't have to be taken away (and they initially taught it to a mother who had already rejected three previous babies). It's pretty much the industry standard now with any Gorilla-mom-to-be, no matter what her history.
Anyway, that's a bit off topic...sorry. I am sure I seem to crap on AK a lot for it's shortcomings - but when it comes to animal care, they really do an amazing job. It's one place they don't seem to cut corners (which is another reason why I'm sure we don't see more diverse species added to AK - see, I got a dig in there!).
They're good until some activist slaps together a "documentary" called "Greytrunk" or some such title to moan about the plight of captive elephants...
You'll have to change the font to Papyrus.Been posted before, but, applicable here...
You'll have to change the font to Papyrus.
Spend a lot of time studying the Second Amendment? =DThe amount of variations they used the Sorcerer Hat at DHS, I don't see this being too unusual.
What?Spend a lot of time studying the Second Amendment? =D
The grammatical construction, with prefatory followed by operational clause.What?
You'll have to change the font to Papyrus.
Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.