I CANT REMEMBER WHETHER WE POSTED THIS EARLIER IN THE YEAR OR NOT, BUT IT IS FUNNY AND BEARS REPETITION

Robert Schneck writes: One of 30 unusual zoo signs from around the world.

http://www.decodedstuff.com/35-most-bizarre-zoo-signs/

LONDON ZOO'S PRINT STORE IS BACK ONLINE

Richard Freeman has always been a zoo fan, and has - for the length of time that I have known him at any rate - spent a large chink of his online time browsing various zoo archive websites. London Zoo at Regent's Park was the first modern zoo to be opened, and so, I believe, it is fitting that their website and archives are one of the best. Richard, therefore, thought that you would all like to know that the Zoological Society of London print store which contains some amazing archive pictures, is back online...


www.zsl.org/printstore

STEVE CUMMINS: Banham Zoo review

In last month's (?) On The Track Jon asked for zoo reviews. As we visted Banham Zoo while on holiday here's a quick review (was gonna get Joyce to write it but her computer knacked up and is only now nearing being fixed).

Seems well thought out as the majority of the small zoo was easily accessable by wheel chair (not having to walk stops J getting tired out, so she can enjoy the day) including the walkway that's near the head hight of the giraffes. Only tight spot was in the fake cave that leads to a display about CITES. Not sure about animal welfare because I don't know what to look for. The smaller cats enclosures seemed a tad small. And that led to me be a bit concerned at seeing the male Ocelot pacing back and forward around. J suggested it could be due to not being allowed in with the female and being fed up at not being allowed to mate yet. Seems to make sense, as I've seen domestic moggies behave exactly the same.

J now knows what a Pudu looks like in real life (she'd only come across them in a zoo game here on FB) Loved the pigmy marmosets, and the red pandas.

Seemed like fairly standard info boards for each animal, covering range, habitat, diet, conservation status etc. Too much for me to it all in, but I've got the guide book (which is largely the same info+picture) and I've have a re-read through it to help it all go in.

MAX BLAKE: Kakapo conference

This little bit of tasty news bypassed me when it first came out last week, but it is so cool I will write quickly about it. Sirocco, a cock Kakapo (New Zealand night parrot) who has been hand-raised, is travelling to Auckland Zoo to raise awareness about this species's fragile state (124 Kakapo are currently in existence) and will be available for public viewing from the 14 – 23th September (6pm - 9pm). If anyone reading this post lives in or near Auckland, we would love to see a report of the event!

http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/kakapo/

RICHARD FREEMAN WRITES: What is wrong with zoos?

Time for Richard Freeman again. It almost seems silly introducing Richard to you all once again when he makes an appearance as guest blogger several times a week. However, our viewing audience/ readers (whatever you like to call yourselves) is growing so fast that it is certain that some of you missed the last time I introduced him.

The so called 'keepers' at Pretoria Zoo are currently on strike and are a sickening disgrace. No zookeeper worth their salt would allow their charges to suffer over something as paltry as money. Zookeepers have never been well paid, but this is compensated by job satisfaction. The staff at Pretoria Zoo should all be instantly sacked and replaced. Jobs in zoos are like gold dust and there are dozens of qualifed people ready to take up the job at the drop of a hat. If you are in zookeeping for the money, then you are in the wrong job.

I'd like to say that this would never happen in the UK, but I can think of one scabby, poorly run and abysmally staffed excuse for a zoo in the South West of England where I could imagine just the same thing happening.

There are too many zoos run by idiots and staffed by morons. No wonder the anti-zoo lobby is so powerful. It's time to change that.

YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO BE TAUGHT WHY MUSEUMS ARE IMPORTANT

So another new species has been discovered in the dusty store-rooms of a natural history museum.

Scientists from the Smithsonian Inbstitute were going through the archives at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and found a hitherto unknown fruit batwhich after sitting on a shelf for more than 150 years, has it finally been "discovered" as a new species.

And it is probably extinct.

Academy records show the bat was collected in 1856 by Henry Clay Caldwell of the Navy on the Samoan island of Upolu. It came into the possession of William S. W. Ruschenberger, a surgeon who at various times was president of the College of Physicians and of the academy. He donated it in 1857. The creature had a wingspan of at least two feet, and it weighed a half-pound when alive. In the paper, published in the journal American Museum Novitates, Helgen identified a second, even larger bat species in the collection of the Smithsonian.

There have been several such species found in museums over the last year, and a few months ago Richard Freeman gave a round up of others from the past few years. These discoveries, if nothing else, highlight why natural history museums are of such importance. But it seems that they may be on the way out.

A few weeks ago we were told:

My friend went to a Care of Collections meeting the other day in London where a lot of very important museum people were and rather worryingly the trend for museums getting rid of collections seems to be becoming more popular. (She said it seemed more like a 'don't care of collections meeting) In museums the natural history collections are always the first to go as many curators don't see the importance of them. Perhaps the CFZ could do something about how the nation's museums should be safeguarding these collections not considering binning them.

Although this also presents an opportunity if you are thinking of aquiring any specimens. Apparently Bristol is thinking of greatly downsizing its natural history collection. You could write to them with an offer to take some...

If the CFZ Museum had the storage resources I would certainly do that. But the most important thing that has to be asked is "Why, for God's sake?" The natural world is infinitely fascinating, and every child that we have met recently has been at least slightly interested in what we do. Many of them have been as obsessed as I was at that age.

Why do the powers that be insist on trying to stifle that interest at an early age? Because that's what it looks like. The Zoo Licensing people appear to do their best to close zoos down rather than to help them adapt to the changing needs of the 21st Century. But even here there are anomalies. Without mentioning any names, I know of two really good small zoos that have been closed down by these increasingly stringent committees, but another one, which really is a piece of crap, which has been allowed to stay open. A fourth zoo, whose only raison d'etre appears to be to preach Creationism to schoolchildren is flourishing. It is almost as if the Zoo Licensing people have their own agenda - and that it is an agenda which has nothing to do with either animal welfare or conservation. Like so much of present government legislation both in the UK and abroad it makes no sense at all, UNLESS one envisions some completely covert agenda.

And now the same thing is happening to museums. There are good ones (like RAMM in Exeter), but the overall trend is worrying. I really do not know what to do, but I do know that we need to do something.

Suggestions please....

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090711_A_new_species_found_in_a_jar.html

The AMNH paper can be downloaded here:
http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/5965?mode=full

MYSTERY BEASTS BENEATH OUR NOSES

This Guest Blogger malarkey, that I came up with by chance, mainly because I couldn't think of anywhere else to put Max's fascinating article, seems to be taking off. Catch a load of this! Richard Freeman, Zoological Director of the CFZ, was so impressed by Max's article yesterday that he decided to write a companion article explaining how unknon animals in captivity is actually nothing new...

The idea of people keeping unknown creatures in captivity may sound surprising but it’s not without precedent. The creature Max has been looking into are invertebrates, all relatively small but sometimes much larger creatures can make it into captivity unknown to the ‘experts’.

Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie AKA Mr George Wombwell’s Royal Menagerie was one of a number of mobile zoos that toured the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first was run by a man named Pidcock back in 1708. They consisted of wild beasts in cages that were horse drawn around the country from town to town. The set up seems odd to us today and must have been stressful to both the horses and the animals they transported. Escapes were commonplace and a number of people were recorded to have been killed by wild animals that absconded from these zoos on wheels.

Entertainment rather than education or conservation was the driving force. Animals were often mislabelled or given odd names such as ‘Prerie Fiend’ (heaven only knows what they really were. Wombwell’s had among its beasts, creatures labelled as ‘tiger wolves’. These may have been thylacines. I have theorized that the ‘Girt Dog of Ennerdale’ that terrorized Cumbria in the early 19th century, was an escaped thylacine. The description of dog like beast with tigerish stripes that lapped the blood of its victims fits the thylacine remarkably well.

In 1855 Wombwells exhibited the first captive gorilla in Europe. The lowland gorilla had only been discovered in 1847 by Thomas Staughton Savage. Only skulls and pelts had made it to European museums. The Wombell ape was, for a long while mislabled as a chimpanzee. Acording to zoo historian and education officer Malcome Whitehead, the gorilla was at first fed on roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and beer! If I’d had been around back then I would have been dressing up in an ape skin and applying for a place at Wombwells.



Even further back early zoos may have been behind some of the stories of legendary beasts in Britain.Confusion and controversy surround this legend on the Suffolk / Essex border. Both the town of Bures and the village of Wormingford lay claim to the story as their own. In a 19th century translation of a document from 1405, the story is told of a fearful dragon that had a hide impenetrable to arrows and which disappeared into the marsh after having caused “much hurt”. It dwelt in and around water and had four legs and a long tail.

Wormingford begs to differ, saying that the creature resided there and was finally killed by Sir George de la Haye.

The description of this dragon sounds very like a crocodile. Indeed, many think it was such a beast that got free from the Royal menagerie at the Tower of London and made its way to Suffolk. One can readily imagine the fear a 20-30 foot reptile would have struck into the hearts of the peasants.
An escaped exotic is probably behind the St Leonard’s Forest dragon of 1614.This wild briar is a part of the once vast forest of the Weald. In 1614 a limbless serpentine beast appeared here. It was some nine feet long that killed both man and beast with poison that it ‘cast forth’. For a while it became infamous in the area. It was said to raise up its head and look in an arrogant manner about itself. The creature fed on rabbits. It sounds very much like a cobra, possibly brought back from abroad by a traveler or merchant and which subsequently got free.