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All tagged zoos
US zoos have paid millions to China for the privilege of housing pandas, with the expectation that China invests the money in panda conservation. A New York Times investigation reveals that the funding has been spent on projects unrelated to pandas, while American zookeepers look the other way.
It’s usually good news when a roadside zoo shuts down. One of the worst of these miserable facilities was Waccatee Zoo in Myrtle Beach, which was closed down last year following a prolonged lawsuit with PETA.
This week the Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments on behalf of five elephants in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The question at hand: Shall the pachyderms have the same rights as “persons” under the law?
Visitors to the zoo in Shanwei were outraged to learn that a pair of “pandas” on exhibit were in fact dogs that had been dyed to look like China’s iconic bears.
The Paignton Zoo in Devon has announced the births of a number of Chilean flamingo chicks, including one tended to by two dads, Curtis and Arthur. The zoo doesn’t know exactly how this happened.
Almost all of the giant pandas on loan from China have been returned to their homeland as the loan agreements expire, with the last US facility, Zoo Atlanta, scheduled to return their gentle giants by year’s end. But this week the San Diego Zoo has announced it will soon welcome a new pair of pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao.
A zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, had to ask visitors to stop tossing coins into enclosures, mainly because a 36-year-old white alligator named Thibodaux had swallowed about $7 in change. Veterinarians at the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium performed surgery on the gator to remove the coins before they caused him serious health issues.
Last August there were some very special passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight from Atlanta to Seattle: six rare Chilean flamingo eggs. When the eggs’ courier – a zoo official delivering the precious cargo to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo – had a problem with the incubator, he summoned for help.
Every year the London Zoo takes on the Herculean task of weighing every one of its 14,000 residents. The zookeepers look like they’re having a blast.
Brights Zoo in East Tennessee has announced the birth of a spotless giraffe, the only one of its kind in the world. Now a month and a half old, the baby girl is six feet tall, healthy, and a very fetching tawny brown.
A rare two-headed snake took two years to recover from its self-induced injury, but he’s (they’re?) finally back in his exhibit at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas.
Hangzhou Zoo in eastern China felt the need to deny allegations, made on social media, that their Malayan sun bears are in fact humans wearing bear costumes.
Nassir the gorilla, a 14-year-old male living at the Toronto Zoo, is distracted – by visitors who show him their smartphone pics and videos. The zoo is concerned that too much screen time is not good for the primate.
Mundi is a 41-year-old African savannah elephant who spent 35 years alone in a small enclosure at Puerto Rico’s Mayaguez Zoo. The troubled zoo was closed for good this year, and Mundi was relocated to the comparatively luxurious Elephant Refuge North America in Georgia.
The Chester Zoo in England announced the birth of a giant anteater pup this week. The mom, 13-year-old Bliss, and the dad Oso (nine) are first-time parents.
Zookeepers at Kujukushima Zoo and Botanical Garden in Nagasaki Prefecture have solved a two-year-old mystery: How did a female lar gibbon get pregnant while living in her own enclosure without a male present?
The critically endangered western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) gained a new member recently when a baby boy was born at Chester Zoo. The new arrival is far from his natural habitat – Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and environs – but he is already at home in the zoological gardens just south of Liverpool.
The Nashville Zoo has just announced a new arrival: a bouncing baby fanaloka. The male cub is the first spotted fanaloka born in the United States, according to the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums database. In fact the baby boy and his parents are the only known group of fanalokas in the US.
