My Trip to the Zoo

[DanikaM]

My trip the the zoo wasn't good... They kept 3 different tortoises in the same enclosure. The enclosure was decent though. It was two Galapogos, two Radiated, and one more of something I don't remember. Then they had one of those Star tortoises kept in a suitable tank for probably a hatchling to 4 inch Russian and the substrate was way to dry and dusty looking. There was probably barely even a centimeter of substrate. It's so interesting how you can imediately tell if an enclosure for a tortoise is good or not once you know about them more.

 

[acrantophis]

Sorry to hear that. I travel a lot and will always visit the local zoo or aquarium. Latin American and Caribbean zoos are usually very sad places. Tortoises rarely are given single species enclosures. Sao paolo Brazil keeps radiated, red foot, red eared sliders and caiman in the same enclosure!

 

[DanikaM]

The Colombian Slider (if I remember the name correctly) had a great enclosure. Lucky for him! I love zoos and all but if they can't properly care for their animals then what's the point? That very same zoo made me fall in love with tortoise when I was 6 so it is a love/hate relationship.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

 

[l0velesly]

Wow, I can't believe they keep big tortoises (Galapagos) with small tortoises (Radiateds)... that's depressing.

 

[Jacqui]

Zoos are a lot like pet shops, they have to have a large number and variety of animals in a small space. It's the fault of us, the zoo visitors. See who wants to go to a zoo and not see the animals? In order to do that, they have to over populate the enclosures and/or under furnish them, or else the animals are hidden from view. I mean think of it, if you keep tortoises outside in your own yard, can you always spot where they are? I know I have to hunt sometimes to find all of mine out there.

Also we visitors want to see a wide variety of animals, not just a cage full of one type of tortoise. Also it's numbers that make us think "better". Such as if zoo #1 has 20 varieties of animals, while zoo #2 has 79 varieties, which zoo would you go to if you could just visit one? The zoo is a business, it has to look at how many folks it can get through the doors. Those numbers mean more sponsors, more money, more jobs, ect..,

Yes, I do agree I wish zoos would be showing us leading edge care of animals, but sadly that is just not usually the case. Just like with pet stores some zoos are great and some not so good.

 

[ErinB]

I work at a zoo (in audience research, not any kind of animal care), and I've noticed some better and some worse tortoise enclosures. I keep thinking that I should take some pictures and post them here for everyone to check out. Jacqui is definitely right. I hear complaint after complaint about there not being enough animals. For example, we have two male polar bears. They are each kept alone because that's how they live, but people will complain about there not being *enough* bears, even if they see the ones we do have. I think that if the zoo included more information about why animals are housed alone or together and what makes them happy, people would be more understanding, but lots of administrative departments believe that zoo guests don't read signs anyway and that it's not worth it.

At least our zoo keeps different species separate as far as I have noticed, but it's also a very big-name, AZA accredited institution. Off the top of my head I know they have some red and yellow footed torts (in two separate, large enclosures but with quite a few animals) that are VERY badly pyramided, some baby Galapagos that are pyramided as well, a hingeback (erosa) that I think is well taken care of, and lots of turtles all around. The pyramiding could have happened anywhere, but they even had a horribly pyramided tortoise on the sign for the exhibit so I think they just don't recognize that that's just not how they are supposed to look. Poor exhibits make me the especially nervous when they're housing species that people could go out and take home as a pet, since people might base their own choices on what the zoo does with its animmals.

 

[CourtneyAndCarl]

I am very lucky to have a pretty nice zoo very close. They don't really have many tortoises to see, but I distinctly remember them having a full grown sulcata tortoise in a an acre or so of land that it shared with a couple different crane species. I didn't know much about torts then, but now that I think back on it, that tortoise really was living in tortoise heaven. The only other tortoises I've seen there were a group of about 3 or 4 greek tortoises in one of the indoor enclosures. The front was glass, BUT it was a huge vivarium, and it was a very natural setup.