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#cheyenne mountain zoo
sturdy-nerdy-stitchery · 11 months
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100% of you requested animals! So, here's a teaser picture for now while I pick and choose what pictures I want to put up here.
This is a picture of my husband took. The pelican was seconds away from snatching his phone. So, what does my husband do? He puts it as his Facebook profile photo. 😆
I have a number of more pictures!
So, enjoy your pelican!
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zootoo · 5 months
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Thinking:  White-Cheeked Gibbon
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Thinking: White-Cheeked Gibbon by Ginger Robinson Via Flickr: Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs, Colorado
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incognito-princess · 6 months
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Oh gunny sack cloak, we're really in it now! We sat like this for a while and I showed her all the pictures I took. She approved these.
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leavinghere · 2 years
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february 2, 2021
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starsreverie · 2 years
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Absolutely obsessed with this tree kangaroo we saw at the zoo that looked like he wanted to end it all
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cloudynrainy · 2 years
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wild heart 🐅
Colorado Springs, CO
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tetramodal · 2 years
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Pelican Charles Morgenstern, 2022. Pink-Backed Pelican, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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We had a lot of fun there and hope that you do too, if you decide to go.
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I had previously been under the impression that AZA accredited zoos and aquariums in the USA are more likely to take good care of animals than those that lack this accreditation. Is this incorrect?
It's... really complicated. The short answer is: maybe? Which doesn't help at all, I'm sure. I'm working on a huge project to try to quantify a bunch of accreditation stuff, so I don't want to say anything concrete from preliminary data, y'know?
Accreditation at a facility tells you, basically, what standards they are supposed to meet and what political group / industry club they're part of. But there's a lot of issues with all of the five zoological accrediting / certifying bodies where oversight during the accreditation cycles doesn't really exist in a functional way? Either reporting systems are in place that highly disincentivize reporting (because they aren't anonymous and could be tracked back to a staffer) or just don't have formal protocols for it all.
So being AZA accredited tells you the type of expectations they're trying to live up to, and what standards they met at the time they were inspected. I have some concerns about whether the standards for certain aspects of accreditation (like aesthetic stuff, not animal care) are really sustainable for duration given how you're constantly hearing about how zoos scramble to get all the little deferred things fixed prior to the next inspection. But, that's not necessarily an issue with the zoos, and more the program - and that's something that AFAIK happens with every accrediting group, not just AZA.
There's also an aspect of how the requirements of each accrediting program kind of... self select for the type of zoos they want? AZA's application and annual fees are incredibly high, which isn't necessarily a good use of money for many smaller facilities; they also require compliance with a lot of things not related to animal care and welfare, like internal staffing structure and facility aesthetics. Again, something that either smaller facilities just can't afford - do you spend money on the animals or on paving all your pathways? - or aren't interested in getting involved with because of how intrusive it is. So most of the AZA zoos you see are the bigger, well-funded ones with city-type aesthetics, because that's what who the program is set up to encourage to apply. (There are definitely exceptions to this, but find me a big city zoo that isn't AZA or in the process of becoming AZA).
To try to answer your questions, AZA zoos are more likely to be high quality because in order to be accredited, they have to have a certain amount of cash flow. Having more funding / income tends to make regular operating issues easier to solve. AZA zoos are certainly more heavily scrutinized every five years by their accrediting body than a group like ZAA, which is mostly focused on animal care / education / conservation and isn't going to meddle in a zoo's business operations. But AZA zoos aren't perfect. Most of them don't even meet all of the AZA standards completely at the time of inspection: there was an article a couple years back about how rare it was that Cheyenne Mountain Zoo met all of the AZA standards at the time of inspection - only the 4th zoo to do so in AZA's 50-something year history. (How that works is that zoos that don't meet all the standards but are close get provisionally accredited, and then have to fix or improve some stuff within the first year to keep it). And believe me, AZA zoos can and do have problems too - look at the embezzlement conducted by the previous leadership at Columbus, or the sexual assault and conduct issues with the Director at Henry Vilas. They're just less often covered in ways that are visible to the public.
Accreditation is a good indicator what a zoo intends to be, and what animal care / conservation ethos it participates in. It isn't, however, always a guarantee that the facility is good or that the animal care (or staff welfare!) is better than at an unaccredited or alternately-accredited place.
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todaysbat · 2 months
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Palm Oil
The demand for Palm Oil in products has led to massive deforestation in Sumatra, Borneo and other Southeast Asian countries, leading to habitat loss for many species, ranging from tigers to numerous species of bat.
So what? You ask. It isn't like there's anything I can do about it.
Well, guess what, there is something you can do, and it doesn't involve a boycott.
Just look for this label on products containing palm oil:
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image description: the RSPO certified symbol with a green palm and the words 'Certified sustainable palm oil' in black and 'RSPO' in orange around it
This symbol indicates that the palm oil used meets the sustainability standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
Further Reading:
RSPO website: https://rspo.org/
Get involved as an Individual | RSPO: https://rspo.org/as-an-individual/
RSPO ScanApp (France only): https://rsposcanapp.com/
Products with RSPO Label | RSPO: https://rspo.org/as-an-organisation/our-trademark/products-with-rspo-label/
Palm Oil Scorecard | World Wildlife Fund: https://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/#/home
PalmOil Scan | Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and World Association of Zoos and Aquariums: https://www.waza.org/news/waza-palm-oil-scan-app/
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*Sheila and Sharon take the boys to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Stan is very upset about Quarters for Conservation.*
Stan: It’s not fair man! Those poor fatass toads don’t have hardly any tokens, but the tigers and leopards have loads!!! Kyle: Dude, you do know those tokens don’t actually do anything, right? They use the money we paid for the tokens to donate. Stan: If they didn’t use the tokens to determine what animal to donate to, then why would they give them to us?!? Kyle: Stan, please tell me with a straight face why you think one of the leading wildlife conservation agencies of the world is putting the fate of endangered animals into the hands of toddlers who decide which slots to put tokens in purely based on which animal is the fluffiest. Stan: … Stan: But why do they give us the tokens though
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strawbsybunny · 8 months
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I really wish I was in or around colorado springs so I could go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo skunk meet and greet !!!!
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incognito-princess · 10 months
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Did I just climb 934 feet up a mountain to the Will Roger's Shrine of the Sun in the rain to an elevation of 7,649 feet tonight? Yes I did. Did I think I would die at some points. Also yes.
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leavinghere · 2 years
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february 2, 2021
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taavicleric · 24 days
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With American Spring Break coming up, be aware that as of March 3, 2024, the zoos are victims of a widespread scam right now where people are offering ridiculously cheap zoo tickets and stealing your credit card details instead.
Bypasses the zoo entirely, of course, so check their websites directly and contact to confirm if you're uncertain about whether a "discount," is legit or not. I heard about it from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's website. Go there to read more.
Fraud, like everything else is rampant right now. Be careful with yourselves.
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liontalon1 · 8 months
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Ok since my last one of these suddenly got a lot of traffic and it’s a Wednesday, welcome back to IUCN Wednesday!
This was supposed to be about blue whales but some new information just came out which swayed me to these fluff balls
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(Image description: An Amur leopard standing in the snow looking towards the camera)
The critically endangered Amur leopard, a fluffy and rare subspecies of leopard found in China and Russia. Their scientific name is Panthera pardus orientalis. They weight between 70 and 105 pounds and live between 10-15 years in the wild and 20 in captivity.
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(Image description: side view of an Amur leopard walking along a log in a snowy forest)
These powerful cats take down prey three times their size, namely preying on boar and deer. Like their cousins, they often hide their kills in trees to return later.
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(Image description: Current range map of Amur leopards, showing the extinct range stretching from Korea into China and eastern Russia, with a small area on the China/Russia border along the coast showing their extant range)
Unfortunately, life hasn’t been kind to these cats, severe habitat destruction and degradation had their extant range and population plummet. In the early 2000s there was only an estimated 30 individuals left in the wild.
While the wild population has increased to an estimated 100 individuals in recent years (180 in captivity) due to conservation efforts, they are still suffering due to climate change shrinking suitable habitat. Plus inbreeding, disease, and genetic bottleneck from the small population size.
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(Image description: two amur leopard cub with their mouths open looking towards the camera)
Not all hope is lost however, these two angry fluff balls were born in May at Cheyenne mountain zoo and they make up two percent of the wild population. They are vitally important genetically, and are doing extremely well. Today it was just announced that they are both males, i highly recommended checking out cmz YouTube for adorable videos.
Conservation efforts are continuing, both in their native habitat and throughout the world to boost genetic diversity and population numbers. So if you want to help the widely known rarest big cat on earth, maybe check out your local (aza accredited/participating in the species survival program) zoo.
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