I have a wildlife zoo-Chapter 645 - 644: Perfecting the Local Exhibit Area

The gibbon's first live stream collaboration ended successfully!

Wanting my cousin to move with the serenades for over ten miles wasn't something that could be resolved with just one call.

It's like online dating for humans; going from online to meeting in person usually takes at least a few months. You can't just chat once and then fly over there.

The plan now was to let the two gibbons slowly simmer in their telephonic conversations, nurturing their bond.

Meanwhile, Fang Ye began to get busy with other matters.

August 22 is Cloud's birthday!

He prepared to have a panda birthday party. Since Zhuangzhuang's birthday is in September, it would be too much trouble to celebrate twice, so he decided to combine the two.

After all, animals don't understand what a birthday is; as long as there's something to eat, they're fine.

Zhuangzhuang: ?????

For other animals' birthdays, a birthday cake is generally sufficient, like for Jiaojiao's birthday, Fang Ye brought a meat cake made from a pork roll and chicken legs.

Pandas, as a flagship species and a national treasure, attract a lot of attention and that's why birthdays are celebrated specially for them.

Of course, it wasn't just about celebrating a birthday. Like other zoo festivities, it can attract visitors to the zoo for fun and conduct some related educational activities, so that guests can learn while being entertained, raising their awareness of conservation.

Just in time for September when the kids are about to start school, they could have one last blast at the zoo before classes.

At the zoo's main gate, on the plaza, some panda balloons would be set up to enhance the festive atmosphere.

The pandas' cake would be made of bamboo, with bamboo tubes arranged to form the shape of a cake, which could be stacked three layers high for a more impressive display.

Fresh tender bamboo leaves inserted into the bamboo tubes, accompanied by fruits like watermelon and apples, would make for a delicious and luxurious cake.

There would also be cream cakes for humans to enjoy. After happily singing the birthday song together, everyone would share the cake with the pandas, layering happiness upon happiness, resulting in even greater joy.

Then there was the prize quiz, a staple activity at Linhai Zoo for every festival, with this occasion's questions naturally being about pandas. The prizes included panda-related plushies, stickers, shirts, badges, and other souvenirs.

Panda souvenirs were already very popular, typically selling out the fastest, so there was no doubt that participation in this event would be very enthusiastic!

The grand prize was an oversized panda plushie, two meters tall; winning this would allow someone to experience what it feels like to sleep with a panda in their arms.

At first, they thought about having the panda exhibit's tour guides dress up in panda costumes to give the kids more fun, but they decided against it in the end.

Just responding to the kids' curious questions was tiring enough, wearing a panda costume would be too much.

Besides the panda birthday party, there was also the construction of the rural life exhibit.

Fang Ye pondered how to make the rural exhibit look more natural, to give it more of a rural feel.

After some thought, the core of the exhibit would be a small farmhouse courtyard set against the background of a traditional rural kitchen stove.

A big stove with a round wooden lid on top, where firewood could be placed in the space below.

A bamboo sieve hung on the wall, old brooms, pickling jars, and chipped bowls placed in the corners as props. Smoke-stained, blackened walls with a portrait of the Kitchen God—a harbinger of good deeds to heaven and auspiciousness to earth—immediately evoked memories of rural life.

In such an environment, it's common to find a beauty rat snake raised, a non-venomous snake that is frequently seen.

It may hide by the stove or between the crevices of the vegetable cellar and the wall, requiring some effort to locate.

Because leftover food often attracts rats and the residual warmth of the firewood can promote the snake's metabolism, the presence of beauty rat snakes is common in rural firewood stacks. Entering the pile is a way for them to keep warm.

Raising a beauty rat snake in such an environment adds a rich, rustic atmosphere!

We hope that a life-like exhibit environment can help visitors overcome their fear of snakes and spark reflection.

How should humans and animals coexist in the same space? Should we be afraid when we see a snake? What is the proper way to react, or should we kill it without a second thought?

In front lies a vast stretch of farmland, followed by a small rural courtyard, past corridors drooping with vines and various vegetables, one might catch an inadvertent glimpse of a porcupine transporting food.

Arriving at the storage room for grain, one sees bundles of straw neatly stacked, seemingly ready to feed cattle and sheep.

Foxes can be seen peeking and frolicking between the granaries, occasionally leaping onto high walls and vanishing in a flash.

Next, there are wild boars emerging from the small woods behind the hill, rolling in the mud pits, their bodies covered in mud, and otters playing by the brooks and ponds.

By integrating the exhibit with the rural courtyard and the surrounding hills and streams, we create a cohesive environment.

New novel 𝓬hapters are published on freёwebnoѵel.com.

Another focus is the otter exhibit.

To make the exterior of the exhibit look more natural, one has to go through an underground passage to view the underwater scene.

There are three species of otters in our country: the small-clawed otter, the Eurasian otter, and the smooth-coated otter!

Otters once had a very wide distribution in our country, and could be seen wherever there was water.

However, around the 1950s, they were heavily hunted commercially, with tens of thousands of otter pelts exported each year, leading to a crisis of extinction. They are now very difficult to come by.

Even after the establishment of the Wildlife Protection Law, which placed otters under second-class protection, it couldn't save their fate, as their population continued to decline.

There has been no news of the smooth-coated otter for decades; it may already be extinct.

Aside from the stable populations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Eurasian otter has disappeared completely in many provinces. A few eastern and southern provinces still have sparse populations, but overall numbers have dropped by 80%-90%, nearly reaching extinction. The small-clawed otter is only recorded in conservation areas such as Yunnan.

The infrared cameras previously set up in the wild captured the figure of the Eurasian otter.

However, the otters introduced to the exhibit are the small-clawed otters.

This is because the Eurasian otters are mostly solitary and deeply nocturnal creatures that are only active at night and hide during the day. They are not ideal exhibition animals.

Most zoos in our country keep small-clawed otters. They are sociable animals that move in groups and have a good ornamental value. It's very rare to see a zoo keeping Eurasian otters.

It's permissible to use a substitute species, like how zoos keep the blue peafowl and also introduce the green peafowl.

As part of the rural exhibit, it's necessary to explain the full context to the visitors.

Are there really wild otters in Linhai? What kind of otter? Where do they live, how many are there, is their population increasing or decreasing, or have they already disappeared? Since we have Eurasian otters here, why are we keeping small-clawed otters?

Telling visitors the history and current state of local animals, and that the future of these animals rests in the hands of our own generation, is the key to properly managing the storyline of native animals.