Ever wanted to build a world-class exhibit for your pet Asian Sloth Bear in your backyard or living room but didn't know where to start? What kind of furniture do sloth bears prefer? How do they feel about toile? Can you feed them chocolate? Well now your problems are solved, thanks to ZooLex!
ZooLex is a service of the World Zoo and Aquarium Association (WAZA), and includes a small but growing collection of design specs and industry resources for folks in the zoo exhibit planning business. As you might imagine, every last detail needs to be mapped out, from safety, cleaning and feeding to things like temperature, plant material, lighting, conservation, research opportunities and whether or not to include a water slide (answer is always YES!).
Below we have included some of the details for a Asian Small-Clawed Otter exhibit at the National Zoological Park (Smithsonian) in DC.
Demanding tenants.
The Asian Small-Clawed Otters were thrilled to discover that they were located next to the Giant Pandas, until they found out what the property taxes were like... In it's entirety, the Asia Trail space cost $53 million.
If you have ever had a fish tank, you are 90% of the way to creating your own otter exhibit! Building Asia Trail included the work of eleven different construction firms.
Behind the scenes, the otters retire to their preferred lounge area of boards and concrete... Outdoors, the Asia Trail exhibits include 25,000 carefully selected plants.
Otters taste best when cooked at 350 degrees rotating every 15 minutes.
For many other cool exhibits and some questionable English (the organization is based in Vienna), check out the ZooLex gallery.
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Comments
Heck with these otters, I wanna see me some sloth bears!
Posted by: Zelly | February 27, 2008 3:22 PM