Keep the National Zoo's Invertebrate House Open!
- Thread starter Acro
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Sadly there appears to be very little outrage that the zoo spent 1.5 million putting in a carousel and just revamped the koala and elephant exhibits for 105 million but gets rid of hundreds of species claiming it can't afford to keep them at the cost of 1 million a year. People in the US just don't like "bugs" and that includes most zoo directors.
PlayingMantis
Well-known member
Wow, that is sad to hear! Even though I live ~20 miles from the National Zoo, I haven't been there in years. I wish I could've visited before they closed down the invert house.
On a related note, I visited the O. Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History a few months ago. The "insect zoo" wasn't very big at all, with a whopping number of exactly 1 mantis (an adult female D. dessicata). I hung around for a little while, and while there were a lot of people observing the displays with interest, most of them were kids. I feel there's a cultural thing - once you get to be a certain age, it's not "cool" to like bugs.
On a related note, I visited the O. Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History a few months ago. The "insect zoo" wasn't very big at all, with a whopping number of exactly 1 mantis (an adult female D. dessicata). I hung around for a little while, and while there were a lot of people observing the displays with interest, most of them were kids. I feel there's a cultural thing - once you get to be a certain age, it's not "cool" to like bugs.
mantiseater
Well-known member
when I went to the O. Orkin Insect Zoo they had an adult female D. lobata and a medium sized orchid mantis nymph.Wow, that is sad to hear! Even though I live ~20 miles from the National Zoo, I haven't been there in years. I wish I could've visited before they closed down the invert house.
On a related note, I visited the O. Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History a few months ago. The "insect zoo" wasn't very big at all, with a whopping number of exactly 1 mantis (an adult female D. dessicata). I hung around for a little while, and while there were a lot of people observing the displays with interest, most of them were kids. I feel there's a cultural thing - once you get to be a certain age, it's not "cool" to like bugs.
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aNisip
Well-known member
In addition to this. Just simply, more people would rather go to a zoo to see the Pandas and Polar Bears and Monkeys eating their own feces. Its all about the money, and that is the sad, true fact
When I went to Berlin and visited the Berlin Zoo, in addition to some great Phasmids and Tarantulas, they had a "colony" of adult Sphodromantis sp., Phyllocrania paradoxa, and a lone Deroplatys desiccata adult female. And im assuming a larger group behind the scenes, probably some for breeding, because they had little information placards of a few other species.
