Tag Archives: zoos

March 24, 2010 · 11:25 AM

“Crocodarium” Planned for Las Vegas

Yesterday, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, speaking at the Las Vegas Perspective annual business event at the Four Seasons, vowed he will lure Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s family to Las Vegas, building what Goodman called a “crocodarium.” 

Goodman said the Irwin family is currently in active talks with Las Vegas to re-fashion the Cashman Center and Cashman Field Complex, home to many trade shows and the Las Vegas 51s minor league baseball team, turning it into a huge, full-fledged zoo emphasizing Australian animals. 

Goodman added that the Cashman Center could relocate to newer convention facilities, such as the new 30,000-square-foot MEET venue, which opened last week in downtown Las Vegas at Fourth Street and Bridger Avenue. {Previously reported by Las Vegas Backstage Access.}  

Las Vegas, Goodman added, would also relocate the 51s minor league baseball facility, which sorely needs an upgrade. 

Ex-mob lawyer Goodman, apparently loving all things not just scaly, but furry with four legs as well, is also currently working with the Las Vegas Zoo officials, helping them to bring a new baboon exhibit, among others, that will soon open and much other needed facelifts to the otherwise droopy facility, thanks, in part, to ongoing aid from the San Diego Zoo.

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November 5, 2009 · 9:30 AM

Las Vegas Extreme Makeover: Ape Edition

Apes everywhere are likely celebrating their new digs planned for Las Vegas.  Reportedly, there will be an ape exhibit containing six apes in a new Las Vegas habitat in the next few months. ape

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is also probably going Ape Ga-Ga (vs. Lady Gaga, who is also coming to Las Vegas shortly) over the announcement- highly endangered apes are his favorite animals. 

Representatives from the San Diego Zoo were in Las Vegas last week at the Las Vegas Zoo and announced a donation of $15,000 for the improvement of the ape and desert tortoise exhibits.  

Zoo officials are asking the public for donations to help build the new exhibit, which will provide a more natural-looking habitat for the animals.  Each will cost $50,000.

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October 20, 2009 · 9:08 AM

Las Vegas Mayor Fights for New Zoo– and Crocs!

Some say it’s already a 24×7 zoo wherever you look in Las Vegas, but that’s apparently not enough to satisfy Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who is now trying to get Las Vegas a brand new zoo- and – are you sitting down? – some croc’ wrestling!

The project reportedly would be run by the family of the late Steve Irwin. Irwin, you may recall, is the famed crocodile hunter who tragically died three years ago after being hit in the chest by a stingray’s barb while he was snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

The Irwin family runs the Australia Zoo in Queensland and recently met with Mayor Goodman about opening a similar operation in Downtown Las Vegas, blighted by one failed business after another.

“It looks like a great project with a crocodile-type enclosure where they would wrestle with the crocodiles and feed the crocodiles and have a real educational component to it and we’re going to continue those discussions,” said a jubilant Mayor Goodman.

The discussions may include another facility that you might not typically speak of in the same breath as crocodile wrestling.

Goodman also met recently with a group interested in building a children’s hospital in Downtown Las Vegas.

“I’m trying to marry the two of them together because I think it would be great to have the crocodile zoo, so to speak, next to a children’s hospital where children have to be cheered up and have a bright outlook and I thought the two of them could be together on a piece of property that the city owns,” said Mayor Goodman.

Whether Las Vegas would sell or lease the land to the Irwin group is still unknown. The city is waiting for a proposal. But one thing they do know is that it would be very different from the controversial Las Vegas Zoo that’s recently come under fire from the Humane Society of the United States after a Contact 13 hidden camera investigation on animal cruelty.

“The zoo would be a limited zoo. It’s an Australian zoo. We’re not gonna have lions and tigers and giraffes and all the things that Darcy Spears [Las Vegas news reporter]  would want to have an investigative report about. We’re just going to have wombats and platypuses and koalas and crocodiles. I’m a big crocodile fan. I love crocodiles. So it’s my kind of zoo,” said Mayor Goodman.

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October 1, 2009 · 9:36 AM

San Diego Zoo Helps Las Vegas Desert Tortoises

The San Diego Zoo is showing off work it is doing at a Las Vegas center to help repopulate an endangered species of desert tortoise. The zoo took over the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center in rural Clark County in Nevada in March. deserttortoise

Since then, business has apparently been booming– they have hired five full-time and five seasonal employees. 

The zoo plans to study, breed and raise tortoises, train new researchers and educate the public. 

The facility was established in 1990 on more than 11,000 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took it over in 2007. 

It takes in about 1,000 tortoises abandoned as pets or found injured in the wild each year. Up to 4,000 tortoises already live there.

Since it opened, the center has released 8,000 tortoises into the wild.

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August 2, 2009 · 7:20 AM

Tiger Roams Footloose & Fancy Free in Las Vegas

A tiger was found wandering around aimlessly in a backyard in a far northwest Las Vegas neighborhood last Thursday evening.   Weighing in at more than 400 pounds, “Picasso,” a white tiger, is apparently just another part of the magic show for the Fercos Brother’s Untamed Illusions.   

“He’s probably the best tiger in the world,” said Tony Fercos. 

But Thursday evening it was the bright lights of Metro Police that lit up the night’s sky near the magician’s property after a caller reported a tiger on the loose. “I am really concerned about all the kids in the neighborhood. That’s what I am concerned about,” said a neighbor. 

The owners eventually cornered it and took it back to its cage. The owner’s are part of a magic show that tour the world and they say the escape was one big accident. 

Fercos says he was walking the tiger as part it’s recovery from a recent surgery. “He saw the rabbit jumping and he started to run after the rabbit. I fell and I lost the leash,” he said. 

Code enforcement wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the investigation by Las Vegas Animal Control, but they did say the family does have all the necessary paperwork to house exotic animals. “This incident has been taken care of at this point and we are fairly sure that it’s going to be resolved,” said Joe Boteilho with Clark County Code Enforcement. 

Some residents are ok with the neighbors from the animal kingdom. “They are pinned up and things like that happened. They seem pretty tamed,” said neighbor Mike Truxel. 

Others still remain hesitant. “I kind of want them to have control of their animals at all times,” said a neighbor. 

Fercos says walking his big cat alone at night is one mistake he won’t make again anytime soon. “We are going to keep them only in the perimeter fence. I got my lesson,” he said. 

Fercos says he will have to continue walking Picasso regularly as part of the tiger’s recovery, but he is assuring neighbors it will only happen behind the gates of his home.

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