The African Buffalo

The African Buffalo, not necessarily one of the cutest of the animals found in our game But never the less still a remarkable creature! A part of the “Big Five” group of animals which included the elephant, rhino, lion and leopard, it was once a popular trophy for hunters but if left alone they are usually placid.

Location: Africa
Diet: herbivore
Lifespan: 20 years
Interesting fact: Female African buffalo tend to stay in herds, but the male African buffalo are solitary creatures.

We found some footage of the buffalo at San Diego’s Safari park, the tour guide does sound incredibly familiar. He sounds like Rowlf the dog from the Muppets! Check out the video of the African buffalo with the tour guide and then immediately check out the Rowlf the dog song below! Perhaps this is Rowlfs day job!

African buffalo tour guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yAJUB9yPf8

Rowlf's sing along:

The Black Bear

We’re focusing on the Black Bear. Bears have been consistent childhood allies, from teddy bears to even becoming successful children’s programmes including Winnie the pooh. There are even several songs and stories that we tell children about bears. While they can be dangerous animals, there is a certain charm to them that makes them very interesting.

Location: America
Lifespan: 20 years in the wild
Diet: Omnivore
Interesting fact: During the winter months, the black bear spends the season dormant in their dens feeding on body fat they have built up while eating during the summer… However female black bears give birth to two or three blind cubs that will stay in the den until spring arrives.  They will stay with their mother for two years

One of the features of Zoo Park: Run your own animal sanctuary is to create suitable habitats for animals in need and rehabilitate them back into the wild. We’ve found this really great video of a local man who has rescued a black bear cub. While perhaps not the best household animal (even though the cub looks adorable), they are planning to rehabilitate them back into the wild.

The Ostrich

We’re onto our second week of the Animal A Day feature! Today we celebrate the world’s largest bird, the ostrich. While they are flightless, they are incredibly fast runners and can sprint up to 43 miles per hour!

Location: Africa
Lifespan: 30 – 40 years in the Wild
Diet: Omnivore

Interesting fact: This bird can even defend itself against a lion! Its legs are so powerful that a swift kick can kill potential predators

Click the link below for an interesting video that shows an ostrich performing a spectacular mating dance. Love the commentary!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Km2JyhW_g

The Emperor Penguin

We head to the arctic temperatures to meet today’s Animal a Day! The Emperor Penguin is one of the team’s favourite wildlife animals (as we’ve mentioned previously on this blog). Facing intense conditions, it’s truly magnificent to see these emperor penguins thrive!

Location: Antarctica
Lifespan: 15 to 20 years in the wild.
Diet: Carnivore
Interesting fact: Emperor penguins spend long winters on open ice, when the females need to travel to undertake hunting trips, sometimes they may need to travel 50 miles before they reach Open Ocean.

Earlier when writing this blog I mentioned a series called Penguins: spy in the huddle, unfortunately we started the blog a little late so wasn’t able to keep up with coverage of it, however you can view a brief clip here of the series. If you get a chance, do watch it, it’s very interesting

The Giraffe

Onwards to Day three of our Animal a Day feature and let’s bring out the giraffes! They are the world’s tallest mammals but because of their size they do need to travel great distances to maintain their diet. The below image is from one of the in game menus showing off the baby version of the Giraffe

Location: Africa
Lifespan: 25 years in the wild
Diet: Herbivore
Interesting fact: The giraffes spots are much like a snowflake, no two are ever exactly the same.  However giraffes from the same area do appear similar.

Here’s a video from Cincinnati Zoo that shows baby Giraffe Lulu stepping outside for the first time. At just two weeks old, it’s impressive how comfortable Lulu is in her new surroundings.

When Zoo Park launches in May your animals will also breed to have babies! 

The Lion

Today’s Animal a Day feature returns to one of the more well-known species, the lion. Despite the global thought of the lion being king of the jungle we've not seen any paperwork or royal jewellery to back these claims, but what can be said about the Lion is that it is a stunning big cat that can also be incredibly dangerous.

Location: Africa
Lifespan: 15 years in the wild, but can reach up to 30 years old while in zoos.
Protection status: Vulnerable
Diet: Carnivore
Interesting fact:  Lion cubs won’t begin their first hunt until they reach one year old.

We’ve stumbled across this popular video of a lioness interacting with a baby at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Of course, intentions of the lioness were not clear! One of the people working at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo however did say that the lioness was showing traits of playfulness and curiosity though. Anyway, when protecting a species like the lion you need to make sure that you have the right habitat fence type for them. In Zoo Park, each animal prefers a certain type of fence type. 

The Tree Kangaroo

Welcome to a new daily feature on this blog where we’ll show you an animal a day that is in our upcoming game, Zoo Park: Run Your Own Animal Sanctuary. Until the 3^rd of May release visit back each day during the week and we should have some great animal goodness for you to take a look at!

Today we wanted to share one of the animal species we discovered after starting development on the game. Of course we all know lions, pandas and those lovable meerkats (After a series of popular adverts!) but the tree kangaroo was one of those creatures that just sounded extremely odd. We’re glad to have discovered it, check out the video below for an adorable video of A tree kangaroo mother and it’s new-born in Saint Louis Zoo

Below is a piece of in game art from one of the guys on the team. Each animal will have three versions of this artwork representing the male, female and baby versions of each animal.

Location: Rainforests of Australia West Papua and Papua new Guiney
Lifespan: 20 years
Protection status: Endangered
Diet: herbivore
Interesting fact: The Tree kangaroo can fall 60 feet from trees to the ground without being hurt.

Check out Woodland Park Zoo’s Website to see more info on the tree kangaroo at: http://www.zoo.org/page.aspx?pid=1909#.UUgifhy-18E

Zoo park Preview/ Infomercial

Zoo Park is rapidly approaching release and we've still got dozens of things to be working on, it's times like these that we'd wish we had the speed of a cheetah to tackle everything in seconds! We've got a very special video today from one of the guys who are working on the game. You can see Zoo Park in much greater detail, letting you see some of the key features of the game in action. 

From now until the 3rd of May, this blog will be updated each weekday to reveal all the animals you can find inside the game when it launches. So visit the blog tomorrow to start the countdown!

We Bought A Zoo - Tonight on Sky Premiere

If you have Sky Premiere there’s an exciting new film premiering tonight called “We Bought A Zoo”. It features Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson. You can check out the trailer below.

Based on a True story, it tells the tale of a father who after the death of his wife moves with his kids to the Californian hills where their property is attached to a financially struggling zoo. Of course all manner of mischief then ensues but let’s not reveal any more than that for those who are looking to watch it.

It’s on at 2:00PM (Premiere & Premiere HD), today but if you miss that don’t worry, thanks to the wonder of sky premieres scheduling it’s also on at 3:00PM (Premiere +1), 8:00PM (Premiere & Premier HD) & 9:00PM (Premiere +1).

When you begin your career in our game Zoo Park: Run Your Own Animal Sanctuary, you’ll feel the pressure of financial uncertainty, so perhaps this film could even give you some pointers as to how to run your zoo more effectively.

Animal News: Finding the Penguins

I've always suspected that finding an animal in its natural habitat is one of the greatest things you can ever see. Most of us will never truly experience that type of spectacle without the help of documentaries. One of the most interesting pieces of animal news I've read this week was when a team of researchers was able to use satellite imagery to locate one of the largest colonies of Emperor Penguins.

What made this story even more unique was the way in which the researchers were able to spot them, the penguins themselves were very difficult to spot in the images but their excrement was visible. It’s great to see that the Penguins are thriving, however, it sounds like they've made a horrifying mess!

When Zoo Park launches in May, Emperor Penguins are in the game and can even make their own mess, but of course you can hire keepers to clean it. The penguins in Antarctica aren't so lucky! Here's a brand new screenshot from our upcoming game Zoo park, showing our Penguins habitat.

News from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130118-emperor-penguin-antarctic-climate-change-animals-science/

Zoo Park - Conservation

We’ve not really spoken a great deal about ‘Zoo Park: Run Your Own Animal Sanctuary’ on this blog yet. But trust me, I am dying to share some information about the game and when I get the go ahead, I’ll be rushing to update you all.

One of the things I’d like to talk about in a bit more detail is a core gameplay mechanic which we feel really makes a great deal of difference to the title. We really wanted to pursue a conservation route for this game which will let players care for their animals in an interesting way and so we’ve introduced rehabilitation into the game.

There are several options to choose from when looking after each individual animal (which we’ll go into more detail soon).  One of them is to prepare your animal for rehabilitation so that it can be sent back into the wild. Of course, there are reasons for doing this. You’ll get a handsome donation to keep your sanctuary ticking along and you’ll also free up some space in your zoo park which will let you care for more animals. 

It may sound relatively easy in theory but there are certain requirements that you need to meet to complete the rehabilitation process including keeping the animal happy and healthy and also utilising your research centres to their fullest. Once again, in more detail soon! 

As you progress you’ll even come across missions of urgency which will ask for your help in securing a new animal which is in need of your sanctuary because of dire circumstances. It will be your job to construct a suitable habitat in time for this new arrival. Of course, you can say no to the offer if you are too busy but you’ll receive a great amount of rewards for success.


I’ll be looking to share more details about Zoo Park each week. If there are any questions that you’d like to ask us about the game, we’ll do everything we can to answer them.

This Week's Animal TV Update

One of the things that you can guarantee will make an appearance on the telly every week is documentaries on the animal kingdom. Over the past few weeks we had been watching ‘Penguins: Spy in the huddle’ where there have been some truly stunning footage captured with some amazing robo penguin technology. What we would give to own our very own robo penguin!

One of the features we’d like to introduce in this blog is a look at this weeks most anticipated wildlife programmes. So, for this week here are our picks for each day!

Monday:

Title: Elephant orphanage
Time: 6PM
Channel: Eden/ Eden HD
Synopsis: A documentary series following a Kenyan animal sanctuary that rescues baby elephants who have been orphaned due to poaching.

Tuesday

Title: Monkey life
Time: 7PM
Channel: Channel 5/ Channel 5HD
Synopsis:  follows the staff and residents at a monkey/ ape rescue centre in Dorset that is home to 160 rescued primates.

Wednesday

Title: The Zoo
Time: 9:00PM
Channel: ITV 3
Synopsis: An insight into the daily life for the staff and animals at London Zoo in Regent’s Park and its country home at Whipsnade.

Thursday

Title: Wild down under
Time: 6PM
Channel: Eden/ Eden HD
Synopsis: A historic look at the unique wildlife of Australia.

Friday

Why don’t we leave this open for discussion? If you have any documentaries of interest for Friday and over the weekend that you can recommend us to watch, leave a comment

If you watch any of these documentaries share your thoughts on this blog, also, if there’s something amazing you think we've missed tell us! 

The Announcement Trailer

Just a quick update! We announced Zoo Park: Run Your Own Animal Sanctuary officially a couple of weeks ago. If you've yet to see any game play footage, we do have a trailer that you might want to take a look at.

We are planning to share more news very soon. If you have any questions about the game, leave them in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer them.