Punish Guest 677 for blasphemy against Armok!
I would have, but Guest 677 left the zoo already.
Into the ocean
May-November, Year TwoThe Boatmurdered Zoo's second year began with a chaotic series of explosions. While the zoo was closed for the night, the neighborhood was suddenly awoken by a cacophony of animal cries and the sound of cracking earth and shattering concrete. Onlookers soon discovered that the zoo was now the site of several new volcanoes and underground lava flows. Miraculously, nothing was hurt despite the damage and the rising cones. Lava freely bled from the new formations, but the zoo quickly adjusted its architecture to safely contain the flows. Speculation quickly arose as to just what Marsh & Sons had been doing here before the arrests.
I've adjusted the admission price per Naturegirl and Kilojoule Proton's suggestion, and the guests quickly expressed their approval.
Per Kilojouleproton and Mightymushroom's suggestions, I began working on moving our mountain lion to a new enclosure and using the old space for barracudas. I got a slightly improved copy of the original exhibit built, but then our mountain lion died of old age the moment it was complete. I wasn't sure if you all wanted another mountain lion or something else, so I've left the cage empty for now. Just to be clear, while this is a small map, we do have a lot of currently unused space. I can easily carve the cliffs down to ground level to make more room if need be. I'd estimate it would cost about $30,000 to get rid of them completely, though I think we'd probably prefer not to do that.
We then got the barracuda tank done fairly easily, since it was a small tank and barracudas are fairly cheap. It's hard to see them when they aren't moving, but there's three of them in there at the moment.
Once our first tank was done, I began preparing for the Velociraptors and AT-STs. The Velociraptors require research, so I funded the Genetic Research line. We also needed a new zookeeper and marine specialist, so those have been hired. In the process of unlocking the Velociraptor, we also unlocked Coelophysis, Plesiosaurus, Kentrosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Apatosaurus. While waiting, I bought another Asian elephant, thus finishing our elephant collection.
I've trimmed back the cliffs on our northeast corner to make more room. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the look of our pit too much.
By early August, we unlocked Velociraptor. Since it was the second to last animal on Genetic Research, I went ahead and funded it a bit more to unlock the T. rex. Ssarscel's been a bit overworked lately with walking back and forth across the zoo to take care of both our prehistoric exhibits, so I hired a new scientist. AT-STs and Velociraptors both like coniferous forests in this game, so I'm adding the Velociraptors first. Once I know the Velociraptors are satisfied with their enclosure, I can see if we can combine them.
The Raptor Walker pen, under construction.
While I was building the enclosure, our marine specialist decided to wander in and look around for some reason.
On October 1st, $18,000 worth of donations allowed us to create our first real dinosaurs. Unlike almost everything else, dinosaurs are born as eggs that need to be monitored by a scientist. For the sake of efficiency, I assigned Ssarscel to take care of our Velociraptor eggs and South American creatures while the new scientist was assigned to the mammoths.
Not long after that, they hatched.
I helped the Velociraptors settle in, and then carefully added the walkers. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that yes, AT-STs and Velociraptors do make friendly neighbors.
The Velociraptors are particularly hard to see for now, but they'll soon grow into their full Jurassic Park size. Uniquely, this is our only enclosure that requires two keepers to manage. Ssarscel takes care of the raptors, while a zookeeper is assigned to the walkers.
Next time, unless there are any objections, I'd like to expand the original savanna enclosure and experiment with adding more animals. There's been interest in doing that for a while, and I think we can fit a good few more animals in there. I also think we need more entertainment buildings, so I'll work on those.
We could also use more work for our new scientist and marine specialist, so maybe we should add more prehistoric animals and fish.
A rare sighting of a giant ground sloth walking on its hind legs, dwarfing a Macrauchenia.