I have a wildlife zoo

Chapter 119 Xiaowen's Melancholy

Meetings were held to exchange discussions on animal conditions, enrichment plans, visitor feedback, and other matters.

One thing that deeply frustrated Fang Ye was that the system store had sold plushies at a loss!

A very conscientious visitor suggested that, being familiar with toys, selling palm-sized ones for 30 or 40 was no issue, but a well-crafted animal plushie the size of a pillow usually sold for 80 or 90, and that was considered a discounted price.

In a zoo, palm-sized ones could go for 50 or 60, and pillow-sized ones could fetch 150. He advised the zoo not to be so affordable and to make more money.

Fang Ye's plushie pricing was based on prices found on Taobao, feeling like making money without investment was already a good deal!

Little did he expect that the toy industry was such a profitable one.

Ah, such a loss! Why had no visitor told him before.

However, he didn't plan to set the prices too high. Since the discounted price for a medium-sized plushie was 80 or 90, he would settle for 100. The ones sold cheaply before could be considered a benefit for early visitors.

After the animal keepers left, he continued to communicate with several educational department staff, discussing issues with the creation of zoo educational content and information signage.

While animal keepers participated in creating the signage, they merely took photos to provide materials. The content was developed by the educational department.

This expansion of the zoo brought in a large number of new animals, and educational signage needed to be created for them. The volume of content for the signs was immense, and it was clear that he couldn't handle it alone.

With the help of educational staff, including Lan Li's assistance in collecting information, creating the content for the signs became a lot easier.

In fact, most of the zoo's signs were reused from the old zoo. However, as time passed, some signs may have become outdated, lacking comprehensive information and problematic in their presentation.

For example, starting with "Also known as: Nine-section Wolf, Gold Dog" for the red panda can confuse visitors as to whether it's a panda, a wolf, or a dog. They're left even more bewildered after reading.

Then there's the peafowl. Despite having blue peafowl, the sign spent only a sentence or two on them, focusing most of its content on educating about green peafowl.

Even though the green peafowl is rarer and worth introducing, it's important to clarify the blue peafowl first, then transition to explaining the differences between the two.

"Reports often state that peafowl are a first-class protected animal in China, but this refers not to blue peafowl but to the native green peafowl..."

Such flow makes the logic smoother, corrects the visitors' misconceptions about blue and green peafowl, and gives proper significance to the blue peafowl.

The signage inside the pavilion can afford to be richer and more detailed, covering an entire wall, thereby providing more continuity in the storyline and conveying a greater array of conservation education messages.

Outdoor signs, which visitors are less patient with, should be easily discernible at a glance, simplifying lengthy text into concise segments with eye-catching colored backgrounds and large animal photographs, making information easier to be absorbed by the visitors.

Some personalized zoos, besides introducing the species, also highlight individual star animals.

Detailing when a particular animal was born, when it arrived at the zoo, who its parents are, how its name was chosen, such zoos become more endearing, with visitors remembering the individual animals for many years.

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After discussing the creation of the signage with the educational staff, Fang Ye returned to his office to review the enrichment plans, correct documents, and call to check on the progress of staff who went on a business trip to the Giant Panda Base for materials.

He communicated with other zoos to inquire about animal conditions and purchase animals.

A busy morning just flew by.

After resting a bit at noon, Fang Ye went to the parrot enclosure in the afternoon.

The brightly colored and smart macaws were among the most popular attractions in the zoo. At this moment, many visitors were admiring their beautiful postures and trying to greet them and teach the parrots to talk.

"Hello~"

"Have you eaten? What did you eat?"

"This pattern looks just like a Beijing opera face painting."

Xiaowu turned her head to the back, preening her beautiful red neck feathers, showing no interest in entertaining the visitors. Xiaozhi seemed to have a thing for Xiaowu as he moved closer and rubbed his head on hers, "Do you want me to help you preen?"

Xiaowu lifted her head to glance at him, raised her claw, and sidestepped twice, fluffing her feathers, "No need, I can preen myself!"

Xiaozhi was very gentlemanly and did not persist, flapping his wings he flew onto a tire swing. The bicycle tire was light, and with the momentum of his landing, it started to sway back and forth.

Jin Martin was lively and gave off a "gah gah" raspy call, responding to the visitors' greetings.

Although they looked quite similar, each had a differently colored leg band which made it pretty easy for the animal keepers to identify them.

Fang Ye observed that Jingwen indeed appeared lonely, perching alone on a perch, looking morose. She used to be quite outgoing and enjoyed interacting with visitors, but now she was ignoring their greetings.

Jin Martin "gah gah" made a racket for a while then turned to look at Xiaowen, fluttered over, and called out twice, "Beauty, don't be so down, want to come play?"

Xiaozhi and Xiaowu also flew over, seemingly wanting to console her, but Xiaowen remained sullen, stepped off, and walked toward the far end of the perch, as if to say, let me have a moment of peace!

Fang Ye observed for a while then called He Yifei over and asked, "How did it go? Did you prepare premium food for her?"

He Yifei responded gloomily, "It didn't work! The macaws are all too clever, as soon as they saw me calling Jingwen over, they all wanted to fly over to see what I was feeding her. So there was no way to prepare special food for her alone."

Fang Ye looked at the parrots and guessed, "Could it be Xiaowen likes Xiaozhi? Seeing Xiaozhi being so affectionate with Xiaowu, is she jealous?"

He Yifei cautiously said, "I don't think so! The macaws all used to get along well, and none of them ostracized Xiaowen. It just seems like she has been in a bad mood these past few days."

"Okay then."

I have to use my skill now, Eye of Observation!

[Red-and-Green Macaw: Jingwen (Xiaowen)

Mood: Depressed/Sad

Suggestion: Take her outside for a flight in the open air]

Fang Ye immediately understood the reason, it turned out that the enclosure environment was still not great.

Enrichment was not too great but not bad either, the enclosure had shelters, tire swings, rope bridges, sand, and every day they would put in a few bunches of branches with fresh leaves.

What they really yearned for was the wide world outside!

The enclosure was refurbished from the one that used to house the red fox, and although the transparency around the sides was good, the ceiling was still a concrete slab.

For birds, the sky is very important.

Jingwen was a literary macaw and more sensitive at heart than the other parrots. She had been deeply enchanted by the ethereal and serene melody of "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" whistled by visitors, and that made her yearn even more for the vast sky.

And the concrete ceiling made her feel that the sky was so distant, within sight but out of reach, causing her mood to accumulate and gradually become gloomy.

"Ding, a new task has been published!"

The system suddenly popped up a task notification at that moment.

[Task: Fly Toward the Sky

Description: The inability to see the sky directly from the enclosure is causing the parrots' mood to deteriorate. Take them outside for a flight!

Requirement: Take the parrots outdoors for at least half an hour of flying time

Reward: Live broadcast drone ×1]