Chapter 1448 Preliminary Planning for the Zoo

Back home, Pei Qian pulled out his laptop, first doing some quick online research about zoos to gain some basic knowledge, and then began to consider how Tengda’s zoo should be specifically developed.

First of all, it definitely wouldn't be a large zoo, at least not at present.

Many large zoos abroad have requirements for site selection and climate. For example, some tropical countries build tropical zoos, first because the climate is suitable, and secondly because the area is large enough.

But Pei Qian’s idea was to open the zoo near the Thriller Hostel, in the old industrial area of Jingzhou. Strictly speaking, this location was not a good zoo site at all. And Jingzhou's climate itself was not suitable for raising some tropical or cold-region animals.

Of course, it could be done indoors, and the temperature could be adjusted with air conditioning.

But in that case, the construction period and expenses would definitely increase greatly.

Pei Qian didn't mind the high expenses, but the construction period had to be considered, after all, the first phase of this zoo project was for a spending spree, and it had to be completed before the next settlement.

What's more, the larger the zoo's area and the more rare animals it had, the more tourists would naturally come, and the possibility of profit would greatly increase.

In short, the first phase goal of this zoo was: to keep it small and preferably without too many rare animals, while ensuring the construction period. On this basis, he would burn as much money as possible.

If the first step went smoothly, he could try some more challenging things later, such as building large-scale air-conditioned rooms and putting some tropical or cold-region animals in them.

Secondly, the choice of animals had to be carefully considered.

To reduce tourists, he had to arrange fewer rare animals.

Many small zoos themselves were not very interesting, but because there were two giant pandas in the zoo, tourists flocked to them.

And many particularly rare animals transported from other countries would become the zoo's treasures, becoming a reason why most people had to go.

For a zoo, the most precious thing was definitely the animals.

If he wanted to be popular, he had to put effort into the animals.

Therefore, since he didn't want to be popular and wanted to lose money, he couldn't have too many rare animals, at least not at this stage. Even if he wanted rare animals in the future, it had to be after a full assessment, finding that the cost of raising them far outweighed the benefits.

So the question was, if not rare animals, what to raise?

He couldn't just raise horses, cattle, and sheep in the whole zoo, could he? Would that be called a zoo, or a breeding farm?

Pei Qian couldn't do things that others could tell at a glance were seriously wrong.

Therefore, he had to find a balance: while raising some wild animals to fill the space, he should also raise some other common, unremarkable animals as much as possible.

This zoo could also not be called a zoo, but a "Animal Living Center" or something like that.

"What kind of animals are more cost-effective to raise?"

"It's best to be between domestic and precious wild animals, such as servals, arctic foxes, and angora ferrets, all of which can be considered."

Domestic and foreign regulations on raising wild animals were also different. Some people abroad raised wild animals such as cheetahs and pumas, but this was not allowed in China. For example, servals were protected animals in China and could not be raised casually.

Some animals, such as arctic foxes and angora ferrets, could be kept as pets.

But in any case, all animals that could be domesticated were relatively common and not so rare.

Truly rare animals were all protected, how could ordinary people raise them?

So according to this idea, it was more appropriate to raise these animals in the zoo. On the one hand, they were not too rare, so as not to attract tourists from far away to see them; on the other hand, they were indeed genuine wild animals, and it would not seem strange to put them in the zoo, and it would not make people feel that the zoo was actually a cat cafe or a breeding farm.

In short, as a zoo, money could be spent anywhere, except for spending the bulk of it on buying rare wild animals.

So where should the money be spent?

Simple, on venues, food, and personnel!

The first was the venue. Pei Qian had been to many small zoos. Although these zoos themselves occupied a large area, there were too many animals after all. Specifically for each animal, the activity space was not large.

Of course, the activity space for all animals had standards and needed to comply with the *Zoo Design Code*.

Animal exhibition buildings, popular science education buildings, animal support facilities buildings, and so on all had strict requirements for the proportion of land to be occupied. There were also strict requirements for tourist capacity, visitable building area, and recreational green space area.

All zoos definitely met the corresponding regulations.

But these regulations only specified the lower limit, but did not specify the upper limit!

Space was never enough, after all, wild animals were originally wild, running around in the mountains and forests. If they were locked up, no matter how much space was not enough.

So Pei Qian decided that in this new zoo, the area occupied by each animal should be at least 50% more than in other zoos!

Take baboons as an example. The minimum enclosure area was 80 square meters, the fence height was 4 meters, and the basic population was 2 adult individuals. For each additional adult individual, the area of the inner enclosure should be increased by 25% to 50%.

In layman's terms, two baboons would occupy 80 square meters of space, and for each additional one, at least 20 square meters would be added.

But this area was only the lower limit of the enclosure design parameters specified by the state, and it was definitely a bit crowded.

Pei Qian decided to increase this standard by 50% first, that is, 80 square meters would become 120 square meters, and the area of the inner enclosure would also be increased by the maximum of 50% for each additional adult individual!

Of course, he couldn't go too far. If the area was suddenly increased by three or four times, and only two baboons were raised in a 300-square-meter enclosure, it would be a bit too strange. When tourists came, they would not be watching the animals, but looking for the animals, and they would not know where the two baboons had gone.

Pei Qian didn't mind this situation, but if he did too much, the motive would be too obvious, and the system might not agree. And if it was too outrageous, it might cause heated discussions online and accumulate unnecessary popularity for no reason.

The enclosure area should be larger, but not too conspicuous.

The environment in the enclosure definitely had to be the best, that was for sure.

Secondly, the food, which was also in accordance with the highest standards and specifications, there was nothing to say.

With Tan Xinzhang watching, there would never be a situation where animal rations were cut back. Moreover, letting the animals eat better would just make them fatter, and the tourists would not be able to tell anything. This money was spent very discreetly and very worthwhile.

Finally, there were personnel.

The zoo needed a large number of personnel, such as breeders, veterinarians, cleaners, and so on.

These were all necessary supporting facilities for the zoo. The number of animals and the number of breeders and veterinarians needed were almost fixed. Even if Pei Qian wanted to hire more, he couldn't hire too many. Even if he wanted to pay them high wages, there was always a limit.

So, it was a bit difficult to burn more money in this area.

But Pei Qian had other ways, which was to add more service personnel!

Ordinary zoos did not need many service personnel, at most just to point out the way for tourists. The animals were also raised in enclosures, and tourists could just walk past and take a look, without the need for service personnel to guide them.

Pei Qian thought that although the zoo did not have this need, he could create a need!

There was now a kind of "indoor zoo", which mainly raised small animals. And some small animals, such as lizards, snakes, hamsters, owls, angora ferrets, and so on, could be touched directly.

If tourists were allowed to touch these animals, wouldn't there need to be staff to guide them?

Take owls as an example. There were owl cafes abroad, where you could also pet them, but you could only touch the feathers on their heads and could not touch other places randomly.

At that time, staff could be invited to guide tourists, first disinfecting their hands with hand sanitizer, and then touching the owl's head according to the staff's requirements, or wearing special arm guards and letting the owl stand on it to interact.

Two or three staff members could be arranged to receive all the small animals that could be interacted with, wouldn't that arrange a lot of employees at once?

These employees were usually very idle and earned a lot of money, weren't they perfect tools?

Of course, considering this, the form of the zoo also had to be changed. It was best to divide it into two different exhibition areas, one to display wild animals that could only be viewed through cages, and the other to display animals that could be touched and interacted with up close in the company of staff, like many indoor zoos.

It just so happened that there were many abandoned factories in the old industrial area, which could be renovated into indoor zoos, which was good.

In addition, a part of the space could be taken out and interspersed and scattered in various areas of the zoo for tourists to rest, to avoid the embarrassing situation of going to a zoo for a long time but having nowhere to rest.

The key was to be able to occupy more land!

At that time, in such a huge zoo, there would not be many animals in total, and they would all be very common animals. Surely no one would come, right?

After roughly finalizing these points, Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction.

Well, not bad!

According to the current plan, let alone far away, it would definitely not be popular within a year, right?

As long as the initial stage went smoothly, it would prove that this model was feasible, and he could continue to expand the scale, increase investment, and happily burn money.

Of course, the content that Pei Qian thought about was very rough and rudimentary, after all, he was not a professional, didn't understand the details, and formulated this strategy purely based on information found online.

When Tan Xinzhang came to Jingzhou in a few days, Pei Qian planned to have a good chat with him, on the one hand to share his ideas with him and determine the direction of the zoo, and on the other hand to solicit his opinions and see if there were any better improvement plans for the zoo.

I'm going to sort out the outline these two days, there are no extra updates, I'll add them in a few days.