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A fresh new day, fresh new dinosaurs. Caudipteryxes are snugly tucked away in their new pit exhibit, which right now resembles a flat empty plains area. That's fine; they'll get more when they hatch. We won't know what they like and react well to until then, after all! And there's the exhibit -- mostly finished, as some things will be refined at a later date. That isn't important, though. All in all, I am pleased with this -- it's a rather nice place. It also seems like I'm unintentionally doing an oviraptorosaur biome tour -- the plan is to do protarchaeopteryx next when it comes time for that, so hopefully that trend kind of continues. I think it's a creature of the rainforest, alas. The turkeys continue to haunt me. There were a few new additions to old exhibits, to set up stronger populations (and because we all have no idea how long these creatures live, or if they will breed). Two chirostenotes were added... ... As well as two new oviraptors. This seemed logical to me. We've had them for a while and they don't seem especially keen on making more oviraptors, so we will have to do the work instead. But this peaceful silence was not to last. While I quietly puttered away at my own projects, easy and content, I ignored most of the messages my staff desperately sent my way. I hired a new scientist when it seemed necessary and restructured so that the other two focused on two exhibits each, with the new hire wandering around as needed. More maintenance workers, with the food court getting more traction and the other staff busy fixing fences... it was simply necessary. I headed to the front of the zoo. Hm. That's a lot of turkeys. ... "You know what? Not my problem," it said, the man who was meant to be running a zoo. "It'll be fine." The zookeeper looks at me with desperate eyes, begging for some kind of assistance with the fifty-odd birds surrounding them. I pretend I can't see. Anywayyy, construction time!! We're adding some things behind the incisivosaurus exhibit. We have to move this way, and it feels like a decent enough central point to do so. We now also have a gift shop after three years. Up until this point, people have been taking home zoo magazines and informative pamphlets on dinosaur revival as souvenirs. With some negotiation, I managed to convince our good friends the Unnamed Mystery Investor (UMI) to let us have another modern bird. Again nothing too raptorial, as we got golden pheasants. Still, they are quite beautiful birds, so I won't complain about them. A secondary aviary -- this time, you can actually walk into it -- has been constructed, right across from the incisivosaurus backend and against the zoo wall. I think I'll build pit exhibits on either side of it, but we'll see how that ends up. .... do you guys hear something? .... yeah, I bet it's overcrowded, Wild Turkey 56 (why did we name it that). Frankly it's probably time to deal with these guys, this is absolutely some kind of animal rights issue. I am amazed that we've managed to fit over 60 birds in here (I think we were at 61?) with nobody saying anything about it, or the birds actually being unhappy. Looking at the logged list of animals, we have about 80 and most of them are turkeys. There's also the golden pheasants which are already multiplying -- honestly I should just keep on top of that. So commences The Great Bird Sale of July, Year 3. This is after. That looks so much nicer. I named a lot of them beautiful things, like all the zoo creatures, so it was hard to choose who to keep. I didn't mention this but I've been naming all the animals; the chirostenotes are, as an example, all named after various peppers. It would break my heard to decide if I should sell Carolina Reaper or Jalapeno. This is why I decided to keep some of the most important birds, like AGONY, Horse3, and Thanksgiving. I just couldn't let them go. And this is where we end it for today. Not a lot done, and it's not quite the end of the year, but I feel like this is a perfectly good spot to relax for a while. I think the protarchaeopteryx exhibit will go in that northwest corner. Maybe not filling all of it, but it seems like a nice empty spot for another oviraptorosaur!! Give it up for oviraptorosaursia, which is full of small feathered birdlike guys! I think this is the last one, but there may be one other hiding away somewhere I have yet to notice on our lengthy list of potential animals. While the images likely do not show it well, decorative foliage (and fencing) has been added to the other side of the zoo -- it just isn't trees.

As Jeff gazes upon his photos, he realizes that they're all corrupted. Huh. That's not good. Well, after these initial images for the first year, the rest will not, in fact, be a corrupted mess. I didn't want to trash all the progress shots -- I can't exactly go back in time to take them again-- so alas we will have to deal. I'll try and make them clearer. This was supposed to be a relatively simple thing D: I want to try actually making something zoo-like, since usually I play scenarios and just slap some paths and exhibits wherever. It may not look good, but it gets the job done. I'm not playing a scenario, though, I want to do freeform. So it may not be perfect, but I'd like to try actually making actual zoos with particular focus -- in this case, a set of small zoos of extinct animals. Right now it's only one, but we'll move on to other zoos as I deem them completed. Anyway! Moving on! Into character. Finding funding -- and space -- for a dinosaur zoo is rough, if you weren't aware. Especially if reviving extinct animals is a known practice and not just the work of science fiction novels. Thankfully, we got a small plot of mostly-empty jungle and $20,000 from a kind, public benefactor. One caveat, though -- they didn't want any kind of negative public image reflecting on them if a spinosaurus or some other large theropod managed to escape and eat people. So... we are only allowed, quote, "only small dinosaurs." Very helpful. First order of business: new paths and some kind of amenities. One* amenity. At this point it was determined that we would be getting incisivosaurus -- they are definitely small, and not likely to break out of an exhibit or chew on guests. Plus they are rainforest creatures, so that's one way to cut costs. Basic frame of the exhibit is built, plus a raised viewing platform. Two eggs and a scientist to care for said eggs. At this point, we were running low on money and only had a few thousand to our name. They hatched, and the exhibit was created. The corrupted images make it hard to tell, but they ARE in there. At some point we added another for a total of three. We also fired the scientist because we simply couldn't afford to pay them $1000 a month. The second those eggs hatched, they were gone. Money was very, very tight. We earned some more and even managed to get, at one point, back up to our starting $20,000. Of course the incisivosaurs couldn't just be ignored, but by that point we could buy a compost building to help with paying the scientists. We also built a newsstand for zoo and dinosaur info, though I confess I have no idea when that was added. With a somewhat stable amount of money, the second exhibit was planned out. This would be another member of oviraptorosauria... oviraptor. I assumed rock fencing would be enough to keep them in, as oviraptor species are not exactly large. This would, later, prove to be a bad idea. For now, though, everything seemed to be fine. Oviraptors -- a pair -- hatched. The exhibit was built. Thankfully they are rather low maintenance and don't want a thousand plants. We had to build the exhibit in stages, fence and terrain before pausing to wait to get cash... then the oviraptors, then all their required items when they hatched. Anyway, at this point I wanted a change of pace. I was tired of making oviraptorosaur exhibits. I begged. I cried. I pleaded with our benefactor to please let us put some kind of modern bird in. They're dinosaurs! Everyone knows birds are related to dinosaurs and that's an oft-repeated fact, but they are quite literally therapods in dinosauria. Dinosaurs aren't extinct, technically! Let us show the public this -- these birdlike dinosaurs alongside modern ones! I eventually got them to agree. We could have turkeys. :/ And only turkeys. Honestly I think some family member had birds they didn't want anymore. Whatever the reason, I disappointedly accepted this and made a turkey-aviary. I wanted some kind of bird of prey, but whatever, fine I guess. Except right after accepting the four turkeys, the oviraptors clawed out of the solid rock and into the zoo. That was not pleasant. That led to emergency fence-reinforcements, dinosaur capturing, and guest-soothing. With a grand total of $8 left in the bank. That was mostly because I didn't notice we had run so low on funds. Isn't that kind of person who you want running YOUR zoo? :D Finally, though, here's where I am now (isn't color beautiful?). This is the second year of the zoo, with $2000. This might not seem like a lot, but honestly, the zoo has been sitting at the $4k--$8k mark for most of its operation. The turkeys will get foliage soon, and we can start planning some non-exhibit areas. Maybe a garden? Or some other kind of entertainment? Hm... maybe I'll spend some time just landscaping the area. It's looking a bit bare.

Blender is certainly tough but I think I'm actually starting to get the hang of it? So have an update image of the abomination model!