I went to Cologne Zoo in the summer of 2007 and enjoyed this zoo very much. I have a few questions about it's future development: 1. What is the status of the mountain tapir? Has it already arrived, and if not, when? And where will it live? I can see on the map of Cologne Zoo that a new South American enclosure has been constructed near the monkey house and okapis. Will it perhaps live there? 2. Are the douc langurs still living in small indoor exhibit in the great ape house? And if so, what are the future plans for them? 3. What will happen all the lemurs once the new Hippodom takes their space? Will they be housed elsewhere in the zoo or perhaps moved out? As well as anyhting else you can tell me about Cologne Zoo's future plans
- mountain tapir hasn`t arrived yet and there`s no info out about when that will happen. I personally hope it won`t happen at all because there is about zero chance to ever get a female for him and I think it`s a waste of money to import an animal for exhibition only. - if he arrives, yes he will be housed in the new south american exhibit, it now has a brazilian tapir in it. - the douc langurs are still in that small cage in the ape house, the plan for the future is to exchange the breeding male with Singapore Zoo to continue breeding without inbreeding at both zoos. That`s certainly no plan that will ensure the long-term future of the Cologne group, for that they need to import some more animals to Europe, but it`s a first step and better then nothing imho. - the funding of the new hippo/croc house is not yet secured, the price went up too high and at the moment, they`re looking at ways to change the plans and save money. - only the un-renovated part of the madagascar house will be demolished for the hippo house, the biggest part will be left untouched. The lion-tailed macaques who live in the concering enclosures will be relocated to the ape house, they will get their own (small) outdoor enclosure and will share the orang utan enclosure. It`s a big breeding group of 20+ animals. - other plans are the renovation of the south american monkey house, for that the monkeys will be housed temoprarily in the newly-built parrot house next to the south american house.
The douc langurs getting an outdoor-cage 'till next season. At the place of the old sheephouse is now the new Tapir/Capybara enclosure.
Thanks you two Will the new outdoor exhibit for doucs be built where they live now, by the great ape house? BTW Animal, check your PM inbox
Yes, it'll be one of the cages witch is now used by the lion-taild macaques. (One of these round things) This cage will be transported to the actual exhibit, so you'll see them outside on the right side of the entrance of the ape-house.
Hot off the press: Day before yesterday Cologne Zoo welcomed a new Douc Langur Baby Hopefully this species will cling on to survival in Europe, it's amongst my very favorite animals...
For all Friends of Douc Langurs : San Diego and Philadelphia, the only zoos in the usa with that species, will send all the last doucs back to singapur ! I don't know when it will happen, but it will. By the way, it will took probably a few years to get in the mountain tapir to germany. And Nobody said, cologne will not get a female, Nodbody said it....So, wait, and let surprise you.
Here is some more info, including pics of the proposed hippodom. http://www.koelnerzoo.de/fileadmin/Downloads/Broschüre_Hippodom.pdf
And, their last fairy penguins were sent to Wuppertal Zoo. With the demise of their Douc population, this Zoo is slowly losing all it's rarities... Still wondering if that mountain tapir will ever arrive...
I have a small question I hope some of the germans might be able to answer. The Kolner Zoo used to have a group of budgerigars (wellensittiche) directly imported from Australia. Because of their shyness plus the lack of breedingresults they were moved to Kevelaer. Now I was in the Zoo last week and there was a group budgies (in the aviary with the Swiftparakeets) who looked very much the same. Does anyone know if Koln kept some of the imported birds or are these European bred animals?
@jewer. There are no plans anymore to import the male mountain tapir, it will stay at L.A Zoo, because its not possible for cologne, to import a female from columbia. And L.A needs the male for future breeding. There were never really plans to keep mountain tapirs at cologne, just the idea in the case, they could get a female, which failed. Now they will keep common tapirs, which makes more sense.Unfortunately, the zoo lost two douc langurs, so this species will die out soon.
I knew about the Douc's, and feared about the mountain tapir. I don't really understand why they thought they could get any animals out of south-america, as far as i can tell LA have been trying to get more founder animals for ages... I'm just praying the Bairds tapirs will get foothold in Europe, if you ask me they are a lot more attractive then the lowland tapirs (though perhaps not as much as the asian's) and they are starting to need more founders soon... And i'm still hoping some zoo will find a way to succesfully keep and breed Douc langurs in Europe, but noone seems to be trying. Crying shame to lose one of the most beautifull animals in the world from western collections (North America is also almost over).
Douc Langurs belongs to one of the animals species you can't keep succesfully in zoos for generations. Altough cologne has kept them many years and bred them several times, they lost to many animals to keep them for that time. Its not good to keep animals in captivity, if the only way to reach that goal is to introduce always again and again new animals into the group, after loosing animals. And thats what they have done with the doucs. Fortuantely, the european zoso have recognized,that the attempt to keep proboscis monkeys ( another example ) in zoos failed, but too many of them have lost their life until the zoo stopped keeping them... It makes no sense to keep mountain tapirs any longer in zoos, the small amercian population is completly inbred, because L.A was not able to import new aniamls from southamerica, so the SSP made the decisison to phase that species out. Bairds tapir will not have a future in europe, if they will not import new animals from the USA or South amercia. But the population of bairds is in the States is very small, the breeding is not that good as it should be to increase the population, so i think, if europe has luck, they will get one or two animals from the states. The common tapir has become a highly endangerd species, so its important also to keep and breed this species .
Call me an idiot or call me stubborn, i'm not willing to accept that there are species that can not be kept in zoos. Some are harder then others, and animals VERY prone to stress might be less suitable, but if the husbandry is nailed down any animal should be able to be kept. In the "old" days they said that gorilla's where impossible, and rhino's would never breed in captivity and look where we are now... Singapore does a decent job with keeping them, so there IS a possibilty. I do think that a lot more research needs to be done on husbandry issues to keep Douc langurs succesfully, but breeding them doesn't seem to be that hard. It's keeping them alive that's the trick. As far as i know there are quite a few of these animals in captivity, and they are bred reasonably well in south-east Asia. so if theres a bit more research done then keeping this species should be doable like any other.
You'rer right, to keep them alive, thats the trick, unfortunately, it failed....I've worked to long with animals, to read such a nonsens. Sorry, jewer. There are lot of more species which can't be kept in captivity, belive me that. Elephant Seals, Gerenuks or Pangolins are more really good examples. You don't know really much about animals or zoos, do you ? So Singapore might be more sucessfully with doucs than european zoos, but also Singapore sends a lot of them across the Jordan.....Too much....
The concept of whether or not to keep wild animals in captivity is obviously beyond our esteemed visitor from Anywhere. Besides, he exhibits a lack of knowledge or understanding re. historical douc langur management and breeding success in European zoos and how Koeln and Basel Zoo really did achieved long term success in their management. In addition, these first captive individuals have exactly allowed 3 good captive-breeding colonies to be set up in S.E. Asia based on the knowledge base gathered over decades in European zoos. Lastly, you fail to see how the illegal wildlife trade has affected the endangered S.E. Asian primates and in what conditions they are more or less sold to happy buyers on Asia's animal markets and hence if they do survive in what condition they arrive in Europe in the first place. I just leave it at that.
