Thanks, Toddy, for the pictures in the gallery from Ree park! » Ree Park - Ebeltoft Safari

Dan · **Thanks, Toddy, for the pictures in the gallery from Ree park!** 13-11-2008

Great to see these pictures! Living in the south of Sweden, I can watch Danish national tv and I have seen many interesting features on this particular zoo.
The manager there seems like a very hands on and nice guy! I think that I have been especially impressed by the work with cheetahs going on in this park.
Thanks again for the photos! I am sure that any additional info on this animal park would be appreciated by all forumsters? Maybe a general, in depth, review like the ones from snowleopard and others?

Toddy · 10:15 PM

EDIT: Sorry about the double post. Don't know what happened

Toddy · **Ree Park review** 15-11-2008

Ree Park is situated in the some of the most beautiful landscape in all of Denmark, near the city of Ebeltoft. Until 2006 it was known as Ebeltoft Zoo and Safari, but when it was bought by the extremely wealthy business man Carsten Ree, who renamed it after himself. Fortunately, with this name also came a LOT of money, and this is how Ree Park has financed several big projects since 2006:

2006 – North America theme
2006 – Wild dog enclosure
2007 – Madagascar Island
2007 – Sand cat exhibit
2008 – Giraffe house on the savannah
2009 – Lions

The park’s main focus is the breeding and conservation of endangered species. They currently hold 19 cheetahs of which 9 were born in 2007. They have imported both cheetahs and wild dogs from sanctuaries in South Africa as well as sand cats from Arabia. Other endangered species in the park include eastern bongos, blesboks, persian onagers and ruffed lemurs. The zoo-director Jesper Stagegaard is indeed a hands-on man, and, I would say, one of the finest zoo-directors in Denmark. The landscape in Ree Park is beautiful, and has some very nice enclosures. The zoo’s philosophy is to give all animals lots of space to move about. Since the zoo is also a safaripark visitors can buy tickets to Safari Jeep Rides all day. These jeeps will take you by and through enclosures while a talk on the animals is given in Danish. This is definitely recommended.

The zoo has a small terrarium in the entrance building where they focus in poisonous snakes. This is the only indoor exhibition in the park. The Monkey Islands located close to the entrance consists of a series of islands with various small and medium sized monkeys and lemurs. On walkthrough islands visitors can experience ruffed lemurs, ring-tailed lemurs and squirrel monkeys. Unfortunately, visitors get WAY to close to these wild monkeys, and especially on the Madagascar Island you feel like you are in a petting zoo. This is the only major critique I will raise of Ree Park. Other islands here houses white-fronted lemurs, goldie’s monkeys, white-fronted marmosets and brown capuchins.

The Asian theme consists of only two enclosures: the large gibbon island with lar gibbons (one of the best I have seen) and the open Asian steppe with bactrian camels and persian onagers. The South American theme also consists of two enclosures. One is the pampas with llama, rhea and mara. The other is an open enclosure with vicugnas, alpacas and donkeys. The European theme is made up of only one enclosure, with wisent (European bison), European moose and mufflon sheep.

The main geographical focus in Ree Park – Ebeltoft Safari is Africa. This is devided into sub-themes: the bush savannah, the forest savannah and the open grass savannah.
The bush savannah has the two huge, fantastic enclosures for cheetahs and wild dogs. These can be seen from a wooden bridge, going between the enclosures, on top of a hill with a splendid view of the park. During the feeding times visitors can enjoy the sight of cheetahs chasing a piece of meat going at 70 km/h (43,50 mph). Spectacular!
The forest savannah consists of one huge enclosure. This is a wooded area with a small lake. Here you can see eastern bongo, blesbok, crowned crane marabou and pelicans.
The open grass savannah is one big savannah enclosure. Here lives African hoofstock such as giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, watussi cows, blesboks and eland antelopes as well as octriches and blackbucks. This is also a drive-through enclosure for the Safari Jeep Rides.
Next to this enclosure the lions will live from 2009, and here is also a series of smaller desert enclosures for the sand cats.

The last theme is North America. The central element here is the pioneer fort called Fort Laramie. From here visitors can view the three enclosures that house the animals of this theme. The smallest enclosure is integrated in the fort’s structure. This is a small wood with striped skunks, North American porcupines and prairie dogs. The Bear Lake enclosure is centred around a small lake lying to the west of the fort. Here live arctic wolves and American black bears together in a semi-open enclosure. To the east of the fort lies the open prairie enclosure with prairie bison, prairie dog and American black bear. Ree Park pays a lot of attention to details. On the fort is a toilet building that is well integrated in the theme. From here you can view the prairie enclosure while using the toilet. This is a nice and original idea.

Ree Park is my favourite open-range zoo. Here visitors can enjoy endangered animals in huge natural surroundings.

Dan · 17-11-2008

Great review, thanks! Very interesting to get to know the reason for the change of name. Also makes you wish that Bill Gates would take up an interest in zoos!

rillekolmard · 07-01-2009

"Exchange of lion females with Denmark
Early Monday morning September 29 loading of three lions females in Borås Zoo for transport to Ree Park Ebeltoft Safari in Denmark.
Lion is a new species for the zoo in Ebeltoft and to obtain animals from Borås was quite natural then close cooperation between the parks already"

and

On Wednesday October 1 arrived three two-year lion females from Copenhagen to Borås Zoo. This is to bring in unrelated individuals to share group and a rejuvenation of the same.

You found the text at Borås Djurpark , in swedish: Borås Djurpark , nyheter

Toddy · 07-01-2009

The lions going from Borås is both an example of cooperation between the Danísh and Swedish zoos, which of course is a good thing

But it also shows how big money rule Ree Park now. Ree Park only got lions because Carsten Ree, the owner, wanted them. Jesper Stagegaard, the director, is a fine zoo director, and he mainly wants to focus on breeding and conservation of endgangered species. He also wants Ree Park to have some unique species in Denmark. This is also why Ree Park normally focuses on animals like cheetahs and wild dogs instead of lions and tigers.

When I first heard that they were gonna have lions in Ree Park, I asumed that Stagegaard where going to get some sort of endangered subspecies, either Asian lion or try to import some from Africa (as he has done with the wild dogs). But instead they just recieved another bunch of "zoo lions" from Borås, which have not value to the breeding programmes at all

rillekolmard · 08-01-2009

Thats not good! I hope they nice plans fore 2010-2020? Do they have Sand Cat?

Toddy · 08-01-2009

Their plans for the future is not known. The only new exhibit for next year known by the public is the lion enclosure. Look in my earlier post for a quick overview of the new exhibits in Ree Park over the last few years

Yes, they have a breeding center for sand cats consisting of three netted exhibits. The sand cats arrived from a private zoo in Quatar in 2006. The first litter of cubs were born in the summer 2008.

rillekolmard · 08-01-2009

Good that the Sand Cats breed! They have also a great exbith!

Toddy · 19-02-2009

It has been previously mentioned in this thread, that Ree Park recieved 0.3 "zoo-lions" from Borås Zoo. Now however, they have announced to the press that they will keep rare Angolan lions from the summer of 2009.

Since this is quite confusing I have sent Ree Park en e-mail asking them to clarify if the actually will keep Angolan lions and from where they will aquire them.

I will post it here on the forum when I receive an answer

rillekolmard · 19-02-2009

I have seen the articel! If I understand correctly,they sould go to africa and catch some lions?

rillekolmard · 19-02-2009

Is basle same as Borås?

Toddy · 20-02-2009

Just found a new article here. Unfortunately it is only in Danish...

It says that Ree Park will recieve a young male from Basel Zoo, Switzerland. Then the rest of the pride will be made up of females imported directly from Angola

Still waiting for reply from Ree Park...

rillekolmard · 20-02-2009

This is crazy....

Toddy · 20-02-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by rillekolmard

This is crazy....

What is? The fact that they are trying to import lions or that we can't seem to get a corresponding answer?

	Forums RSS Feed
	Photos RSS Feed
	Twitter Updates
	Facebook Page

»	More RSS and Subscription Options

Members	1,898
Members Online Now	9
Guests Online Now	37
Users Recently Active	618
Forum Threads	76,937
Forum Posts	135,568
Photos	49,835
Zoos	727
Countries	70
Webcams	79
» more statistics