Rotterdam zoo » Rotterdam Zoo

19-06-2007

First of all, Rotterdam is developing at an astonishing rate and they have multiple building sites at the moment...

Large constructions: Around the butterfly house in the Africa section they just completed a large outdoor aviary with migrating birds and are now starting on a large greenhouse with a african birds and a large pool with Nile crocodile. Adjacent to this greenhouse will be the new giraffe house and when finished the giraffes will be at the heart of africa near the other savanna animals and the okapi's will move into the old giraffe house near the gorilla's.

They wanted to complete the whole arctic area this year (Blijdorp is 150 years old this year) but they won't be able to so now they are focussing on just the polar bear enclosure. Everyone is highly doubting it'll be done this year, gonna be probably early spring next year.

Rebuilding the gorilla outdoor enclosure. The gorilla's will now get a deep empty moat with a large wall. Making the moat deeper or wider would end up in Bokito drowning so they decided to empty the moat, deepen it and create a large wall.

Small constructions: Near the new giraffe house construction will start shortly on a new exhibit for servals and colobus (both allready in the park).

In the Chinese garden a small house with outside pool is almost completed for the Chinese alligator (only 1 atm).

On the other side of the railwayline (near the aquarium) they are almost done with a large aviary for a large group of macaw's (red and yellow, i believe).

Inside the aquarium they are constructing a small column to house an octopus.

Long term (not started yet): Completing the arctic section with polar foxes, polar hares, lemmings and snowy owls. The new Steller's sea eagles (allready in the park) will get a large new aviary somewhere around there too...

shaky ideas for the very long term future: New large hippo enclosure in the Africa section. New building (probably greenhouse) added to the aquarium with a "Surinam" theme. And they are mentioning that they are wanting golden snub-nosed langurs, but i bet they wouldn't want to pay for them, maybe their sister zoo Shanghai might help them in their negotiations...

19-06-2007

Thank's so much! I cant wait to go back to Rotterdam Zoo . I love hearing about exhibits and future plans for zoos. If you have any other info about the zoos in your region, please tell me more

__________________
I am Toddy, the zoo-enthusiast from Denmark!
Different zoos visited: 77
Favourite animals: Aardvarks and manatees.
Website: www.zoos.dk

20-06-2007

I still don't understand why urban zoos with limited space still design Gorilla enclosures with moats, whether wet or dry. Water moats are always dangerous, and both types use up a lot of space. I think Glass walls are the best method of surrounding outdoor areas when space is limited. I suppose the overriding desire is to allow the visitors an uninterrupted view with no visible barrier between them and the animals.

A dry moat is more sensible -at least no danger that Bokito would drown from trying to jump an even bigger water moat now. I guess he will be living indoors until this is completed though....

20-06-2007

@ Grantsmb: The moat of the gorilla's will be sloped on the gorilla side so they can walk down into it and touch the wall. I don't really think that putting glass windows in Bokito's exhibit would be sane atm...

@ Nigel: There are three sea-worlds in the USA, and as far as i found on the internet only San Diego hold Emperor's.

03-05-2008

Some of the new arrivals are 2 darwins rheas. Blijdorp once had the idea of replacing their common rheas with the darwin-species. There is still one common rhea left in the "south-american enclosure" (sounds great but its nothing more than a grassland with a simple fence inhabited by vicunas and a rhea..)

Some births;
a litter of swiftfoxes (Vulpes velox velox) (not yet clear how many offspring)
since a number of years finaly 2 red river hogs


Since last weekend the season of the flightshows began. Not much changed since last year, but still interesting.

The confiscated vultures are now in show (6 Gyps rueppelli, and 5 Necrosyrtes monachus). Temporarily in the big asian aviary. They should move to a (still to build) aviary in the africa-zone where they will live together with marabu-stork.

the rueppelli can be found in the inside-enclosure

the monachus are outside between the ibisses etc.

More pictures; Flickr: Svarta änkan's Photostream

04-05-2008

I am happy that Blijdorp is investing in vultures which are becoming more uncommon in their natural habitat in Africa. A huge illegal wildlife trade exists from Africa to Europe in vultures and even capturing some of the adult breeding population has huge repercussions for socially nesting vultures (+ they reach maturity at a somewhat advanced age making any offtake of adults a considerable inroad into the survivability of vultures at large).

It seems strange though that of to date none have been listed on ISIS. I know Avifauna keep a group - which strangely enough is highly skewed towards male vultures, e.g. G. rueppelli with 19.1. I wonder what the sex make up of the Blijdorp vultures is?

05-05-2008

Guys,

Can we please get back on topic here! For goodness sake San Diego is way off Rotterdam. If you have any valid questions why not start a new thread?

On Rotterdam: does anyone yet know the sex ratio of both the G. rueppelli and the N. monachus at Blijdorp? Is their intention to breed from these and the marabu storks (in the new to be built aviary)?

What will happen with the crowned crane pair? An exhibit of their own or on the savannah (sub-optimal me thinks)?

05-05-2008

Jelles right guys lets stay on track here, cheers

05-05-2008

Sorry Mark,

I only had one quick question!

How many Wreathed hornbill does Rotterdam house?
I believe they bred them recently...

05-05-2008

No problems Jono, cheers

05-05-2008

@Jelle: I know blijdorp wants to breed with the marabu-storks in the future (i believe they are still quite young) A possible + for that is that hey will be able to fly again in the future as their ability to fly is only taken temporarily (I don't know the terms of the modifications to the wings in english, hence the weird description sorry). So in the future they will have full sets of wings again which will give them better balance during mating.
I'm not sure what the planns with the vultures and cranes are. (blijdorp already has quite some separate enclosures for other species of cranes so i sort of expect them to do the same for the crowned ones...)

@ Hornbill: Blijdorp has 2 pairs of wreathed hornbills. (1 up high in taman indah and the other one is now in rumah asia i think, but blijdorp rotates the pairs (of wreathed and indians) every now and then so i'm not 100% sure.). The thought the pair in taman indah is nesting, just like the pair of blyths.

06-05-2008

Yup, the flying bit will certainly help the birds in mating better. As colonial breeders they do have the right make-up at 3.3?

Treb, do you know by any chance if these marabu storks are fresh imports or progeny of other captive-bred pairings?

Why is Cathy King (the bird researcher) no longer on the Blijdorp staff?

06-05-2008

I believe the sexes were quite equal, so 3,3 could be right. Maybe 4,4 but i'll have to count next time i'm there
A couple of years ago (i would guess 2 years) blijdorp got a group of marabu-storks that was confiscated by customs. I once heared that they probably originated from tanzania (but maybe that was just a rumour) Blijdorp had a pair by that time already and i think the are now in the enclosure altogether. So i would say that 1,1 is the "old" (don't know their age) pair and the rest is new import. (reading this back, it's a lot of maybees, guesses and uncertainties )

Unfortunately i know very little about the staff in the zoo so i can't tell you about Cathy King, sorry.

07-05-2008

hey jelle Cathy is at fuenguirola now as far as i know

07-05-2008

I have just checked the EAZA Yearbook and they came through Sharjah in 2005. Sharjah also confiscated a large group of von der Decken's hornbills at the time. These also were redistributed over EAZA zoos. I suppose some of the current breeding stock are derived from these confiscees.