Mixed species exhibits

Hi I was wondering what are the most unusual or best mixed species exhibits anyone has seen in a zoo?

Ive heard of brazilian tapir, spectacled bear, coati and short clawed otter being mixed at south lakes!

 

Jersey used to have Spectacled Bears, short-clawed Otter and coati in an exhibit, but the Otters have been removed now i think...

London used to keep its Sloth Bears with langurs, gibbons and muntjac when Bear Mountain re-opened, but a muntjac got killed and they were soon removed.

There are many zoos which keep Orangs with gibbons.

Obviously there are the many African plains exhibits at various zoos which combine giraffes, zebra and more (such as your zoo, Belfast ).

 

They've also got agoutis in that enclosure.

 

Oh, back to South Lakes, they also have Mandrills sharing an enclosure with Pygmy Hippos!

 

One of the strangest I ever saw was at London when they mixed meerkats with giraffes.

 

ive seen malayan tapir with orangs at dortmund. Corsac foxes, indian crested porcupine and black bear at amersfort. oh and meerkat, spot nosed monkey and gorilla at amsterdam!

 

Giraffes and meerkats sounds strangely logical to me.

Im Vienna they keep vultures/lammergeiers with rabbits and hares, just to make the point that they do not kill anything themselves.

 

I don't know whether this counts but London used to keep Agoutis in the moat of the Elephant enclosure.

Chester Zoo has the Asian Plains (Indian Rhino and other asian hoofstock).

 

Chester's mythical macaws: Blue throated macaws, Red tailed amazon and Azara's agouti.

Zurich's tapirs: Brazilian Tapir, Giant anteater and Capybara.

Zurich again: Spangled Cotinga and sloth

More Zurich: Golden rumped agouti, Grey winged trumpeter, Blue crowned mot-mot and others.

Jersey: Wrinkled hornbill, Edward's pheasant and another small bird (montserrat oriole or black bulbul.

 

I guess London's Clore Pavillion can be included (Sloth, tamarins, marmosets, birds) and eventually Gorilla Kingdom (Gorillas and colobus monkeys)

 

I think the male bear killed a tapir recently in that enclosure, so not sure they are still mixed......

Have heard of South American exhibits which mix tapir, capybara, vicuna/ guanaco, rhea, mara with maned wolves and giant anteaters (somewhere in France I think) which can work if enough escape space but I think the addition of potentially large and aggressive carnivores like bears can be dangerous. I suppose it can work with smaller animals that can escape into crevices, etc.

Have also heard of polar bears being mixed with arctic foxes (again with escape holes for foxes) which worked (can't remember exactly where this was but place also tried to mix brown bears with red foxes and the foxes repeatedly jumped out of enclosure into moat (which the arctic foxes didn't do).

Didn't colchester also mix lions and meerkats? (also predicatable outcome).

Meerkats are mixed with Zebra and Lechwe at Newquay quite successfully.

 

I can't help wondering how stressful it might be for the smaller animals to be housed with something like bears, even if the latter are well fed and slow moving. I certainly wouldnt' want to let my guard down.

Lots of reptile houses mix lizards with crickets....

 

Chester has mixed two male mount apo lories with two male Red vented cockatoos, or this was what the head of parrots was planning. There was also ( when I went in August a small area where the mount apos could get away to if they were feeling threatened or scared.

 

When the Orangs at Chester used to live in the old house, they shared the moat with a red-eared terrapin!

 

The bats at Chester are mixed together with a blue tit which escaped into the house and has lived there ever since. It feeds on the bat food. It has also managed to fit in with the light change (i.e it is awake when the lights are on, and asleep when the lights are off, the opposite of outside!!)

 

I really like mixed species enclosures, I think they make an exhibit a lot more interesting- and also from a zoo point-of-view allows for better use of space. I like to see mammals and birds displayed alongside each other because it is quite unusual.

However, like Pygathrix suggests its not enough for the animals just to be able to survive side-by-side, but actually be happy. It seems unusual and a bit unfair to mix carnivorous animals, even if they don't pose a real threat to the animals they are sharing with. I saw a photo from Kiang, of Highland Wildlife Park, with foxes sharing with Snowy Owl. I don't think that that's exactly a recipe for success. Similarly, I'm not too convinced on the zoos that keep brown bears with wolves. I have read bits about South Lakes creating rather ridiculous and less-than-successful mixed species.

I also found it quite annoying that Bristol Zoo, amongst others, mixes species that have no overlapping range in the wild. An example would be keeping Eider Ducks and Inca Terns with African Black-footed Penguins.

Some mixed species enclosures I do like are Chester's Europe-on-the-Edge Aviary (though I wonder whether all its occupants are happy about sharing with vultures?), Edinburgh's African Aviary with Dik-Dik in, London's Clore Pavilion, Longleat's Monkey area where they share with Blackbuck and Water Buffalo and Bristol's Sugar Gliders and Potoroo.

I have some questions about mixed species exhibits actually. Does anyone know of...

Zoos that house penguins with other species?
I know about Bristols and that Chester used to keep theirs with black-necked swans. Does anywhere keep humboldt's with Mara? I think there's a zoo in the US, which keeps its penguins in a big walkthrough aviary, but at the minute I can't remember its name.

Hippos in a mixed species exhibit?
I wondered if anywhere kept Nile Hippopotamus with anything like pelicans, or lechwe, reedbuck, waterbuck and the likes. I think that could make a good exhibit.

Elephants in mixed species exhibits?
I seem to think there is or was a Swedish zoo keeping African elephants alongside ostriches and zebra. Has anyone else heard of that? What about Asians, am I right in thinking Edinburgh may've speculated about keeping Asian elephants with gaur?

Nocturnal mixed species enclosures?
Would it be possible to keep Douricouli with a South American bat species?

 

I asked a question like this when I first joined except mine was about whether Wilson's BoP and Green naped Pheasant pigeons would mix together. Patrick had an unusual reaction!

 

If I recall, Knowsely keep their olive baboons with the zebra, or at least they did.

 

basel zoo have hippo mixed with zebra and ostrich, as far as i know this mix worked well for a number of years until a zebra fell in the pool as was killed by the male hippo. berlin zoo aslo mix their common hippo with what i think was sitatunga.

i recall stories of a hippo called hercules who at a time lived in the old tropical house at bellvue zoo in manchester who killed and ate tapir and pygmy hippo! does anyone know anything more about this?



re: elephant mixes

dublin have theirs mixed with blackbuck, i think its beekes bergen have their africans mixed with a large troup of hamydras and ive heard theres a zoo in germany that have theirs mixed with giraffe and rhino etc???


I agree with chris in with that the only mixed species exhibits that i really like are those ones that are georaphically sound or at least make sense.

On mixing small carnivores with larger ones I think enclosure design is what is essential. The meerkats at colchester all got killed as did the artic foxes at dublin with their polar bears i think! all mixes will i guess sometimes be problematic! even mixes such as tapir and capybara have ended in disaster when other zoos can keep them for years without problem!


oh re penguins in mixed species exhibits - ive seen both jackass and king penguins mixed with gannet, humbolt with magellanic flightless steamer duck at frankfurt and at aachen they have a lovley enclosure with black-footed penguin mixed with some kind of stilt species

perhaps if anyone has any photos we could start a file of them?

 

Yes, we could make an extra album on the gallery, showing all the pictures, Sim could you make another album for us called mixed species at Chester