Think Pink: Where is your favorite flamingo exhibit and what makes it so?

Flamingos seem to be one of the most commonly exhibited species in the zoo world. Many zoos have flamingos as the first exhibits that visitors encounter. In California where San Diego, Oakland, and Sacramento Zoos have flamingo exhibits as the gateway exhibit to the zoo.

Where is your favorite flamingo exhibit, and what makes it so?

Are there any exhibits out there that do an especially good job of interpreting people how cool flamingos are? These cool birds seem to be regarded more as ornamentation sometimes than as cool birds whose coloration is controlled by what they eat, that live as long as humans, and filter feed upside down.

The San Diego Safari Park has great lesser and greater flamingo exhibits that they are apparently hoping to build massive flocks on to resemble the great assemblages of flamingos that can be seen on East African lakes.

 

My favorite is the one at the Fort Worth Zoo. While crossing a pathway, you're at ground-level with the flamingos. You're so close to them, you can easily reach out your hand and touch them, though I wouldn't recommend it.

 

People don't seem very excited to discuss their favorite flamingo exhibits, so I'll try asking it from the other direction - do you have a least favorite flamingo exhibit? Are there any bad flamingo exhibits out there?

 

Very nice exhibits that are well accepted by both the birds and visitors are in Vienna and Basel. Expecially Vienna is worth mentioning, they took an old and because of heritage listing rather problematic area in the centrum of the zoo and by preserving the old house and enclosure borders, while using rather moderate funds, created a fully functional and attractive flamingo exhibit (its only disadvantage is it´s not an aviary).

Rather then worst or least favourite flamingo exhibit (there are quite a few), it is more saddening when a completely new or renovated exhibit turns out problematic and unsatisfactory.

An example - Prague zoo built a new large flamingo exhibit only in 2004. By observing the birds you will soon find out they prefer to stay on land the most of the time and outside breeding season are rather unactive, despite the good size of the flock (120 birds). The problem is mostly the water pool (in my opinion), constructed in a very bad way. The border is a rectangular concrete "mantel" requiring a big step by the birds, the pool is rather deep with several steps and its bottom is covered by sharp gravel. It makes the birds feeling uneasy to use it. And it is completely missing any area with very shallow water (5-10 cm) and sand ground that is the most preffered place in the second, 20-years older exhibit.

The presentation of the flamingo "coolness" is also rather insufficient in zoos. It is easy to catch everyone´s attention by mentioning the unique facts about these birds and so lure them to read longer blocks of text. I hear always the same comments - "The label says they live for up to 50 years! WOW!", "Hey, listen to me, they say they feed them red sweet paprica to keep their colour, haha."

Not directly connected with the enclosure design, but still interesting fact is that according to a person in WWT, there are currently 15.000 zoo flamingos registered in ZIMS/ISIS and they estimate there are at least another 15.000 captive flamingos held in non-ZIMS institutions world-wide. With the increasing pressure to keep them in bigger flocks to ensure their well-being, there is, despite 30.000! birds, a continous shortage of flamingos in zoos and hunderts of them are captured and imported to zoos annually, because the number of zoo-bred birds is still too low to fully cover the demand.

 

Glancing through the book America's Best Zoos (2008: Nyhuis & Wassner) it appears that 49 of the 60 best zoos in the United States have flamingos. The only major zoos that do not have the birds are these 11: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Binder Park, Brookfield (is that really true?), Buffalo, Cheyenne Mountain, Fort Wayne, Knoxville, Maryland, Point Defiance, Toledo and Utah's Hogle Zoo.

The birds are often quite popular exhibits, especially near the entrance of an establishment. Having visited 59 out of those 60 zoos (only missing Honolulu) I would have to say that my all-time favourite flamingo exhibit is the vast lagoon at San Diego Zoo Safari Park. There is a few hundred of the birds of two species in a magnificent setting. After that there are 3 zoos that stand out for having terrific flamingo habitats and they are all in Florida: Miami, Lowry Park and Busch Gardens have grassy, lush, scenic settings for their pink birds.

On a side note: Omaha has a 4-acre aviary where visitors can walk along a wooden deck and observe flamingos in the same environment; Topeka has free-roaming flamingos in its iconic rainforest dome; and Gladys Porter has at least 3 species as that zoo is known for its rarities.

 

What I'd love to see are fully flighted flamingos. It's a real shame that every single one I've seen is either pinioned or clipped.

 

Leipzig zoo, in a twist of the usual approach, is planning a large walk-through aviary for fully-flighted flamingos, at the EXIT to the zoo.

Someday, a zoo will develop a true habitat display for flamingos, which will be an open soda lake, not a lush manicured lawn.

 

I would love to see a themed "East African Lake" Exhibit with wading birds including flamingo's, maybe Marabou Stork, and others often seen with clipped in a walk through flight aviary with Hippo, Sitatunga, and Waterbuck. Separate Exhibit for Nile Crocodile.

 

Zoo Atlanta in an exhibit funded by Coca-Cola?

 

I second that motion.

 

I don't know if I have a specific one, but probably huge walk-through aviaries in general. Have flamingoes ever been kept free-ranging INSIDE rainforest houses/tropical houses like scarlet ibises and other Ciconiiformes birds? Well, of course, they don't live in rainforests, but far from all animals kept in such houses do, and the temperature is, in general, the right one.

 

Think pink...

I understand flamingos are rather messy to keep under tropical house conditions; water quality control needsto be better than usual, especially with a group big enough to encourage breeding.
There may be increased risk of aspergillosis indoors.
Full-winged Flamingos can be at risk in an aviary setting -- attempts to fly where there is any obstruction of the potential air space [building struts/supports, trees] can result in injury -- any injury to a Flamingo, especially those fragile legs, is likely to be fatal.
Having said that, Longleat have full-winged [I think] Chileans in an aviary unimpeded by by obstacles, which seems to be working.
It could be argued that terrestrial/aquatic species are less handicapped by flight restriction that parrots or vultures; I'm afraid I'm not a fan of grounded vultures or parrots.

 

Didn't Belle Vue have some in its Tropical River House - in a pen presumably, I never visited Belle Vue. Needless to say my favourite Flamingo exhibit is to be found at Kirby Misperton. I like Paignton's too, Dudley's as it was when I last saw it (2000, I don't know if it is still the same), and Paradise Park's (a VERY manicured lawn!).

 

The best i have seen is in Parque Biologico de Gaia, here in Portugal.
It´s free flight, large and filled with foliage.

http://www.zoochat.com/1865/marshland-exhibit-parque-biol-gico-de-305384/

 

Dudleys is exactly the same, a small and shallow pool with a (very) small number of birds. I do agree that Paigntons exhibit is great, it looks quite natural as well. Chester surely deserves a mention as well, a large flock in a large area.

If I'm honest, I don't really pay much attention to flamingo exhibits as the birds don't seem to do much other than stand around and look pretty!

 

Think pink...

Flamingos do a lot more than stand around & look pretty [they leave that to the really boring species like Giant Pandas & Koalas]. As with any animal, the more time you spend with them, the more behaviour you see.
Flamingo social interactions & group displays are dramatic & fascinating to watch.
Durrell Wildlife Park has a long established breeding flock of Chileans, & a relatively new [and so far non-breeding] flock of Greaters, which share different parts of the same river valley with Red-breasted Geese & Crowned Cranes respectively. Like everything in the park, they are beautifully presented. Both species will take to deep water and swim when the mood takes them, or if disturbed by a visiting heron. Many zoos do not provide water of swimming depth, which is probably of more importance than the opportunity to fly.

 

I completely agree. After watching the flamingos for a long time, two of them got into a major fight. It's also been interesting to watch the gray, fuzzy babies grow up and become the pink flamingos everyone's familiar with. All to often, I see visitors stop at a particular exhibit, see that nothing is going on, and move on. Then five minutes later, something interesting happens. I have seen this happen several times at the primate section.

 

I love watching flamingos swim and was not even aware that they did it until seeing the lesser flamingos at the Oakland Zoo swimming.

Your description of the Jersey flamingo exhibit makes me want to visit that zoo even more someday.

 

I love their honking calls too, so distinct especially when the whole flock gets noisy. Jurong has a lovely flock of about 600 greater and lessers. Oddly though they don't breed at all and Jurong has been cracking its head as to why. Many of the males are already left fully winged to aid in mating.

 

Think Pink...

I heard that Jurong's 'display team' of flamingos [species?] bred in their off-duty aviary between shows. Can anyone expand on this?