With the opening of Elephant Odyssey and the potential of an asian elephant, bairds tapir, guanaco and capybara mix I wanted to know other mix species exhibits with elephants. I am aware of the amazing mix exhibit at Boras Zoo in Sweden (african elephant, giraffe, cape buffalo, eland, zebra, blesbok and birds) and Lowry Park has their African elephants with guniea fowl, impala and thompson gazelle. I also know of mix species with common hippos at Berlin and the Camden aquarium in New Jersey. Pygmy hippos are mixed at South Lakes, San Diego, Brookfield and Omaha.
I seem to recall that the pygmy hippo exhibit at Franklin Park Zoo's Tropical Forest had a pair of vultures perched on a rock cliff face behind it, but it might have been a seperate adjacent exhibit. What species shares Henry Doorly Zoo's pygmy hippo exhibit? Woodland Park Zoo's hippo exhibit certainly makes it appear that the adjacent African Savanna is part of the exhibit, although it is not. I was there recently and saw two ostrich that looked like they could touch two of the hippos at the back of the exhibit. Adventure Aquarium's hippo exhibit is shared with many African birds as well as an African Crested Porcupine.
Oh another exhibit I would mention is the hippo exhibit at Busch Gardens Tampa's Edge of Africa, which has an adjacent exhibit for ring tailed lemurs. The lemurs can hop along on a series of poles out of their larger exhibit and behind the hippo exhibit to somewhere else...I can't remember if they can actually enter the hippo exhibit or not, anyone know more?
Originally it was a troop of olive baboons, which made much more sense. I believe they could get onto the hippo beach. For years Basle Zoo had hippos in with zebras, storks and some antelope species (eland?). For a long time this worked fine, with the extremely odd sight of one or more of the zebras "grazing" by eating partially chewed food straight out of the open mouth of one of the hippos! This unusual sight--and combination--ended tragically a few years ago when the hippo was startled and killed the zebra.
Just to correct: Basel has hippos, ostriches and Grant's zebras. Despite the death of one zebra, all three species remain together and all breed. Although hippos seem to be partialy separated by piles of wood - I am not sure if they are part-time confined to one section of exhibit. Ostriches and zebra can, naturally hop in and out.
Some forty years ago, there was a notorious hippopotamus, ‘Hercules’ at Belle Vue Zoo (Manchester) who killed and partially ate both a Malayan tapir and a pigmy hippopotamus. He also consumed several flamingoes and various other birds.
You would have thought management would have wised up and taken the other animals out of his enclosure... By the way, I've never heard of a hippo eating meat, are they sometimes carnivorous or was this the result of an animal that did not know "hippo etiquette".
Dublin zoo mix Blackbuck with their Asian elephants however they are rarely visable as the elephant don't appreciate their trespassing in their patch and chase them into their own quarters again. I think there was potential in their Kaziranga Forest trail to incorporate other species such as short clawed otters etc perhaps they will in the future?
I am embarrassed to say I forgot one of my home zoos does keep a ruppells griffon vulture in with their pygmy hippo. I thought Omahas pygmy hippos had free ranging monkeys that could enter their enclosure? Also, many zoos have the appearance of mix species exhibits (i.e. Woodland Park, Busch Gardens, etc.) with hippos and elephants but I want to know ones that are actually mixed (Dublin, Basale,etc.) Regarding "Hercules", why would the zoo mix him with tapir and pygmys? Another more recent tragedy regarding hippo mix species was at the NW Florida zoo where the adult male killed a free ranging capybara and a hippo calf.
They'll occasionally eat meat in the wild, especially during the migration when a bunch of wildebeests and zebra are dead in the water.
Well, it's the sort of thing I'd expect of them, revolting animals. My over-riding memory of the migration was being in a boiling hot van for three hours, waiting for those damned wildebeest to cross the bloody river whilst those disgusting hippos were using their tails to fling poo everywhere (the smell is unimaginable). They do not show you this bit in the documentaries. Having said that, when they did at last decide to cross it was amazing (although I was a little disheartened to see that the crocs didn't catch any for our troubles...)
Really, I'd be interested to know which one. (By the way, what I meant was that they do not show the waiting, boiling hot vans, mosquitoes etc. in documentaries, rather than hippos relieving themselves.)
If anyone watches the live safaris on Wild Earth, you'll find its fairly different from TV where it tends to be "theres an animal, theres another animal, theres another one!" all within 5 to 10seconds of the show It actually takes them sometimes 10 to 20 minutes to find even an impala sometimes
It all comes flooding back! Beautiful place though and truly amazing wildlife (even if not always visible).
I can't remember if it was Attenborough, but i'm 90% sure that the footage was from the BBC Natural History Department. However, there is a programme on BBC at the moment which is a contest to find a new person to work for the Natural History Department and they have to film animals in Africa and that does show the difficulties in finding the animals on the savannah. (sorry for being off-topic)
Thanks jimmy, I saw the adverts for that programme but never got around to watching it - sounds interesting.
Its true that Omaha's Lied Jungle has a pygmy hippo exhibit inside which can possibly be visited by the free-ranging golden lion tamarins, but with so many choices for them to go in the habitat, do they ever visit the pygmy hippos? When I was there they were hanging out in a general area of the building, where a simulated mass of aerial roots extends from the upper viewing walkway to the lower dirt path in the forest. They were most interested in the kids in strollers!
I actually think I am confusing Omaha and Brookfield. I knew Lied had free ranging monkeys that made me think they were mixed with pygmy's but its Tropic world I am thinking of. So far I have: mix elephant-Lowry, San diego, Dublin, Boras mix nile hippo- Basel, Berlin, Camden, Copenhagen mix pygmy- Boston, Brookfield, South Lakes, San diego
This isn't an accreited zoo but this Wilderness Trails Safari Park (it was shown on TV) had a white rhino and a Nile Hippo you would think they wouldn't mix.
