Belfast » Belfast Zoo

20-10-2007

Polar bear left pre 2000 so have been gone for some time,if you ever get the chance the old old Polar Bear enclosure is still their in the old zoo its a real eye opener.

20-10-2007

Can anyone tell me more about the Francois Langurs in Belfast? How many animals do they have? Are they still breeding?

Thanks!

20-10-2007

Where in the zoo? I saw the one with the spectacled bears in. Really big. Shame they left.

20-10-2007

Arent the Spectacled Bears in the old Polar Bear enclosure.

21-10-2007

I;ve never been to Belfast, does anyone know why they have an 'old' zoo, I don't get why the enclosures aren't refurbished. It seems odd for a major zoo to sit on land that could hold many more exhibits. I'm sure there's a reason, but I find it interesting that there's this entire other zoo just laying (mostly) empty of animals.

21-10-2007

How many southern bald ibis do they have?

21-10-2007

I only saw 2 Bald Ibis but i know the bird keeper wants more,as for the old zoo its highly out dated what few bits are still in use are used for holding spare hoofstock/primates and small carnoviores,its just been left their as the local council doesnt know what to do with it after it built the new zoo a bit further up the hill in the 1980`s.

22-10-2007

oh right, are the two sites split then? I guessed it would be council run for an entire new zoo to be built and the old one just left. Surely if they sold the old site they'd be able to improve the current one.

22-10-2007

Don`t think the site could be used for much else as its not very flat and not that big of an area,i would say the site of the old zoo is small than Bristol so its not very big.Have started to post some pictures of the old zoo in the gallery,will put more as and when i get time to find them.

07-11-2007

does anyone know about the situation at belfast at the moment regarding their Francois langurs, according to isis they have 5 females at the moment are they going to get a male in for this group?

01-12-2007

2 barbary (ok no one knows how much "barbary" is really in them) lion cubs born in Belfast, the mother is caring for them well after the first cub born earlier this year (Lily) had to be hand raised. The parents are from Port Lympne.

Pride of the zoo as rare pair of Barbary lions are born in Belfast - Local & National - News - Belfast Telegraph

01-12-2007

Yes, I think they may be littermates. They're certainly closely related.

It seems a rather pointless exercise now. DNA tests have proved at least some of the Rabat lions do not have the known haplotype possessed by Barbary lions, and are from Central and East African populations. A couple of previous cubs at Port Lympne were tested too- same result. Port Lympne's lions come from Rabat Zoo, both directly(breeding male Suliman), and indirectly( their original stock were bred in Washington, whose came from Rabat)

01-12-2007

I agree with you all about not been sure how much Barbary is in them,but as the people i know at Belfast say its a nice story and it gets the locals visiting their zoo which very few of them used to do.

02-12-2007

Its more a case the science now indicates they are NOT Barbary at all!

Of course no zoos that have them want to accept this as it undermines the point of keeping them. Personally, I'm sorry about the results of the DNA tests too but they seem pretty definite. It doesn't mean there aren't pure or 'part' Barbaries out there somewhere, but nobody has found them yet.

03-12-2007

It is interesting that much was made of these DNA tests before they were conducted, only for their significance to now be brushed under the carpet, as it were. Personally, if these animals phenotypically resemble barbaries and may posess some traits advantageous to their former wild range, if those North African countries ever want to re-establish some then that would make sense, otherwise you basically have zoo resources being focused on breeding some generic lions that look a bit bigger than most other (generic) lions, it's no different from culivating 'white' lions in that respect.