Gorilla Kingdom, London Zoo » London Zoo

13-05-2007

The golden headed tamarins and Squirrel monkeys are probably in the Clore rainforest lookout.

13-05-2007

well, the squirrel monkeys would be in the meet the monkeys section im guessing, unless zoopro says otherwise (an australian being the most recent visitor to london zoo hahaha). the group in the sobell pavillions in 2005 were newly imported males headed for MTM's. london had tamarin groups scattered everywhere when i was living in the UK, inside sobell and casson pavillions, the clore, BUGS. in fact londons primate collection overall was impressive.
wonder how well the two london chimps integrated with whipsnades group? grant???

13-05-2007

London Monkeys- I know they have kept the Diana monkeys, but Hamlyn's owl faced no longer there(last male sent to Antwerp) Can't help you on the other species at present but will visit sometime....

Chimpanzees- they were an old pair- I saw them at Whipsnade zoo last year but they had only recently arrived and were not mixed in with the residents at that stage. These two seemed a lot bigger than the others.. Whipsnade's chimps are an oddly balanced group ratiowise, about five males of different ages(some born there) and only one or two females..

Gorillas- London expect to get two more females for the new exhibit which will than give them 1.4. I remain doubtful about them breeding with the existing male Bobby/Bongo- though I would be very happy to be proved wrong on that as he's a w/c male with no offspring...

13-05-2007

whipsnade does have an oddly skewed group of chimps. as taronga is my home zoo im still not used to seeing small groups of chimps. and primrose, the lead female, what a character. 40 (in 2005), and a newish mother.
the exhibit, the crappy holding area besides, is very good and natural i thought, and the barrier, what seemed to be heavy guage mesh, quite good. i lked the moat, well vegetated, save for the pond liner sticking out in places, but all in all a great exhibit!

13-05-2007

Yes, but no..... That's where they normally are, in a really cool walk-through exhibit. The day I was there though, something had spooked them, and their keeper said that they wouldn't come out of the holding cage. They all looked pretty happy in their holding area, but even though the door was open, and it was great weather, they had no interest in coming out.

13-05-2007

Yep, along with 250 other species of callithricids. Boy, there's only so many concrete boxes with glass windows holding marmosets and tamarins that you can look at. It has such an old fashioned stamp collecting mentality about it.

13-05-2007

i really liked the design of the holding area, with its windows into the 'behind the scenes' section...londons other zoo, chessington adventure world,
(and i use the word zoo loosely) is currently in danger of losing its licensce because of the conditions its keeping its ten-strong gorilla troop in.

13-05-2007

how much of the clore has actually been re-done. i mean, its a big building, and had a huge collection in 2005, pre-renovation, and even then there were double ups and even triple-ups of most species. so is the clore rainforest development just an upgrade of what were once the central, outdoor exhibits? or has the whole building been redone?

13-05-2007

This is the first that I have heard of this... Also Chessington is planning a brand new Gorilla exhibit to replace the existing one, as they are undertaking a lavish new Safari area plus a hotel etc and I think the Gorilla enclosure will be included in that.

The existing enclosure is quite adequate(similar to Howletts cages) they do have problems with the current grouping as the old Silverback 'kumba' had a couple of strokes and is now segregated(or was) with one female- the others drove him out.. and is(or was last year) only on display for a short time during the day. Any more news gladsly received.

13-05-2007

the independent got info through freedom of info, or just google primate transfers london zoo, and itll appear.

13-05-2007

re Glyn's comments on Whipsnade chimps(chimps = gorillas = not going off topic too much...) The only really good Chimpanzeee group in the UK is at (dare I mention the word? ssssshhhh).........Chester. This is a group of about 25, many of them born at Chester, and 'multi-male' with at least four adult males in the group. A very good display.

13-05-2007

ZooPro- any news on whether London's male gorilla is any use in the mating department? I know they haven't introduced him to the new female Effie properly yet but could anyone tell you if he has ever mated with a female before(e.g. with the other female Zaire?)?

13-05-2007

I found this but couldn't open the entire document. It says 'while people are admiring London's new Gorilla Kingdom, the gorillas at Chessington 'zoo' are not so lucky' etc. from two 'unpublished' reports. The enclosure IS quite old now (built about 1984 but its certainly no worse than London's old Gorilla enclosure which only closed last year- in fact its considerably larger than that and modelled on a Howletts cage, same deep litter straw, same roof etc.) The outdoor area was slightly enlarged with new public viewing just a few years ago.

Apart from Aspinalls' gorillas, its easily the most successful breeding group in UK as well and I know they are very well looked after and proud of them too. I think if the new enclosure IS going ahead, then this report will be relatively meaningless, but it could spell trouble if plans for a completely new enclosure have been dropped.

14-05-2007

Sorry, I've no idea grantsmb. As I mentioned, the keepers were doing introductions when I was there recently, and had no time for chatter with me! I haven't checked out the ZSL website for this, but you might find something on there about their male. If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

14-05-2007

My memory of it pre-renovation is a bit shady - mainly of row upon row of glass-fronted tamarin boxes. It's now basically a big sqaure, two-storey building, with exhibits around the outside of the square, and the centre "core" of the building is open from ground to ceiling, with tonnes of natural light coming in through the roof. The centre core is heavily planted as has a number of birds, agutis on the ground, sloth, silvery marmosets, golden-headed tamarins, and a few other critters in the open centre section. There's no barrier between the public walkway and the centre rainforest exhibit, so it's all very light and open.

Since this is such a crap description, I'll post a few photos in the next day or so.

The exhibits on the outside of the walkway (around the edges of the building) haven't changed - still lots of green-painted, glass-fronted tamarin boxes on the second floor, and the nocturnal exhibits on the lower level.

I think a few photos will certainly improve on this lame description!