Howletts » Howletts Wild Animal Park

13-04-2008

No, I was pretty sure they were in the enclosure by the newer gorilla complex, from what I was told.

14-04-2008

I shall find them, never fear...

06-09-2008

just what i thought, apart from colchester what is the other zoo?

06-09-2008

Edinburgh have Geladas

06-09-2008

oh yes i saw that yesterday, stupid me! where did the howletts and edinburghs one come from?

06-09-2008

for all primate spieces at howletts and port lympne, i would creat an open topped enclosures for all primates.
move all rhinos into african reserve

Whate hapeend to cape Buffalo, were did they go/come from?

07-09-2008

I always thought that it was a great shame that all of Mr A's investment in Sumatran Rhino at Port Lympne never paid off. The 'Sumatra' house and adjoining paddocks were fantastic for their day, and Torgamba flourished there while he lived at the park. The loss of the 2 females was very bad luck indeed!!

The Guinea baboon group at Port Lympne has been split into 2. Less than half of the animals are still kept in the original 'holding cage' just before the main entrance adjacent to the original main gatehouse. The rest of the group have been moved to a new purpose built enclosure set between the woodland open colobus enclosure adjoining the black rhino paddock behind the 'sables' shed on the main drive, (just to avoid any confusion the 'sables' shed formerly housed sable antelope a decade or more ago, but was rebuilt to house black rhino). It was originally planned to mix the baboons with the black rhino (note the plastic spacers added to the rhino fence to accomodate the 'hot wire' required to keep the baboons in). However, when working on the road that passes through the paddock a JCB caused the road to subside and this would have allowed the baboons to escape. The plan has been put on hold until the road can be sured up.

07-09-2008

I wish they would!
But I don't think they have enough space - there are a great many groups of monkeys at Howletts. I don't think the open-topped enclosures that they are currently using/building would confine their gibbons either.

Alan

__________________
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

07-09-2008

Thank you for that information. I saw the new house and arrangements you describe. I'll be very interested to see how well it works when it's complete.
BTW, do you know what they are building in the corner of the bison paddock at PL, just uphill from the fishing cats?

Alan

__________________
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

07-09-2008

what happend to cape buffalo

07-09-2008

Why have they split the Guinea baboon troop into two? Was it so as not to have the cage empty?

07-09-2008

There is Woodland behind the mansion where there are a lot of semi-derelict wood & wire cages. This area could be redone for primates using open air enclosures..

At Port Lympne there is a sizeable block of woodland in the area of the existing Monkey enclosures. I would like to see the Drills and Dianas in particular in open air enclosures of their 'new' design. They could perhaps add on to the existing old enclosures if need be. When I enquired about the Drills though they said there were no current plans to do this. perhaps in future though?

08-09-2008

The enclosures they have built so far are for large groups of monkeys (or mixed species); but even a smaller group would still need a much larger area than their current cage to give them the same amount of space, because of the width of the electrified barrier. They could put a couple behind the mansion at Howletts, but there is some private space there too (including a swimming pool) and they would have to fell a number of large trees. I'm trying to remember how many monkey groups Howletts keeps in the old style cages, I estimate at least 8 groups of langurs (more Javan, 2 spectacled, melalophos, 2 comata and mitrata) add the de Brazzas group and the pair of Heck's macaques and you need a lot of space - even if you leave the gibbons where they are.
That doesn't apply at PL of course because there is much more space there and I agree that the drills and Dianas would be good candidates for open enclosures. I think the drills would have to be on their own, but I wonder if they could find another species to double up with the the Dianas, as they keep de Brazzas with colobus?

Alan

__________________
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

08-09-2008

I agree the strip of woodland behind the mansion at Howletts is very narrow- on reflection maybe not very suitable for this purpose as some trees would have to be felled(to create barriers) and they probably wouldn't want to reduce the boundary effect of the trees in that area. There is still scope there to do something though.

At Port Lympne there is the big block of underused woodland just asking for development as monkey enclosures. Again, as you say though, each time one of these open enclosures is made, some woodland gets lost. But I certainly wouldn't mind seeing at least one large block enclosed by an electric fence and given over to those Drills! In a large enough space you could probably keep Dianas with them too...

11-09-2008

dianas, De brazzas, samango, colobus, drills and Guinia baboons could all share 1 enclosure!

P.S
What Happend to cape buffalo