My August zoo tour of the south of England

27-08-2008

This happens in zoos far more often than one could imagine. I think what happens is that a zoo will look to redevelop their cat enclosures first (big crowd puller) and then decide that they need to fill the empty enclosure with another species. Primates being smaller than big cats (smaller animal = more space), but requiring similar safety requirements, fits the bill.

27-08-2008

That wasn't what happened at London. They demolished several monkey exhibits, to make room for the new, larger gorilla exhibit (plus associated walk-through aviary, reptile exhibit and educational displays). So they moved some of the cats out to let three groups of monkeys use their enclosures. The outdoor enclosures are rather small and low, but the indoor enclosures look decidedly cramped to me.

Alan

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

27-08-2008

I always wanted to visit Noahs Ark, it seems a nice location and a family friendly enviroment, judging by what i saw on zoo babies the housing looks good though the siamangs enclosure looked unatural.

I suppose that this collection will suffer big time when the national wildlife park opens in cribbs causeway.... but this is not for a long time!

27-08-2008

Those monkeys just don't look right in what were originally small cat enclosures. I also wonder how they like being in the vicinity of Tigers and Lions but are probably used to that by now.

General visitors will have seen enough Monkeys in the Gorilla Kingdom area so I'm not sure why ZSL persist with keeping these other groups- the Sulawesi group is so small they would be better added to another group elsewhere. I think I'd prefer to see the other two species go elsewhere too if they can't devise something better.

28-08-2008

Where did the cats go (which species) and did they move into better accomodation?

28-08-2008

Looks on the telly can be mis-leading because personnaly i think it makes Twycross primate exhibits look excellent yes its family friendly but some parts of the place are just plain shocking the bit they showed was the best part of the NAZF.