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Bele

Giraffe House

This substantial building also has stalls for the zebras . Straight ahead is a small exhibit still being worked on . To the left is a Scorpion exhibit . There are large graphics explaining why they are holding surplus hybrid male giraffes .

Giraffe House
Bele, 27 Dec 2009
    • Bele
      This substantial building also has stalls for the zebras . Straight ahead is a small exhibit still being worked on . To the left is a Scorpion exhibit . There are large graphics explaining why they are holding surplus hybrid male giraffes .
    • Pertinax
      Nice House. Noah's Ark could take note...;)
    • kiang
      Architecturally speaking all the latest giraffe houses in the UK are very similar, the large agricultural barn style, which is very functional, Folly farm follows Banham, Paignton and Blackpool in this vein, hopefully the new house at Cotswold WP, will be a little different.

      In my view the most pleasing to the eye in the UK is the giraffe house at Marwell, with a quality finish to it
    • Pertinax
      I agree- it is far superior to all the others- a real quality design the others all lack somehow. The design I like least is Paignton's because you look DOWN on the Giraffes- so the ability to see their great height at close quarters is completely lost.
    • CiaranDUK
      You can look down on the ones at Banham too. Infact Banham's is probably the best I have seen for myself. It's modern and has interpretation television screens aswell as a large 'upstairs' area where you can look down on the Giraffes. This area also holds a lot of information panels about EEP etc etc and there is space for the photograph competitions that Banham and Africa Alive hold between them.
    • redpanda
      I would imagine that having visitors looking down on giraffes is the last thing you want. In this scenario the animals appear greatly diminished and visitors are in the dominant position which is obviously not an ideal situation.
    • CiaranDUK
      Visitors can still view the animals from ground level within the Giraffe House. Whilst actually IN the Giraffe quarters, so-to-speak, the 'Human quarters' appears less obvious than you would think. The Giraffes concentrate more on the browse or food buckets anyways so it's all fine. There is no glass between visitor and Giraffe, just wires, so there are barriers to let visitors stay a small distance away from the animals. You would need to visit the Giraffe house at Banham to see what I mean.
    • redpanda
      Fair enough, it sounds better than I initially gave it credit for.
    • Pertinax
      I don't imagine visitors would bother the Giraffe at whatever height they see them, as they are so used to people. At Paignton you can ONLY see them from above, (indoors that is) and at quite a distance too- it is a very poor design IMO but Paignton have a few other exhibits like that too...:(.

      Best Giraffe House in the UK is still probably Marwell's- I imagine it cost an awful lot more than the others though.
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  • Category:
    Folly Farm
    Uploaded By:
    Bele
    Date:
    27 Dec 2009
    View Count:
    2,358
    Comment Count:
    9