Brookfield Zoo - Tropic World

July 2008. White-cheeked gibbons reside in this section of the enormous building.

Geez I hate that exhibit, it doesn't even look natural. Might as well be tile and metal bars.

One great thing about the exhibit is that there are a lot of climbing possibilities for the primates, even though everything is as fake as Michael Jackson's face.

Nice metafor and good point. Let's just hope that the gibbons won't mind everything being so artificial.

This place looks huge compared to the gibbon in the shot!

You are right Mario, the building is the size of a football field and is absolutely massive...and yet it is tough for hardcore zoo fans to get over the fact that there is basically zero natural substrate anywhere. Also, the gorilla and orangutan exhibits are both definitely lacking in space.

In fact, I don´t think I have ever seen zoo enclosures looking more artificial than these! If these pictures would have been from minitaurezoo954s incredible modelling project, I would have commented something like..."yeah,, it looks rather good, but not quite life-like...".

The British punk band The Clash, way back in the 1970s, had a song called "Concrete Jungle, I seem to recall... or maybe it was some other band?...

Never mind: a fitting name for the exhibits in this building!!!

You can't deny how much space, both land area and height these gibbons have. It looks bigger then most gibbon islands I've ever seen.

I wonder if Gibbons born in this exhibit. Have issues with the fact that the branches have no spring and are all made from concrete or something similiar?

It would be interesting to watch them adapt to real trees. As long as no injuries occured.

I seem to remmber the first golden lion tammarins released had allot of problem with this issue. Not every branch supported there weight!!

@PAT: you've made a good comment, and I believe that it is something that I mentioned in my initial review of Tropic World on my epic road trip last summer. All of the wonderful assortment of primates (except for maybe the gorillas and orangutans) have lots of space in the huge building. There are also a ton of climbing opportunities, and thus Tropic World does have some fantastic aspects to the exhibits that many zoos do not offer their primates. However, real grass and fresh air would improve things considerably...it's tough to decide what to do with this 30 year-old "concrete jungle".