Small Mammals House - River Otter Exhibit

You're right. Ringo, our male harbor seal, lived in that exhibit for a number of years with another seal! Hard to imagine! He was moved years ago to the sea lion exhibit next to polar bears and now that the sea lions have passed he lives with another harbor seal again. He just celebrated his 33rd birthday.

@weasel : I truly commend you for replying here and telling your side of the story. I know it is often not easy to adjust old enclosures. Still (having personally worked with different otter species over the past 20 years), I don't see how any enrichment or training can make this exhibit acceptable for the animals. Of course I have never been to your zoo, so maybe I would be surprised.

What a dump!

Seems even worse than Maritime's...

Originally this exhibit did indeed hold a Harbor Seal, and does anyone know if the seals were in here for decades before being replaced by North American River Otters? Inside the small house in the 1960's there was also some type of Cuscus, Palm Civets, Kinkajous, Vampire Bats and a Pangolin. There were even rarely-exhibited Steller's Sea Lions next to Polar Bears in an outdoor exhibit in another part of the zoo.

I visited Milwaukee County Zoo back in 1986 when i studied in Chicago. The exhibit above held asian small clawed otters. It was more than adequate for them and even spacious, though not naturalistic. The north american otters were outside in the north american section and next to the polar bears were california sea lions. According to the zoo guidebook and some memories the small mammal house held pallas cat, dusky titi and acouchy, tree shrews, prevost squirrels, meerkats, tayras, black and white ruffled lemurs, ring tailed lemurs and african ground squirrels. The nocturnal section had flying foxes, vampire bats, mottled owl, elephant shrew, springhass, a palm civet, fennec foxes, also coendu, night monkeys and a sloth, all together if i recall. I have fond memories of this zoo, which back in the eighties was considered innovative.

The Small Mammal House is one of the exhibits at Milwaukee that could most use improvement, that is for sure.

Just thought you all should know. This exhibit is now home to a sloth, and its actually pretty good. The pool has been drained and filled with climbing logs. A new outdoor otter exhibit is underway

I believe this used to be a river dolphin exhibit. How awful would that have been?

@GraysonDP Wait... your serious? Is that even enough space to turn around!