inside the South American house

the cage to the right is for coatis. To the left (out of shot) are the indoor shelters (glass-fronted) for those animals with outside enclosures, such as giant anteater, mara, tapir, etc.

August 2013

This photo might need some explaining because for someone who hasn't been there it does give a misleading impression.

The row of cages shown in the photo is actually only two cages (not a long row of small cages, just two really big ones); the one nearest the front is for coatis, and the one to the far end for black spider monkeys. So if you look at the extent of the little brick wall, and use the people for scale, then roughly divide the length in half -- that is the size of each cage front.

The little staircases inside the cages actually lead up the next level of that cage. What looks like the ceiling of the cage in this photo is actually the floor of the next level (the cages are at least 30 or 40 feet high and are divided internally into three levels with mesh floors). It's quite a good idea really, because instead of just giving really vertical space with branches and ropes, it actually increases the floor space threefold. For the monkeys it might have been better not to have the internal divisions, but for the animals like coatis and raccoons I think it probably enhanced their living space a lot. The cages can be viewed from different floors within the building.

My main problems with the cages were that they were quite ugly to look at (lots of mesh, concrete base, branches and ropes etc, but no vegetation [but of course live plants wouldn't last long in there]) and they were entirely indoors when there was really no need for these animals not to have outside enclosures in South Korea.

This photo was trying to show the height (not very well, but taken from the front of the cage looking upwards): http://www.zoochat.com/1659/coati-cage-339704/

This photo shows how tall the cages are, going from the ground floor all the way up to the glass ceiling (the photo was taken at a different point in the house -- these ones were for raccoons, toco toucans and tamanduas I think -- but the cages were all similar): http://www.zoochat.com/1659/inside-south-american-house-339709/

honestly if I hadn't been there myself, I too would have looked at this photo and thought it was a row of small low-roofed cages so i really should have put a better explanation in the original post. Although these cages are pretty ugly, they probably provide a better home for coatis than many zoos do. Coatis are really arboreal but zoos very often keep them in rather low cages, as if they were badgers or something.

(I think there may have been sloths in these cages as well come to think of it, so there would be three cages in this row and not two as I said).