Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo - Orangutan Exhibit

July 2008.

Two enclosures with a massive amount of height for the orangs, including 65-foot trees with ropes and branches pointing in all directions. On top of that, the mesh is easily climbable and the orangs and gibbons can make full use of their brachiation techniques around the entire exhibit.

This exhibit slightly reminds of the excellent Red Ape Rain forest at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Myself and others (like reduakari) cannot stand the orangutan exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo. On my epic road trip thread I gave a scathing review of that fairly new enclosure, but for me it really is one of the more disappointing great ape exhibits in North America. Scratched up glass with graffiti on it, poor enrichment with one enclosure only having a five foot wide wooden platform and a few measly little ropes for swinging on, and there is a total lack of space once the orangs are separated. Omaha's orang exhibits are a hundred times better than L.A.'s poorly designed ape cages.

Except that we need those trees (climbing structures in the middle).

Scott, I kind of have to disagree here. I loved the Red Ape rain forest and like how they had three different enclosures they could swing too. I actually liked all three great ape exhibits at the LA Zoo.

@BlackRhino: I'm glad that you liked all three great ape exhibits at the Los Angeles Zoo, because that means you'd LOVE the ape habitats at countless other zoos! If the L.A. enclosures impress you then that's great news, but I could provide a long, long list of exhibits that are much, much better. Having said that, the chimpanzee habitat is the one out of the three that I'd agree with you on, as I was definitely impressed with that one.

I agree to some degree. You can't blame the zoo for being in a city where gangs are everywhere you go, so they will graffiti anything the can. Also, there is actually more to the exhibits than what you see, as I had the chance to enter all three exhibits. I saw that the exhibits are indeed tall, which allows the apes to climb really high. In the old exhibit all the could was climb a couple of feet and that's it. The have tons of enrichment and as Allen and Jon say in the America's Best Zoos the keepers hang their fruit so the apes climb up to get it. I've also worked in a lot of enrichment devises for apes. Oh, and the only orang that is seperated is the male, but since he grew up in a jail cell before he came to the zoo he actually never moves from one spot. The male is also very sick (he was sick when he came to the zoo), so he is not allowed outside in cold and wet weather. The females have two enclosures for themeselves and are forced to climb if they want to move between exhibits.

I do agree with you on the fact that it needs more climbing structures, but other than that it's not as bad as you think.

who are the orangutans in each group?

Here are a pair of orangutan exhibits that offer a tremendous amount of height: a pair of 65-foot "trees" that have loads of ropes and vines hanging off of them. In terms of appearances I'm not totally sold on these enclosures, but they do look alright and the apes have an incredible number of climbing opportunities.