Orang-Utan indoor enclosure 1

The Asien part was opened on 5th March 10.
The Zoom-Erlebniswelt is now finished.

One of the best Orang-Exhibits i know.

This does indeed look very nice! Looks like I will have to make my way by ZOOM Erlebniswelt sometime again

Am I right that what you can see in this photo is all indoors? It's certainly large if that's true.

On this pic you can see a part of the big indoors. Next to it is the 2. enclosure with 1/3 the size of it for the two old orangs. Outdoors they have a medium and a huge island.

Thanks for that

It sounds and looks fantastic.

Does anyone have recent photos of the outdoor orangutan area? I understand that there are two islands to go along with an amazing indoor zone. The entire facility of ZOOM appears to almost be 3 mini-zoos combined into one fabulous achievement. Each of the Alaskan, African and Asian areas have themed restaurants, gift shops and immersive, naturalistic animal habitats that are spacious and well-designed. I have a sneaky feeling that if I ever went on a grand tour of Europe's preeminent zoos that ZOOM would be one of my favourites.

Lastly, is there a single poor enclosure? How long does it take to tour the grounds?

This is a fantastic zoo, for all of the reasons you describe. It has perhaps the best overall layout and structure of any zoo I've seen, with three unique zoogeographic areas experienced as loops that begin and end at the zoo's central "spine," each loop containing a wide variety of indoor and outdoor exhibits and themed visitor amenities.

However, linked to the discussion of innate character of zoos, the overall "newness" of the place is not very compelling, and the over-abundance of rockwork is more noticeable because of its generally terrible quality. Not only is most of it unconvincing and fake-looking, but large portions seemed to be visibly falling apart already. The newly-planted landscape of large portions of the zoo will need a few years to fill in (and to help mask the large mining plants and landfills that border the African section of the site).

All that said, it is remarkable to visit a struggling, medium-sized industrial city only minutes away from a number of other established major zoos, and to find this incredible new development. The sea lion, hippo and brown bear exhibits are among the largest and best I've ever seen,and the indoor Asian rainforest with an excellent restaurant, huge orang exhibit plus a vast and imaginative indoor children's play area is quite unique and spectacular.

I'm not impressed by this indoor enclosure, simply because it is not green enough for me, in no way does it convey the message that orang-utans are found in dense, lush rainforests.
I realise that orangs are very destructive creatures, but surely, the bareness of the enclosure, could be improved upon.

Does anybody know enough about orang vision to know if they suffer problems from being kept with such strong light?

As animals that would not normally reach the treetops I can't help wondering if, like gorillas, their vision is a little bit myopic by our standards, designed for looking into the near distance and needing a bit more shade. Anyone know?