Primate Reserve - Colobus Monkey Exhibit

July 31st, 2010.

Was this a shared exhibit? I'm trying to think which one it is since the Colobus monkeys moved outside next to the African Wild Dogs.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I do know that I simply cannot stand this fairly new exhibit. It resembles a 1970's primate house and there is plenty of metal in all directions. Just horrid, and lacking decent climbing opportunities in most of the enclosures.

Primate reserve?, more primate warehouse i would say.

I found the smaller apes, like the gibbons, found ways to climb and swing all over the exhibit. As for the bigger apes, the gorillas never looked that stimulated.

How is this different from any other indoor primate holding in most zoos around the world?

The problem with Primate Reserve is that some of the inhabitants do not have outdoor access, and their indoor area is almost completely devoid of anything that is not either cement or metal. Many major zoos in Europe have begun layering the floor of indoor primate exhibits with woodchips, sand or bark mulch, and yet that has not caught on in America yet. Also, Philadelphia also has many primates in the Rare Animal Conservation Center, and none of them have access to the outdoors and those enclosures are very primitive and outdated.

Spectacled Langur Exhibit (complete with ladder and yellow beam for the monkeys):

http://www.zoochat.com/837/primate-reserve-spectacled-langur-exhibit-177438/

Gorilla Soccer Field:

http://www.zoochat.com/837/primate-reserve-gorilla-soccer-field-177434/

Squirrel Monkey Exhibit:

http://www.zoochat.com/837/primate-reserve-squirrel-monkey-exhibit-177436/

@kiang: "Primate Warehouse" would be an apt title!

An excerpt from my 2010 review:

Primate Reserve – I realize that the decision to put a large primate complex that just opened a decade ago in my “worst” category might seem shocking to my faithful readers as often new exhibits are praiseworthy, but this building gets just about everything wrong. The entrance sign is pleasant and there is a well-planted ring-tailed lemur island that offers up an attractive offering as visitors file into the area. The outdoor gorilla yard is simply a large field, with the only vegetation hotwired off in the centre of the space. There are a couple of small climbing structures, but for the most part it resembles a soccer field and none of the apes were interested in venturing out on my visit. The Sumatran orangutans and white-handed gibbons have a large outdoor yard that is great for the gibbons as they have access to some massive trees, but I’m not sure that the orangs can scale the ropes to also spend time in the treetops. There is a metal structure lumped into the exhibit right near the glass viewing windows, and it is ugly as anything I’ve seen in an ape enclosure. Maybe the orangs hang their laundry on it?

The great ape outdoor yards were disappointing, but the indoor area of the primate house is a disaster. The decision was made in the late 1990’s (after the original primate house burned to the ground on Christmas Eve of 1995) to construct a type of “retro” building, as almost all of the floor space is hard cement, the walls are murals from another era, and not all of the primates have any outdoor areas. There are steel beams, ladders and metal pipes in the exhibit that are used for climbing, but if someone had shown me photos and told me that I was looking at a monkey house from the 1950’s I would have believed every word. Everything is harsh metal and cement, and the ladders and steel poles make me cringe. The species list: spectacled langurs, squirrel monkeys, Sumatran orangutans/white-handed gibbons, gorillas, colobus monkeys, aye-ayes (a male and pregnant female in a separate nocturnal area) and Coquerel’s sifakas and golden lion tamarins in basic outdoor cages.

An impressive stock list, but I can't see them dying from over- stimulation generated by their accommodation being too complex....

Some mischievous UK zoogoers would say that this accommodation looks very German....

An impressive stock list, but I can't see them dying from over- stimulation generated by their accommodation being too complex....

Some mischievous UK zoogoers would say that this accommodation looks very German....

The original concept for this building was that it was to represent an abandoned logging factory in the tropics that was now being "reclaimed" by nature. I kid you not...

It is uniformly awful, and obviously no one got the message, especially after the walls of the "factory" were painted over with murals of forest views.