Suricata Sands at Colchester 29/11/09

There are three problems with the names, to my mind:

1 - they often sound ridiculous - 'Meddellin Monkeys' is atrocious - it's not spelt right, makes no sense and is just awful. 'Tiger Taiga' is dreadful too. But I'm prepared to admit that's just personal taste.

2 - when animals are moved around, they don't change the names - Foret de Madagascar is currently home to Giant Anteaters, while the Long-tailed Tamandua is in Wilds of Asia.

3 - there are cases where they are used to aggrandise the exhibits - 'Orang-Utan Forest' sounds much better than it is.



@ snowleopard - to my mind, the best Colchester exhibits are some of the Edge of Africa exhibits - the Blue Crane/Blue Duiker and colobus enclosures are very good - and the sealion pool, which is one of Britain's best.

Ah well, yr a kid, you're seven years old, you've seen 'The Lion King', and loads of CGI stuff, you think animals and humans are friends, where are you going to pester to be taken? All zoo exhibition is theatre to some extent, even the hills of Port Lympne, and I think it gets peoples' backs up with Colchester because they don't seem to get that you're supposed to hide it. While most zoos have the good etiquette to at least imitate a natural habitat, they have gone for the marketing genius of imitating a childs idea of an animal's natural habitat.

Also, the original zoo site before the extension is so congested with enclosures that it would actually be quite a bleak and depressing attraction unless there were plenty of distractions from the fact that most of the zoo is basically back-to-back cages, which can't often be viewed at a distance. The first you see of an exhibit is when you turn the corner and you're right at the viewing window. I think to try and create a naturalistic set of displays would require mature planting and far, far, sparser exhibit sites.

The zoo ought to be a bit more empty (origanal site) and not just fill itself up. But then again they have to make every use of space. Of course having a huge collection in a fairly short space of land is going to be difficult work. The zoo will have to expand if it wants this. But perhaps they will have to finish their time off with some animals. I don't think its a real problem if this happens.

I think this was the point of the expansion for large African species. There was nowhere on site where they could continue keeping elephants and rhino without new land.

The zoo is definitely less compact than it was, but I think the theming does distract from the realities of the original site in much the same way that lush foliage does at London Zoo.

Agree but i feel that the 'heavy' themes are only at the start of the zoo and the Edge of Africa part has been almost untouched.

And I'd be much happier with lush folige than some pretty hidious themeing. London Zoo is certainly more attractive overall than Colchester Zoo is!