I visited Dartmoor on the 23rd and got a new map: Map Quite few animals have moved around since my last visit, Also a few of the Wolves were missing, Pretty Face, Lizzy and Sarah's information boards weren't up, anyone know what happened?
Awesome! Thankyou. Does this show all of the exotic mammals at the zoo? I knew they were very strong on carnivores and weak on primates. If I were Benjamin Mee, priority acquisitions at this point would be the big African savannah animals - zebras, giraffes and rhinos - as well as a couple more primate species. Perhaps gibbons, tamarins and lemurs.
Agree on the primate front, monkeys and apes are always a large pull for visitors. The cat collection is great at the zoo but seeming as most species sleep 20 hours a day i think the addition of more primates would be benefiicial to the zoo IMO
Probably, yeah. But perhaps Dartmoor needs to bite the bullet and borrow to expand? Paignton, after all, is less than 40km away and has elephants, giraffes, rhinos, zebras, gorillas, orang-utans, lions and tigers, amongst others. It must be hard to compete long term with such a major zoo so nearby.
At present Dartmoor still represents mostly the old collection inherited from the previous owner and its a mixture of generally traditional and common species with nothing too unusual or outstanding. With the South West's biggest general collection at Paignton not that far away, maybe they should be looking to go in a slightly different direction with any new acquisitions, perhaps by specialising in a particular group of animals, to help give them a stronger identity.
The Dartmoor zoo site is breathtakingly stunning in a way that Paignton isn't. I almost put it on a par with Port Lympne, although the area is much, much smaller. If they develop the park in such a way that the natural landscape is used to frame the exhibits, I would expect them to survive as Africa Alive does in the relative shadow of Colchester and Banham. This is why I think the move towards larger, more majestic hoofstock would serve the park well, but I understand the pace they are going at. However, enclosures like the macaw cage, built right at the top of the lower string of paddocks, are an eyesore to me and seem clumsy against the woods and fields. I do think the new Vervet monkey enclosure is exactly what the park needs to be doing, however I wish funds had allowed for appropriate fencing of the African Paddock so that the monkeys could be mixed with the antelope and ostrich.
Cheers for the updated map, they have changed it since i was there last month, i guess they are not planning on having wallabies in the walkthrough anymore. I would definately love to see a few more primates species at dartmoor and possibly a few more species in the african exibit as the paddock is definately large enoegh. Also for those of you who havent seen my thread in the tv section, national geographic are showing repeats of ben's zoo over the next couple weeks. Ben's Zoo on Nat Geo Wild at 9:00pm May 4th, 2010 - UK TV Guide
