A few people have been asking about photos of the newly-renovated Clore Rainforest at London Zoo. I've uploaded some pics in the London Zoo gallery, here: http://www.zoobeat.com/forums/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/540
Nice photos. I hear that London has a large range of Small mammals. Can you name any of them? When I went in 2001, they had a small group of tree shrews and an Elephant shrew. Do they still have them? The Clore was still under construction when I went in March.
I'm not sure if you want me to rattle off a mammal species list for London - if so, you're out of luck. If you were there in March, I'd say the mammal collection hasn't changed much since then. I didn't see the shrews.
the central rainforest exhibit looks good from the pics, but of the other boxes, things dont seem to have changed alot from when i was there, except the colour scheme of the exhibit interiors. surfacing the pavers within the building with mulch would have been a good, inexpensive step towards improving this area. on balance, despite the monotony of looking at rows upon rows of tamarins and marmosets, i think its good to consider london is holding largr numbers of these species.
I would very much agee with those comments glyn. The boxes, if anything, have changed for the worse, with some of the painted backdrops being changed from some sort of rainforest feel (e.g. including plants, vines, trees etc.) being replaced with a single color (bottle green). Personally, I think this is a shame, as the more artistic backdrops (if done effectively) are far less intrusive. Unfortunately, this seems to be a management decision at the zoo. My photos unfortunately, don't do the exhibit justice, nor do they really give a feel for the entire building. I'll try to take some wider angle photos next time I'm there.
ill probably be there before you as picky as we might be about colour schemes and pavers, london zoo must not be a genuinely good zoo in terms of exhibit design. in 2005, the primate and hoofed stock areas were about the last large areas in need of a spruc eup, and theyve got it now. hopefully london zoo will continue to build on its success with gorilla kingdom, boost attendance and continue with its masterplan, which might include, i was told, bringing back wolves to the old mappin terraces, amongst other things. when i was there, none of the new exhibits were on a mind blowing scale(though i did think dragons of komodo was outstanding), but they do balance animal/people needs very well. and i think the LZ has come along way in a short space of time from the point of bankruptcy to become a park where the exhibits now match the zoos excellent scientific/field work.
its interesting to me seeing the pics of the london zoo giraffes that have been posted here and there. my parents are both british born and i have quite afew b & w photos of the long-haired hippies flirting in front of the giraffe enclosure - and it still looks exactly the same. i passed on vivting london zoo when i was there a couple of years ago (i opted for dusty faded stuffed animals instead at the BMNH) maybe i shouldn't have? the clore tamarin exhibits look aweful - i'm sure ide agree with zoopro's comments about them looking bettter when artistically painted like a jungle. i hope the monkeys have large areas at the rear becuse they also appear very, very small.... maybe they would be better suited to small reptiles?
Yes, They look more like the reptile house at Chester than an area for the endangered primates of south america.
I'm fairly sure they did last time we visited. The marmoset and tamarin enclosures do lead into outdoor areas- though as I understand many of the marmosets have moved into the free range rainforest area now. The one thing I was curious about, are the Sand Cats still on show here? The first time I went to London they were up near the big cats, but on my second visit they were in a number of small interlinked rooms in the Clore house. I do hope they either moved or got something better, because it did seem very temporary...I thought maybe they planned to make them a nocturnal exhibit like Bristol Zoo has.
Hey Chris, I certainly didn't see sand cats up near the big cats, and I had a pretty good look around that area. They may have been in the nocturnal area in the base of the Clore, but I can't be certain, as I didn't spend much time down there. That's a pretty depressing bunch of exhibits, I think. I really love sand cats, so if I had seen the exhibit, I certainly would have tried to find the animals.
The lime green brick walls are a bit of a turn-off. Cost-effective no doubt, but murals would look so much better. Print-out photo wallpapers aren't very expensive these days either. But the central rainforest area is very well-done indeed. Do the tamarins/marmosets get rotated between the glass-exhibits and the central area?
Dare I mention, Chester has no paint on it's inside tamarin enclosure. They have just wood with a lot of tree and bushes for the Black lion tamarins, Geoffroy's marmosets and pied tamarins. At jersey zoo they are just left to roam around the forest. That is good for the animlas as they have a very large area but bad for the visitors as you can't see them. It is ironic that a smaller zoo such as Jersey gives it's tamains larger areas than london which must have more than 20 times the budget of Jersey. Saying this, they also have quite small exhibits for some of the species such as the cotton top. Are the Aye ayes in the clore?
grantsmb, I've replied to your post in a new thread here: http://www.zoobeat.com/forums/2/free-ranging-animals-5867/
as shabby as the sand cat display in clore was, the interconnected exhibits actually did ammount to a fairly large area, and with lots of enrichment added too. in 2005, and i imagine still today due to the outdoor exhibits only being upgraded recently, about 90% of the tamarin/marmoset population in the clore had access to large outdoor aviary type exhibits filed with lush vegetation, heat lamps, logs ad open to the british sun-shine. there were glass panels let into the wire at intervals, a cheap but very effective way of displaying these beautiful animals that left me wondering why our aussie zoos couldnt do better (pat-on melbourne tamarin enclosures agreed). anyway, 10% of before mentioned tamarins without access to outdoor area used to live in the centre of the building-where the new rainforest section is. so in answer to your question pat, and without actually having been there in 2 years i would guesstimate that most of the animals now hav permanent access to SUNLIGHT yipee
The Aye-ayes as far as I know are not in Clore, no. They live in what was the old gorilla house, the big white Tecton one which used to rotate. It had Koalas in back in the early 90s and now its home to Aye Ayes and Ring-tailed lemurs. That's how it was in 05, don't see why it would have changed and certainly not heard owt since. Also, I have to say I disagree with the majority of you guys here, I'm not really a big fan of painted murally style backgrounds, I find them a bit fake. I'd say A better exhibit backdrop would be fake rock, or naturalistic wood, or a block colour broken up by foliage etc. A mural just looks a bit tacky, and obviously means nothing to the animals.
They won't have seen much sunlight in the last two weeks, I can promise you that. ZOOPRO took it with him when he left the country.....
As far as I can gather the whole rotating thing was to allow the gorillas sunshine and fresh air in summer, but keep them away from the cold in the winter. What happened, according to photo's i've seen, is that an inner wall rotated to cover the wire half of the building. Another question I had about the Clore building, is the bat cave still the same? It seemed rather uninteresting for fruit bats, which don't even naturally reside in caves as far as I know.
Sorry Chris, but I didn't visit the bat cave this trip, so I can't comment on it. Maybe someone else has been there recently?
