The butterfly house in the early 20th century winter garden next to the small monkey house was reopened today. Until fall butterflies (imported as pupae from Costa Rica) will again be kept and displayed in this house. ZOO Antwerpen
Finally the long-expected Malayan tapir calf has been born at Antwerp Zoo. Mother Nakal gave birth in the night of last Friday to Saturday (August 16th/17th). The calf might be going outside later this week, when better and warmer weather is expected. From the video and what I've seen on Facebook pages it does seem that the tapir calf is already on view in the publicly viewable tapir stable. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=399990533867925
Update: Zoo Antwerpen just confirmed on Facebook that the newborn tapir is female. A name, starting with the letter U, has yet to be chosen. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=409786122986299
Great news from Zoo Antwerpen today. After three years a king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) has successfully been hatched at Zoo Antwerpen again. The mother is Ra, the female that hatched at Antwerp three years ago, the father is Eddy from the Edinburgh Zoo. The chick has been named Urban and has been returned to the parents after hatching in an incubator while the parents sat on an artificial egg, and seems to be doing well. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2120593474712456
Chimpanzee Kitoto has arrived from Wuppertal. The zoo also announced on Instagram that two chimpanzees (Nancy and Lomela) will arrive from Tierpark Nordhorn. Looks like Antwerp's not phasing out chimps just yet.
I'm not sure they will be breeding, also given that the group is mixed in terms of subspecies. Also, I think ten chimpanzees is probably fairly close to maximum capacity for the facilities at Antwerp.
They mentioned in the same instagram post that they will indeed not be breeding these chimps. Most, if not all of them are too old to breed anyway. However, since it had been a while since Antwerp received any new chimps, I started assuming (wrongly so) that maybe they were thinking of phasing them out.
There was talk of that at some point, yes, probably around the time they opened the new ape outdoor exhibits. At the time there was talk about them phasing out chimps in favor of a bachelor gorilla group as they have now gotten the chance to breed gorillas again. That said, I don't think there was ever any official statement about that though.
I always found it somewhat baffling that the two zoos in thr Benelux with the biggest soace constraints, Artis and Antwerpen, would consider keeping 2 separate groups of Gorilla...
I believe there was some talk at the time that the studbook keeper left Antwerp with no choice if they wanted a breeding group again, but again, that was just talk between zoo nerds on a Dutch forum, so there is no official source for this that I know of. What else would you propose they do with the space if the phase out the chimpanzees?
I personally see no reason to phase out the chimps as in terms of flexibility and privacy it is one of the best Chimp enclosures on the continent. But my personal view doesn't matter, especially if studbook keepers demand such a thing which is not very strange given capacity problems of males in the Gorilla EEP...
A bit of sad news: the Nocturama (Antwerp's night house) will close a lot sooner than previously expected, as soon as the 7th of October. Apparently the aardvark, springhares, water rats, mouse deer are all already gone, and we can only guess what'll happen with the tamandua, sloths, armadillo and slender lorises. The last Humboldt's night monkey moved to the monkey house, which means that luckily that species hasn't yet left Antwerp, though I don't know how easy it will be to see there... I hope that at least the slender lorises also get a place in the monkey house and that they continue breeding as well as they have done until now. It is, in my opinion, a bit unfortunate that there was never a public announcement about its closure, and that the final date is only known now, so shortly before the actual closure. The night house has had a very elaborate history and has always been a special area for many regular visitors, myself included. I was hoping to still be able to visit it a few times, but it seems like a visit within the next few days will be the last time.
Thanks for the update @Vision and the closure of the Nocturama is a real loss for the zoo. I was impressed when I saw it a few months ago, and it's a crazy situation that the zoo has given the general public only one last weekend to see the animals. Usually when zoos are going to close down a major building there is notice of a month or two so that people can say their last goodbyes.
