Having been to Basel Zoo twice and seen the apes it occurs to me that the gorillas don't seem to have any outside enclosure at all, yet the orangs and chimpazees both have (small) ones...is there an off display outdoor area for them or are they really restricted to the 3 indoor rooms?
i've seen the Gorillas in one o the small outdoor cages before, so I think they rotate them. Proper large outdoor enclosures are being constructed shortly- may already have started.
I seem to remember from a tv program years ago that the roof can open to let in natural sunlight but I do feel they should have an out door area
They do have access to one of those small outside enclosures so they do see the sun. But these are far from ideal- they have finally decided to give over a much larger area for outside enclosures for their Apes- previously they have always been compromised for space but are now knocking down some older exhibits to provide the space.
Yes, they are currently building a large new ape exhibit, which was schedulded to finish summer 2012. but when I went there(summer 2012) it looked far from completed.
The whole complex opened in September 2012 with 5 new outdoor aviaries for the great apes. The indoor cages were enlarged in 2011. I havn`t seen any of it yet, but on the pics I`ve found it looks finished.
Thanks. Any idea how the five outdoor enclosures are used? e.g. is it 1 for Gorillas, 1 for Chimps, 2 for Orangutans, 1 for Gibbons? There is some info on their website about its opening but it doesn't say exactly how the five enclosures are used, by which species. It does say they can be interlinked though.
