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Bristol Zoo (Closed) Bristol Zoo News 2018

Discussion in 'United Kingdom' started by Crowthorne, 6 Jan 2018.

  1. TriUK

    TriUK Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Where are the wallabies going?
     
  2. Ned

    Ned Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    They went to Flamingo Land last summer. A shame to see them go but tree kangaroos are a great replacement.
     
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  3. charliejb

    charliejb Well-Known Member

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  4. TNT

    TNT Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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  5. Ned

    Ned Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I can't quite visualise how this is going to work, it seems like they are going to have an enclosure within the walk-through so I wonder if there'll be free flying birds in there too or else it will be a bit of a waste of such a big structure.
     
  6. Dylan

    Dylan Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    One thing I noticed when I was there is the big sign with all the conservation is wrong. For those that haven't been, it' a large map that points to various countries and has a short passage on the conservation that the society does in that country. But the arrow for their lemur leaf frog conservation in Costa Rica actually points to Honduras. And their Tanzanian macaque conservation points to Mozambique. Only someone who really knows maps can see it but it caused me a lot of amusement. Only beaten by the Flamingo land sign
     
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  7. lintworm

    lintworm Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Macaque or Mangabey :p, there are no Macaque in subsaharan Africa ;)
     
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  8. Kifaru Bwana

    Kifaru Bwana Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I think he meant Kipunji mangabey. And I can think of a few other Cercopithecidae like the Udzungwa red colobus .
     
  9. lintworm

    lintworm Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Kipunji is not really a mangabey though, Sanje mangabey would be a better fit.
     
  10. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    A quick google for Bristol's Tanzanian conservation concerns suggests it is indeed the Sanje Mangabey.
     
  11. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    This enormous structure doesn't seem to have quite lived up to expectations so far- it seems to have been closed as a walk-through a lot of the time and then the Rock Wallabies didn't seem to work out for some reason I never discovered. Has it been open recently and what does it contain now?
     
  12. Ned

    Ned Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    It's currently closed while it's been redeveloped for tree kangaroo, I presume there will be public access when it's finished but with the kangaroos inside an inner enclosure. This makes the original structure redundant unless free-flying birds are to be kept in it.
     
  13. Crowthorne

    Crowthorne Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    A nice little bit of zoo history has been unearthed - a flight of steps that lead up to the old Monkey Temple (now Smarty Plants). It is hoped more steps on other sides of the temple will be uncovered in the future

    Historic steps unearthed at Bristol Zoo Gardens
     
  14. TNT

    TNT Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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  15. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    The steps have only been buried for twenty years...I remember them well. There was a bust of Alfred the Gorilla on the plinth shown in the old b/w photo. And the monkeys were NOT removed to the existing monkey enclosures- that's just a publicity fallacy I'm afraid, as the Temple contained a colony of rhesus macaques and their fate is unknown to me after the exhibit closed, but they disappeared from the zoo. (At the time of the Temple closure, I don't think the existing monkey enclosures were even in existence).
     
    Last edited: 17 May 2018
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  16. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    It looks nice, I hope it works better than the Rock wallabies did. I wish they could have done something like this for them too, instead of getting rid of them, surely room in this huge structure for both?
     
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  17. TNT

    TNT Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Unless they have a second outdoor area for the TKs then there would be room for the wallabies in a non-walk through area.
     
  18. tetrapod

    tetrapod Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    The rock wallaby walk-through never worked due to a fundamental lack of understanding of rock wallaby behaviour - they are skittish and prefer to be up high. There was nothing particularly wrong with the enclosure; it just should never have been a walk-through with this species. I'm not convinced that a walk-through tree kangaroo enclosure would be any better...
     
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  19. pipaluk

    pipaluk Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Perhaps the problem for the rock wallabies was the number of visitors in a confined space .
    I saw the Bristol Rock Wallabies at Flamingoland in December and they came within a few feet of me when I was alone in the walk-through, suddenly a family with 2 youngish children came crashing through the gate and they shot back to hide in the rocks!
     
  20. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I know they are quite nervous animals and favour being up high. I was surprised this species was chosen for a walkthrough in fact, rather than the more typical Bennett's Wallaby. I think their new enclosure at Flamingo Park is also a walkthrough(or walk-past) of sorts, I wonder if they will fare better there. Its a shame Bristol did not instead modify the enclosure and continue with them. It seems the Tree Kangaroos will be in 'an enclosure within an enclosure.'
     
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