Already posted in the forum TV shows, etc., but Animal Planet has renewed "The Zoo" for a second season: Animal Planet Renews 'The Zoo' for Season 2 (Exclusive)
I'll be visiting the zoo sometime in the next week, is there a 'best' order in which to do things? I'm also trying to work out if I'll need two days to get the most out of it, or if it's doable in one. Any thoughts appreciated!
I'll address the second problem first. If this is your first visit and you enjoy spending time looking at animals (especially birds) then yes I would recommend a double visit. Now. If you want to see everything and see all the animals active, I would recommend starting from the Bronx River gate and making a left after World of Birds through Tiger Mountain, Himalayan Highlands, and the lions. Then head to Asia with Asia Monorail then Jungle World, then move up to Congo, as those are generally the most congested areas. After that I've found the remaining enclosures to be about the same for the while day (aside Baboon reserve, with the earlier the better). Hope this helps!
I would add that if you DO enjoy watching birds, get to World Of Birds early. By noon birds can be harder to spot.
That's awesome, thanks both. World of birds first it is then! I think I'll probably have a good idea if it's a two day trip depending on how long I spend in WoB!
From about 9 days spent at BZ over the last 3 years, I would say savetheelephant has exactly the right rec., except . . . if you like birds, go first thing on the second day. The first day you will want to stay and stay, but will be wondering what you are missing and if you should be getting on. The second day you will know the answer to that and can take your time. Best for me, among many good things, was the Bird of Paradise mating calls and dance, then later learning there were chicks from about that time. Starting from the Bronx River gate works best for me, and if you are in Manhattan the express bus lets you off near there.
4 days spent at Bronx this year alone. Go at the beginning of the first day. It's a great introduction to a great zoo. I stayed in that exhibit for about 1.5 hours the first time- didn't seen everything but knew I should move on. Later that day after I knew I'd need a second, I went ahead and started back and finished the day off with it too. The second day I did the same, started and ended, and it took less and less time. I've now seen every species kept there except for two. It's time-consuming to visit, but not unbearably so.
I tend to start and end my visits at World of Birds, but I've been visiting multiple times a year for years ~Thylo
Had a fun visit yesterday with @Vision yesterday and noted a few new things: -Red-Faced Lovebird is new in World of Birds. Also finally saw the Cuban Grassquit. The cocks-of-the-rock have disappeared again it seems. -The seriema have thankfully been removed from the Aquatic Bird House and moved into a better enclosure in the Pheasant Aviaries. Guam Kingfisher, Marbled Teal, and Ring-Necked Dove replace them. The Guanay Cormorant was still out, and the Peruvian Pelicans were nowhere to be found. -Yellow-Headed Box Turtles have been born in World of Reptiles. West African Bush Viper, Big-Headed Amazon River Turtle, and Beale's Four-Eyed Turtle are all newly on-exhibit, as well as a currently unidentified lizard. The old giant musk turtle enclosure is being refurbished for Parker's Snake-Necked Turtle. -Two species of climbing perch have been added to Congo Gorilla Forest. -Another Gelada has been born. -A large section of the Grevy's Zebra enclosure has been fenced off and redeveloped into a fantastic Slender-Horned Gazelle enclosure. The Carter Giraffe Building was closed. The majority of the space which used to be the old hoofstock enclosures has been taken up by the new playscape which is quite the disappointment. However, there is still a decent amount of space left heading towards the zebras and I'd imagine this will one day be for the Cheetahs they currently have off-show. -The zoo is down to four Javan Langurs, one less than in June and two less than in February... ~Thylo
I am going next weekend, with hopefully some fall like weather. I was already prepared for the new Play area to take up a lot of the unused space; however all my friends who have children have raved about it so it is making extra revenue. How much of the zebra space in the gazelle exhibit taking? Do you recall how large of a herd they still have? As for the empty yard that used to hold the blesbok- I'm not sure if that will be for the cheetahs. It's not that large of a space and it's right on the main walking/tram trail. Maybe for special cheetah talks/encounters? It's also great to hear another gelada was born. I was getting concerned the numbers would go so far down they'd consider phasing them out like they are doing with the Javan Langurs. Are the giant musk turtles gone from exhibit or did they also move exhibits? Is the bush viper and four eyed turtles in their own exhibit or were they added to another existing exhibit? Are the pikas still alive at the Mouse House? Were the marmoset and/or tamarin exhibits still on the outside?
It takes up a decent amount of space, pretty much the entire right side. However, the zebra enclosure was always huge and I never saw the zebras use the right side so it leaves both species with quite large enclosures. I believe they have three adult and one young gazelle. The musk turtles appear to be gone. The viper is in with the gaboon viper and the turtle is with the Chinese Crocodile Lizards. We saw one pika, a different individual to the one I've seen in the past and that's been photographed on the here. The monkeys were indeed still outside, though we didn't see most of them. ~Thylo
Ha, I went to the BZ yesterday as well, predictably only managed to get around about 2/3 of it. Absolutely fantastic place, but I'm glad that some of the species I missed had just been moved off display (cock of the rock in particular). One thing that really frustrated me was the terrible signage in some mixed aviaries in WoB, I just couldn't tell if I was missing species that weren't there, and what I was missing that was actually there! I missed the sifaka, were they on show when you were there Thylo? There were a pair of (crowned?) Lemurs in there, unlabeled... Anyway, I missed so much I'll be back tomorrow!
The species rotate in that exhibit and there is no set schedule as far as anyone can tell. I have a photo of the "normal" pika that I'll get around to posting soon.
The sifaka was not on display, no. And yes they are Crowned Lemurs. Thankfully for Vision, we managed to see the whole zoo in a day with about a half hour to spare. ~Thylo
The cocks-of-the-rock hadn't been moved off-show, it seems; @ThylacineAlive and I didn't see them on our visit Thursday, but I did see a female on Saturday. The Sifakas were also on-show yesterday. The cuban grassquit we mentioned earlier doesn't actually seem to be one when looking at pictures, but we're not quite certain what it actually is, either. I'll put a picture up later
Here's a video of the new gazelle enclosure: It shows that the zoo has two young gazelles as oppose to the one I saw. ~Thylo
I've been out of the loop lately, so a couple of questions: - Now that the slender-horneds have been moved, are there any plans for their former exhibit? Does the Zoo still have an nyala bull in their collection? What's the deal with him? - How long has it been known that the Javan langurs are being phased out? Any idea what will eventually replace them, if anything? I find it hard to believe they'll leave that exhibit entirely to the waterfowl, haha. - As for the pika... so does the Zoo really have Daurian pika? I recall seeing someone comment something like "that definitely isn't a Daurian pika" on a photo of it posted a while back - could that have been the "normal" individual you're talking about? I guess there's no guesses as to what species it could be? Also, very happy to hear about the crowned lemurs! I haven't seen them in years; I thought for the longest that they had gone! Lots of babies at the Zoo these days, it seems! We've got the geladas, the hyraxes, the slender-horned gazelles, colobus... am I missing any others? I'm hoping to visit sometime soon and want to get a peek at all of them! Anyone have a chance to check out the burrowing owls, by the way? How are they faring at the Birds of Prey exhibit?
that was me and what I said was "that does not look like a Daurian pika." (Daurian pika (Ochotona dauurica) | ZooChat). I didn't say it was definitely not that species, I said it didn't look like one.There's a big difference. The animals were caught wild in Mongolia but nobody (on Zoochat) knows where, and pikas all look very similar in general. They probably are Daurian pikas; simply that individual does not look like one. Apparently there are only two left now anyway.
