I am sorry if I ended up doing another Bursa zoo thread in case there was any before. I felt like making this thread after finding out that on this year's spring baby boom (which usually consists of ring-tail lemurs zebras and goats), Bursa has achieved something no other place in Turkey has done before: breeding a giant anteater. I also found out Bursa will be obtaining rhinoceri and lesser pandas in the future. Two of the lesser pandas wil be the surpluses Darica had from Denmark. The animals are said to arrive on the end of May.
I previously forgot to mention that the zoo was preparing for three white rhinoceroses two from Austria and one from France (no information on the specific parks, does anybody know any recent departures?). While these are not the first rhinos in Turkey, they are the first white rhinoceros. The news of the arrival of the rhinos finally came out today along with footage of the animals walking to their enclosure. According to the mayor of Bursa the shelter has an area of 1057 meter squares, and the outdoor space is 3620 meter squared.
As many of you can tell from the phitos I have uploaded I have visited the Bursa. All I can say about this place is that it is a fine place. I was naively expecting to have a better time until remembered this park's biggest problem when I was at the park: the visitors. Regardless of the ammount of "don't bang the glass", "touching the animals is dangerous", or"feeding the animals is not allowed" signs people seem to interpret tge opposite. Ever since I saw the first rule breaker (some brat hitting the iguana enclosure) I started to fear for the health and safety of these animals. I have been to this park over five times and saw tones of rules being broken such as seeing an entire bag of salty sunflower seeds in the baboon enclosure, a little girl kicking a wire cage which a tapir was resting to, onagers being fed and touched by the visitors, and trash all over the place. While the large enclosures and cages were fine, small enclosure containing the yellow anaconda, ball python, lesser hedgehog tenrec, green iguana were concerning. Shouldn't eaza zoos, particularly those from third world countries, present the exhibit they have before a zoo sends their precious animals to God knows where? I am making this rant because the goodness of a zoo, in my opinion, also depends on the visitors who can help the zoo become good by followung the rules and provung the ARs that zoos aren't these for "dumb entertainment" Also they had vicugñas, something I never have heard before.
Visitors behaving in wrong way is not unique trait of Turks. You can see it in different intensity everywhere. It is hard to do something against it, you can only educate people over and over. Usually, I interferre only in cases of severe danger for people or animals, like people putting small children over safety railing directly to mesh of wolf/gibbon/bear enclosure (many Czech families), or people feeding animals real rubbish like candy or fresh bread to hoffstock (most often Russian and Arab tourists). But I remmember one time in Jihlava, many years ago when it was just small poor zoo, two French kids were banging relentlessly on glass panel of Pallas´s cats family enclosure and their parents were even supporting them and I got really mad and told them off. Not only was behind the glass the first successfull litter of this stress sensitive species in my country so very precious. Most importantly, the glass panels were delicate - actually they were bought by local shop (or restaurant? I dont know anymore) but when delivered it turned out glass sheets were thinner than ordered and easy to brake so the shop donated them to the zoo who used them to build small cat exhibits. I did know it will break soon if they dont stop. But back to your concern about small enclosures for animals like anaconda, tenrec or green iguana - these species are widely traded and owned among private breeders, they are popular pets. It is highly unlikely that Bursa got them direcctly from any European zoo. Actually, usually, zoos indeed inspect quality of future holding facility when it goes about lange, rare or sensitive animals. But that is not the case for iguanas or ball pythons or other common species.
With the exception of green iguanas all of the aforementioned animals among with many other reptiles and non conventional mammals are illegal to keep in Turkey unless you are filthy rich to do whatever that chum who had a lion in a hookah bar did. Also If I recall correctly the anoconda is from Germany. Also I forgot to upload my pics.
Keeping of reptiles or exotic mammals might be baned in Turkey, bot not in Europe (with few exceptions). Enough private keepers exist here to source ball pythons to thousands of Turkish zoos if they wished to. If I may stray little from the topic again. People often underestimate the number and species richness of exotic animals kept in private in Europe. Even my small and rather poor country, has many thousands of people keeping exotic pets or in unlicensed little zoos. Most popular are rodents, parrots (10.000 registered grey parrots in CZ), singing birds, reptiles. But including also 250-300 large cats, for example.
Whoever first edited the ZTL list of Bursa, can you please explain why some animals in the zoo are listed as formerly held along with the most of the former holdings. PS. I forgot to mention that the red pandas and the white rhinoceri have arrived since I last posted here.
Three lion cubs born to Kaptan and İnci (Captain and Pearl). I am unsure if this pair is an eep recommended pair. The 2.1 cubs are named Çınar, Güneş, and Vezir (Plane tree, Sun, Vizier).
In November the zoo had 2.2 lion cubs increasing the lion population to 9 individuals. The new cubs are named Paşa (1.0), Rüzgar (1.0), Zümrüt (0.1), and Yakut (0.1). The names mean Pasha, Wind, Emerald, and Ruby.
A male ant eater has been paired up and is planned to be sent to Kaunas last year. This is confirmed by Cologne/Köln zoo which already sent a female to Kaunas.
The zoo has celebrated its 25th anniversary and with it has opened a new crocodile enclosure. The species kept wasn’t brought up until the zoo confirmed that it has obtained American alligator(s) on their instagram story. The alligator(s) are on display in the South American house.
It isn't new but I just saw that a male red panda was brought in from Hungary in May 2023 (zoo wasn't specified). They already had a female which I think was originally from Copenhagen. Macaristan’dan Bursa’ya neslin devamı için erkek kızıl panda getirildi (DHA) | BURSA ZOO | Bursa Hayvanat Bahçesi
The Zoo has announced the arrival of 0.0.2 spotted hyenas on their instagram story. The origins of the hyenas are unknown but the animals seem pretty young. Since the zoo hasn’t updated it’s map in eons I am having a hard time where the hyenas got placed since the zoo barely has space to add in a large carnivore the last time I visited.
According to press releases, the two hyenas arrived from Gaziantep Zoo. The sex of the hyenas still isn’t confirmed.
