CGSwans flies north for the winter

Did you manage to see Wroclaw's hartebeest?

It's been about a year now since the bird house was closed for renovation and although they have steadily increased their numbers and rarities of birds in the two free-flight areas of the Afrykarium, their collection of rarities is much reduced with the closure of the bird house. If I remember correctly (and if anyone knows better or can be bothered double-checking then please do correct me) they are turning that building into another free-flight hall. It will be a shame if that does cause the loss of some of their rarer species like the Palawan Hornbill.

Of course this isn't relevant for you now, but a fairly cheap place to stay that is very close to the zoo is Green Hostel Wroclaw.

 

My experience fo travelling around central Europe with just English (and very basic French) is that it is usually possible to get by - but sometimes, in out of the way places, it can be a struggle. It's then a question of how willing people are to engage in sign language and mime - I find people in the Czech Republic a little more reserved, at least in Bohemia (Moravians are, I think, a little more relaxed - although this may be just chance based on a small sample, and what I have been told by Slovakian friends who have their own prejudices). In Poland, more English is spoken - especially in big cities like Wroclaw.

 

I'm probably a little biased here - Wroclaw does it for me in a way that the more-lauded Zurich never does (and this almost certainly has everything to do with the circumstances of my various visits to the two places) - but it's a little harsh to call the Monkey House humdrum: echidna, bear cuscus, giant flying squirrels - and some pretty marvellous monkeys too (L'hoest's and putty-nosed guenons amongst them). The cages are all pretty well-furnished, the husbandry seems pretty impressive - and there are free-ranging sloths! Humdrum? Only someone who had visited a whole bunch of great zoos in the past month or two, and was possibly feeling zoo-fatigue, could say such a thing.......

 

Thankyou. Any thread is instantly improved by the addition of Benadryl Cabbagepatch.

Thanks. I stayed at Hostel Wratislavia. Great value, if you don't have feet howling at you for every step.

I did see the hartebeest. Can't recall if I've seen one before. Perhaps at San Diego SZP but can't remember.

Why would you ask? It's not like English is overly relevant to somebody from New Zealand. But I guess you're interested in the extent to which you might share second languages with people in Europe.

It really depends. Where I am now it's almost impossible to find anybody over 30 who speaks English. But I've found myself off the main tourist trail a little. Generally anywhere that's heavily tourism-focused (and let's face it, that's the primary job market in a *lot* of these cities. Much of Europe is living on its heritage) will have widespread English. But I've also found that smaller countries have more widespread English. In Lisbon, for example, English was almost everywhere. In Madrid - capital of what was, at least until eight years ago, a major global economy in its own right - I had a bit more difficulty. The difference was that Portuguese kids grew up knowing that being able to plug into the global economy - and the global economy speaks English - was going to be central to their future. Spanish kids could - again, until eight years ago - be confident of finding a place in an essentially domestic economy.

You can see the pattern most clearly in Japan, which is still the world's third largest economy. It has one of the best educated populations on the planet, but few speak more than a little bit of English, if at all. Because they never needed it to work for Toyota or Panasonic or whatever.

See, this might be one where my mad, fear-tinged dash must have done Wroclaw a disservice. I saw the giant flying squirrel enclosure, and saw the echidna (which I'm understandably prone to discount a little), but have completely drawn a blank on the presence of sloths and cuscus.

And maybe just a touch of zoo fatigue. I'm certainly alive to that possibly having set in. I have some plans ahead that could be changed if I feel it's necessary.

 

@CGSwans I really enjoyed your Wroclaw write-up and your thoughts on the huge Afrykarium project. Did you see the link below posted in the Wroclaw thread some time ago? It is a brief review of both Wroclaw and Gdansk from an American landscape architect that specializes in zoo design. Stacey M. Ludlum has an interesting blog and while I know of several zoo nerds that have praised Wroclaw's Afrykarium, Stacey was highly critical of the complex:

Zoo Review: Wroclaw and Gdansk Zoos

 

Interesting, thanks. I agree with her on the visual impact on the rest of the zoo. I think her criticism of the indoor spaces is fair for the hippos and unfair for, say, the manatees. The rainforest hall is a little clunky looking, perhaps, but perfectly functional for the birds.

 

Zoo #32: Kraków Zoo, 26/06/2017

After three heavyweights in a week, something of a minnow. It was unfair to Kraków, which is a pleasant little zoo, to have to follow so hot on the heels of Prague, Plzen and Wroclaw. I've let this review slide further and further away from me, unfortunately, because I a) have little of interest to say and b) I've been struggling mightily with my other, rather bigger, more complex and admittedly higher-priority writing effort. But zoo #33 is but hours away, so I need to at least try to put something down.

I was ambivalent about visiting Kraków Zoo, because I wasn't sure if I was going to have enough time in the city (I did), and I wasn't sure if I would struggle with zoo fatigue (I did). The decision to go was made on the spot when I attempted to visit the Oskar Schindler Factory, only to find that tickets had, absurdly, all sold out. It being 2PM and not wanting to lose the day, I hopped on a bus straight to the zoo, which I knew closed at 7PM. I gave myself up to four hours, but only needed two.

I've noticed a trend in European zoos to put an exhibit outside the gates, as a teaser of sorts: Lisbon has squirrel monkeys, Rome some macaws and an armadillo, and from (an increasingly hazy) memory Antwerp's flamingoes aren't quite outside the gates, but are easily visible anyway. But Kraków takes this strategy and amps it up to 11, putting *elephants* in full view of the non-paying masses. They get away with it, of course, because the zoo is out in the middle of nowhere. There is no traffic going past that isn't specifically heading to the zoo, and one assumes few people arrive, see the elephants for free and then decide they have seen their fill. But I wonder if a zoo that was actually using the teaser strategy to tempt people inside would ever dream of doing so with the biggest card in the deck. I doubt it.

Much more prosaically, somewhat bizarrely, and rather annoyingly when I had a low blood sugar episode, the zoo's cafe is also situated outside the gates. Unlike the elephants, this isn't accessible from inside. What are they thinking?

I ended up roaming this zoo along a meandering, irregular route that had the effect of putting much of the better stuff first, including the small but modern and attractive penguin exhibit, and the giraffe paddock. It and a couple of the other hoofstock yards use what might just be the most under-utilised, low cost exhibit design going around: ha-has. Coupled with wide, grassy stand-offs from the main path, it didn't feel like I was walking from enclosure to enclosure, but rather in a (formal, European) park with animals living in it. It didn't look like Africa, but that illusion of shared space is something many zoos spend millions of dollars failing to achieve. Although only a couple of hoofstock paddocks take this approach, they are generally pretty good overall.

Most of the rest of the zoo is of middling quality. There's an enormous number of small carnivores, including eight or nine cats, but many are in small - sometimes outright tiny - enclosures. Two more of the mesh-covered exhibits for tigers, lions and snow leopards are close to being completed: one is for jaguars and I assume the other is new accommodation for the zoo's leopards, who are in very antiquated cages. Also in this area are the cages for old world monkeys, which range from ok (for langurs, if memory serves), to too small (mandrills) to outright unacceptable (for three chimpanzees). I hope that the old leopard and jaguar pens are made fit for the chimps and mandrills ASAP, to afford them more space.

Loathe as I am to end on a slightly sour note, I am scratching around a little for more to say. As I referred to earlier, zoo fatigue had set in, and whilst I didn't dislike being there, I'm not sure I was all that interested either. Luckily this is one of the very last 'there because it's there' zoos on the itinerary.

 

And Copenhagen, where there is viewing from a public park, nowhere near the entrance.

 

Slightly different. That sounds like a vagary ofmfeography: they had to put something there and whatever it is will then be visible.

 

And in the days when London has elephants in the Casson, they could be viewed from the adjacent park. Something tells me that as part of their charger, London have to have some animals thus-visible, but I may be making this up (and if it's true, I'm not sure what's visible now, other than a few rather bedraggled sacred ibis in the North Aviary....).

 

At least the camels, the gibbons, the giraffes and the children's area.

 

Zoo #33, Moscow Zoo, 7/7/2017

Moscow is, geographically and culturally, way out in Europe's deep space orbit. It's a long way from anywhere, as I can attest from the time I've spent hopscotching from Kraków to Moscow, via a lovely few days in Kyiv (I spent one day at some remote, trendy health spa called Chernobyl, and I'm feeling positively radiant). Moscow Zoo, for its part, loomed somewhere out of reach of my imaginary telescope. A Planet Nine of the zoo world, its presence detected only by its subtle gravitational pull, and never directly observed. So imagine my disappointment, then, when Planet Nine turns out to be Pluto after all.

I was battling yet another illness - this time the start of another, rather more severe cold than the previous two - and also had some terrible weather to contend with. Nothing that a Muscovite can't take in their stride, I'm sure, but I expect better than 13 degrees and steady rain at the height of summer. All the more reason, then, to want a satisfying zoo visit for my troubles. I didn't get it.

For the increasing number of us who have travelled to Japan, Ueno Zoo will serve as a useful reference point. Moscow looks similar, right down to being bisected by a road and having an enormous waterfowl lake, although Moscow has two big lakes, not one. There's a variety of Eurasian species but ruddy shelducks predominate: there must be hundreds of them.

Both zoos have generous lashings of concrete, and some exhibits with viewing impeded by domineering wire, though both are more pronounced at Moscow. I wasn't naive enough to expect a shimmering beauty of a zoo: I was braced for concrete. But I was expecting to be compensated by a big and varied collection of oddball species, like at Ueno, for which I've gleaned Moscow has a great reputation.

They must mostly be out the back, though, because apart from a medium-sized nocturnal house this is fairly stock standard collection, in conditions that are mostly ok, but never outstanding. The smattering of small mammals in the nocturnal house include eastern quolls (meh for me, but probably not for the rest of you), Eurasian flying squirrels and a couple of jerboa species. But the conditions are disappointing: the building serves as the foundations for the 'Russian fauna' exhibits above. These are a series of narrow aviaries and wire mammal cages arranged in an arc, and so the nocturnal house, too, consists of narrow enclosures arranged in an arc. Most animals couldn't get more than a metre and a half away from visitors, and though I didn't succeed in seeing everything I don't doubt they were all too aware of my presence.

There are two reptile houses, which could broadly speaking be said to specialise in big and small reptiles, respectively. The big reptile house has some old-fashioned concrete slab dorms for giant pythons, and for no less than eight crocodilian species: some have quite generous sized pools, whereas others couldn't possibly stretch out straight in the water.

The small reptile house is a separate ticketed-exhibit, costing 100 rubles: why this should be, exactly, is unclear. It looks like a fancy pet shop, with rainforest or desert-themed picture backgrounds that blend into the similarly-decorated walls: attractive, but of no good whatsoever to the animals.

There's a handful of cool species, especially rare viperids - Mangshan mountain viper, Persian horned viper, Turan blunt-nosed viper, red diamond rattlesnake, Great Basin rattlesnake - and there are also rufous beaked snakes, which I haven't seen before.

But aside from that, this is a pretty crappy reptile house. The rest of the collection is made up of standard pet shop exotics, including several morphs (egregiously, one is a scaleless corn snake). And the exhibits are mostly tiny. There's an adult Weber's sailfin dragon in a tank that's perhaps 80cm long, and about as high. There's a water bowl but not sufficient for it to submerge. A sub-adult pied ball python has a tank smaller than most of the terrible tubs that python puppy mill breeders keep them in. Two sub-adult boa constrictors share a 1.2m long tank. And many of the exhibits that are of an adequate (very rarely more than that) have nothing at all in the way of furnishings. It hurt to see two ridge-tailed monitors - one of the most active and intelligent lizards - in an 80cm long tank with neither digging nor climbing opportunities. Nothing to do.

For something that seems relatively new, it's a pretty dramatic misfire.

Similarly, there are two bird houses, both probably of a similar vintage (1970s-ish, I'd guess, if I were in a Western country). Both are disappointing, both for lack of the rare species I was anticipating and for the poor exhibit quality. Common bird species perched between glass in front of them and concrete behind, with not much in the way of furnishings to make a more complex environment. Some, not all had access to outdoor aviaries, although they were shut in for my visit. If that were due to the weather then they must spend a great deal of the year inside: this is not a friendly climate for a zoo, to be fair. But some parrots had only a couple of perches and a concrete floor: wholly inadequate. A walk-through aviary had - drumroll please - some Eurasian wading birds and waterfowl.

Mammal exhibits, judged by Western European standards, range from poor to fair. There are four bear species: sloth bears have a serviceable, but small enclosure while the rest have concrete car parks. Big cat exhibits aren't generous in size but are ok. So, mostly, are hoofstock yards but I mourn for a kiang and some alpacas who have nothing but concrete to stand on. Primates are probably where Moscow most closely matches Western standards: the primate house is of a piece with those I've seen in some of the best Western zoos. That shouldn't be mistaken for me saying the exhibits here are high quality: I've been underwhelmed with primate houses across Europe, for the most part.

A pretty disappointing day, then, and not, I think, because I went in with unrealistic expectations. I will say in partial mitigation that there is quite a lot of construction work going on. One of the more complete projects looks like it might be bird of prey aviaries, but if so they are quite big and it wouldn't shock me if they are new carnivore exhibits instead.

I'll have to continue the search for Planet Nine, alas.

 

Regarding the reptile collection: the majority (in particular the venomous snakes) of reptile species is kept upstairs behind the scenes. Lots of interesting and rarely kept species up there.

 

That'd be amazing to see. If I didn't have a healthy awareness of my own limitations (and I didn't live in Australia) I could imagine keeping vipers. That family has more than its fair share of beautiful snake species.

 

As a collection Moscow always seemed to be a treasure trove of unusual species. It appears that these species are all off show. After this review Moscow seems to be a fairly average zoo to the average visitor so shame on those zoochatters that have led me to believe otherwise...

 

I've been to the Moscow Zoo twice, including just a couple years ago. On both of my visits, I very much enjoyed my time there. I was not expecting a super modern zoo like Burgers, Omaha, or Singapore. Moscow is a rather old zoo (1864) which suffered for years under the shackles of communism. It takes some time to overcome such a thing. Russia itself has not thoroughly grasped capitalism the way the Czech Republic, (East) Germany, and Poland have, thus we cannot expect Moscow to be at the level of Prague, Leipzig, or Wroclaw. But as CGSwans points out, there's a lot of construction going on at the Moscow Zoo, thus lots of reasons for optimism.

I personally compare Moscow to the Berlin Zoo, though not quite at that level yet. Moscow's exhibit quality is slightly behind Berlin's, and its animal collection in comparable. Moscow has 1,184 animal species, which is 4th in Europe behind only Berlin, Plzen, and Cologne. It has 166 mammal species, again 4th behind only Plzen and the 2 Berlin zoos. While they don't have any high profile animal superstars (giant pandas, koalas, manatees), they do have a very "complete" zoo, with almost all of the animals one would expect from a complete zoo. One more thing, Moscow is Europe's most attended zoo, with over 3 million annual visitors -- over 5 million if you include all of the children and military veterans who are admitted free.