Chester Zoo Chester Zoo 2017

The Chester map is terrible.

The elephant house is free to enter, and it is also possible to see the warthogs without entering the zoo. Sometimes the rhinos can be seen from the car park.

 

Provided there are playgrounds and cafes, a lot of visitors are happy. Animals are a secondary consideration.

 

OK, I concede there's a grain of truth in that, as when my children were little we spent more time in playgrounds and cafes then ever I had done as an enthusiast visitor, but not exclusively so. We did expect to see, and enjoy sharing with the little ones, the fauna on display.

Furthermore, and this is the key for me, part of the zoo's reason for being is education. They have a huge attendance and it is the zoo's duty to show those visitors things they haven't seen before, to teach them something about the natural world. To get millions through the door and not even attempt to proactively draw a visitors' attention to great swathes of the collection, is, well lets be brutally honest, unprofessional. Which is how I'd sum up the map. Its a poor effort and my 10 year olds I've written so much about could do it better. There's no guidebook, the app is poor, I could go on. All so easily fixed.

Don't get me wrong, I love Chester Zoo. Its been one of my favourite places on earth for many years.. but honestly if it wasn't for being a member of ZooChat I would never have known about lots of the hidden gems in the collection.

 

Although, Chester does have a souvenier guide but it is just an overpriced piece of scrap paper. It talks nothing about the zoo or the animals; just stuff like "why palm oil is bad" and "how to build a moth trap".

 

It isn't a guide it is a book that says look what we are doing in terms of conservation, tells you nothing about the zoo it's self.

 

If it's not a guide book will someone tell the people selling it as when I visited they were saying to the public it's a zoo guide.

 

Adrian you seem to have posted a blank message.

 

I can see it OK?

 

Very strange Maguari, so can I now. The problem must by the nut behind the keyboard as Zoogiraffe keeps telling me.

 

Just watched the latest episode of The Secret Life of the Zoo! Fun to know about 'The Doctor' and his duties looking after all the other fish. I loved seeing Boris with his cake lol.

 

Chester has now added the northern bald ibis and silvery gibbon to their interactive map now, just in case anyone is interested. They have also added all their gardens under the animal category as well for some wierd reason.

 

I'm guessing they were added because of Secret Life of the Zoo.

 

Is there anything in the recently refurbished "vivarium" in EotAF yet? Last time I saw it, it was home to some small fish such as clown loach and tiger barbs; though I do miss the arowana fish.

However, on the subject of fish, Both Zootierliste and Chester's stocklist claim that the zoo holds arapaima. I have never seen any sign of a fish of that great size in any part of Chester. I take it that it is an off-show species then?

 

If the zoo does go habitat zonal, we have islands, part of grasslands (thing, zebra ext.), and the forrest section (elephants, chimps, jaguar and borneo orange). The other are on really old master plan maps was water, where the old tiger enclosure is, which already has otters and penguin nearby.

Would chester use this zone type for what ever they redevelop that area into and if so what other water based animals could they bring in?

 

I saw that aquarium today. It has been cleaned up and filled, the lights and filters are on and a large tree branch (with lichen patches on the twigs) has been placed in the water. But there is no stock yet. I would expect that it will eventually hold larger Asian species, so Asian arowana (Scleopages) might be possibility, but I'm not sure how suitable the set-up is for one of those species.
As for arapaima, even the biggest specimens start off small . At the moment I don't think that Chester have any tank large enough for a large specimen, but they may well have smaller specimen(s) off-show.

 

An araipaima is in the aquarium in one of the offshow tanks I think. It is not full grown.

The masterplan referred to by jde7582 will not proceed.

 

....while the Chester publication is hideous, of course, this definition of a zoo guide would exclude most such publications, very few of which really say anything about the zoos they purport to represent.....

 

Article about the baby Celebes crested macaque :

Rare Macaque Born at Chester Zoo

 

Visiting the zoo on Members' Day was not particularly inspiring. The programme for the day was rather limited, partly because of bird 'flu and partly because there were so many visitors (a Channel 4 consequence?). The weather deteriorating through the day did not help.
My principal impression was the sheer amount of building and maintenance work going on around the Zoo. Some of the main projects have been discussed in this thread and shown in recent Media uploads, but there are so many that it's easy to lose track. It's an instructive exercise to make a list, with comments about the progress of each one.

Islands new constructions (for tapirs, for sun bears & binturongs and walk-through aviary), ongoing
4 songbird aviaries (beside chimps), apparently ready for stocking
Former condor aviary, refurbishment for European birds, ongoing
RotRA modifications, to provide new quarters for Tuan, too well screened to observe progress
New indoor housing for capybara & anteaters, externally complete
Former cassowary enclosure refurbishment, apparently stalled
Cheetah yurt (for observing main enclosure) reconstruction, ongoing
Oakfield House renovations, ongoing
Elephant viewing area (near top of bridge) reconstruction, ongoing
Gents toilets beside monorail station refurbishment, ongoing
New play area on Fountains Lawn site, in early stages ​

There may be one or two more that I have missed: but even so, I count 11 projects, large and small, that ought to be completed within the next few months. Chester is one busy zoo.