ZSL London Zoo Clore developments

Does anyone know what the current building work in the Clore is for? The posters outside don't reveal much other than there's a new exhibit opening in March 2010 and it has something to do with day and night...

I assume that it's just a rehash of what's already there and maybe opening up some of the areas that are now offshow, but if anyone has anything concrete...

 

I would be mightily surprised if it didn't include a walk-through bat area....

 

Dont know...I did post a similar question in one of the london zoo forums. They are also doing something to the new animal adventure.

 

I think animal adventure is some essential, urgent maintenance work, not a new exhibit, I very much doubt it was the plan to remove the root zone mammals from their enclosures, plus the work is due to be completed in a few weeks. I suspect it has something to do with the torrential rains that we've had on and off for the last few weeks, its possibly the first time those enclosures have had their drainage put to the test.

 

I visited the zoo this afternoon, and though there is not much information about the Clore renovation, Animal Adventure has had a bit of a re-shuffle. The prairie dog enclosure is now home to yellow mongooses, who have left their old enclosure to the porcupines (who were very active today.) The prairie dogs can be seen in the Casson. Coatis have also colonised the red panda enclosure, but I couldn't find the red pandas' new home. The aardvarks were also up quite early and were both very active - looks like the zoo's winter timings suit them well.

Many of the Clore's rainforest animals can be seen elsewhere in the zoo (mainly in the Casson). Though it's closed for a very long time, I'm pleased that they're finally renovating the building; there used to be an enormous amount of unused space, so hopefully that will change with their new Rainforest Day/Night exhibit.

 

That makes sense as to why they were putting the Prairie Dogs into carrying crates when I visited a week or so ago.

Martin

 

Maybe they were unable to get them used to people during the keeper talks.

It seems strange that the Clore was emptied only 2 years ago for the rainforest lookout.

 

Very strange. I emailed the zoo about this around a week ago and was hoping i could post a reply on here from them but I have had no reply. Seems they are shy about the new developments. One of the red pandas did escape some time ago so i think they may be suiting them to another home within the zoo or moving them on to a different one. Although this seems weird considering how much money they spent on AA.

 

I've uploaded a couple of photos of signs for the Clore's redevelopment:
http://www.zoochat.com/43/clore-redevelopment-signs-118311/
http://www.zoochat.com/43/clore-redevelopment-signs-118310/

 

There's a new section on the ZSL website about this:
Rainforest Life - London?s only living rainforest

It doesn't sound much different to the Clore as it was before - whatever they're doing, I'm keen to see the renovated nightzone.

 

I honestly don't see the point in this; spending precious funds on doing the same thing they did three years ago when it could be put into building new big cat accomodation.

 

To be fair:

a) we don't actually know what they've done yet.

b, or 2) we don't know how much this has cost - it may not be very much at all.

c, or 3, or those little 'iii's they use in footnotes) it may be this was necessitated by some infrastructure problem that may not have been apparent three years ago.


I shall be waiting and seeing!

 

I think it needs a makeover actually, I don't think the rainforest mixed exhibit was at all succesful from an aesthetic point of view and the rest of the building had something of a lost-not-quite-sure-what-to-do-with-it feeling since the collection was reduced. It all felt a bit depressing in my view.

I just hope whatever they do now is succesful. Also looks like they are ditching the Clore association. I heard they tried to do that with the last development but Clore Duffield put their foot down.

 

For me, it was the nightzone that needed an overhaul more than the rainforest area. In the rainforest bit they'd had problems with animals escaping all the time, to the point where all marmoset species were removed from the exhibit (with the titis and tamarins still regular offenders.) I hope that they still leave it fairly open, but we'll see. The number of empty enclosures and interchangeable 'invisible' animals had caused the nightzone to become a shadow of what it was just a few years ago. Hopefully this renovation will make the nightzone a bit more modern and visitor-friendly - and maybe allow the aye-ayes to go on display?

 

Interesting to hear the red pandas escaped from that exhibit! I was wondering how they were managing to keep coati in there! the walls seem very low and I would have thought coati to be much more agile than red panda! Ive seen them jump 5 feet vertically! I am looking forward to hearing how the Clore building develops. It was one of my favorite zoo buildings in the world before they opened it up into the rainforest. I do hope the new building is something special

 

What was the clore building before the rainforest?

I too thought the night zone lacks something, the collection seemed sparse over the large night zone.

 

The Sir Charles Clore Pavilion for Small Mammals (with the basement area under the name 'Moonlight World').


Basically what's there now but with the open, double-height rainforest bit just the same as the rest of the building. There were a few exhibits like the tamarin ones that are still there on the right as you go in in the space where the rainforest is (some of which were open-fronted for species like Sand Cats and African Brush-tailed Porcupines). Also more of the exhibits that are now one big exhibit were three smaller ones.

It was a great house (although admittedly a lot of the exhibits were on the small side by today's standards).

 

I loved the diversity that was once on display!

 

Yes - and it's rather a shame that not only have they decreased diversity by reducing the number of species, they've skewed it by keeping all the callitrichids and getting rid of other stuff - meaning the diurnal portion is basically a marmoset house with a few other things now.

 

On the London zoo website it says 'rainforest life - coming soon' but it basically sound like a revamped clore pavilion.