I hope FunkyGibbon can tell us, as I can never put my finger on it, I used to go very often, in the 1990's and early 20o0's but have only been once in the last few years. It has changed a lot and I can't discern why, but it's not as interesting any more, it has lost a lot of small active animals and being privately owned it some times feels the collection changes at the whim of the owners. In a nut shell, I suppose what I mean is Can any one say what the zoo is known for these days?
I personally love colchester zoo and Its my favorite collection in the UK. The zoo is known for its umphafa nature reserve in Africa as well as its action for the wild charity which helps to protect endangered species such as orangutans and rhinos. The zoo has a amazing range of species and has around 50 daily displays and animal encounters. But unfortunately the zoo does do more work "on site" rather than in the field.
Fortunately I think I know exactly what it is! First off, because otherwise I could come across as overly critical, I really did like it. I enjoyed the game reserve and Taiga Tiger in particular, and in general I thought enclosures were a high standard. It also has that 'gloss' that shows the management of a zoo is able to achieve what they want with the site, and I think the lack of that is what plagues a lot of other UK zoos. Also, it has quite a lot of species that are less common in UK collections, and while I don't value that as much as a lot of people on this site I did really enjoy seeing them. Here's what gives it a different feel: at no point in the zoo is is possible to look at an animal through bars or caging (with the exception of the land train, which I did not go on). Every single view of an enclosure is either through glass, or over fencing. In many ways this is a positive; everyone enjoys an unimpeded view. But the problem with it is in order to achieve this they have often had to turn enclosures into 'open-topped rooms'; the Colobus was a particularly good (bad) example of this. Walls are used where fencing would really have been IMO more appropriate. As a result enclosures can feel smaller than they are, which matters to humans but probably not to most of the inhabitants. More importantly, I have always thought that views of the surroundings act as good enrichment for a lot of species, and I worry that this has been decreased at Colchester. Also, for plenty of arboreal species caging in itself is a good thing. The strange thing is that bars and caging are still very much in evidence; you can see them at the backs of enclosures or in the indoor accommodation, often in large quantities. I assume that they think people prefer it this way. Maybe what zoochat calls 'the general public' do, but I have to say I did not. The other thing that was a bit different was that apart from Edge of Africa the zoo feels quite built up. You often view animals from indoors and on a cold February day this was a good thing! The passages between buildings and walled enclosures give quite a closed feel to the place, which is unusual for a big zoo. In summary I thought Colchester was great, I just found the enclosure architecture to be quite distracting. These are my thoughts
I think quite a few folk on here would agree with that summary. You asked about the Francois Langurs. I don't know when they will be moved but I think they are going in the 'Asian' enclosure currently occupied by the remaining Lion-tailed Macaque(s)
I think you have hit the nail on the head, it is now a rather cluttered site, and though they aren't small enclosures you feel a bit hemmed in so assume the animals feel the same. There doesn't seam to be any forward thinking of how one enclosure will impinge on to another, so it looks a bit untidy. I know they don't have millions to spend, but a little fore thought and involving the keepers who look after the animals could help. Having said that talk is cheap, and I'm pleased it is there and I do enjoy seeing the animals though I wish the elephant house had been open rather than glazed from the public side, it cuts them off from the visitor, and spoils the atmosphere for me.
I personally love the feeling of being surrounded by animals on all sides in the older part of the zoo and I'm not sure whether the animals have any opinion on being "hemmed in" or not.
No I'm sure they don't shorts, but people may, hence they then -as FG said- feel that the enclosures are small as the area around is so full. Personally I liked the old Jaguar falls area with it's old set up rather than the feel of the site now. Incidentally, I remember the old derelict Giraffe house area, which I think housed a GoldenTakin for a short while, I saw it once from a distance but couldn't get a close look, does any one know what happened to the takin? It certainly never went on display as I remember It was said to be the only one in the UK at the time. (1990's)
Takin 2 young takin came at the same time fro Tierpark Berlin,one for colchester and one for marwell; the first import to the UK for many years.I understand the colchester one had an accident and died; the marwell specimen had a medical problem and died. The next import from Berlin Tierpark was the pair for Edinburgh,subsequently moved to Highland Wildlife Park.
Colchester Zoo did have a takin about 2000 but, sadly, it only lived a short while; however, it was a Mishmi takin, not a golden takin. I believe that this Colchester animal was the first takin in the UK since the last London specimen died about 65 years earlier. (Marwell also received a short lived takin about the same time.)
Yes the Marwell animal was called "Willi", he sadly died of a type of cancer that was inoperable (possibly pancreatic, I can`t remember exactly), but bizarrely both brothers, at Marwell and Colchester, died around the same time. "Willi" was Marwell`s first Takin.
I couldn't agree more with that sentiment, i had always believed the first import was direct to Marwell, not realising the interest from Colchester, shame they never ploughed on with takin.
Lots of news nuggets that I haven't seen included here yet: - The first butterflies have hatched in the new Butterfly Glade exhibit (although they aren't on show yet). For now at least it appears as if there will only be two species in this exhibit, namely the zebra longwing (Heliconius charithonia) and piano-key (Heliconius melpomene) butterflies. Butterfly Glade's first residents arrive at Colchester Zoo! - ZOO NEWS - Colchester Zoo - For the first time, the zoo has successfully bred the Fregate Island giant beetles. When I last visited, they did not appear to be on-show. Colchester Zoo?s first breeding success of critically endangered beetle! - ZOO NEWS - Colchester Zoo - On 23rd January a pair of pied tamarins were born. They are the first births of 2015. Colchester Zoo welcomes tiny endangered twins! - ZOO NEWS - Colchester Zoo - The new African pygmy hedgehog is now on-show in the Sensation Station. Sensation station gains a prickly resident! - ZOO NEWS - Colchester Zoo - Finally in more sad news, Dume the dominant male mandrill died on the 28th February 2015. He was euthanized after he had trouble moving with his back legs and was found to have untreatable spinal arthritis. He was 20 years of age, had lived at Colchester since 2004 and is survived by fifteen offspring. We?re very sad to report the loss of Dume the Mandrill - ZOO NEWS - Colchester Zoo
I have a feeling the several other adult males in the group may all be castrated. In which case perhaps they will bring in a new unrelated one for breeding- or maybe just leave the group without one and stop breeding for a while.. For the record, Paignton have a spare/second male and both of theirs are entirely unrelated to the Colchester group bloodlines....
Akello - and very handsome he is too. It would be good if he got the chance to be the dominant male somewhere.
IMHO there are economic and cultural forces that create very specific types of space to view animals in a captive setting. Colchester to me is typical of a collection that has thrived on high visitor footfall, and has refined its visitor experience to minimise dead space, missed or hard-to-find exhibits, and likelihood of animals liable (or in a few cases, able) to retreat off-exhibit. Your encounter with a wild animal is more likely to be from a covered gallery, through glass, and with the sound of large numbers of families with young children echoing through the hard surfaces of the public area, with music sometimes piped in over this. Not much is left to chance or imagination in how the animals are presented or how you are supposed to see them. There is a theatrical, derealising element to this I think, which is fine, as the majority of families want to provide their children with a myriad of experiences and sights when they go to the zoo, would likely rather stay dry and warm and not have their kids wandering off. So I think of Colchester as a 'value for money' zoo, but I don't think you can teach reverence for and respect of other species when they are presented in certain ways. What's strange about Colchester is its pockets of not doing this; the wild dogs, some of the African enclosures on the newer land, these are very different in feel to the main bulk of the collection. I think that for primates and carnivores, Colchester actually provides surprisingly open and often (for carnivores) well-planted habitats. I think the tendency to maximise use of space is problematic for ungulates and ratites. I can't think of another collection in the UK where rheas are kept in a sand enclosure with llama and alpaca in the children's farm area (let alone Darwin's rheas), I felt it unnecessary to introduce warty pigs to a collection that held two other wild suid species already, especially when they were mixed with deer species and then appeared to destroy the remaining grazing in the paddock to the extent that it had to be covered in wood chip. Perhaps there was a recommendation to suddenly keep these deer on bark chip, who knows, but the factor that precipitated it seem to be the introduction of the pigs. I personally find the mixed African paddock like looking at some kind of perpetual drought-season scene, and I think the measure of the success of a mixed exhibit is whether the species can actually all use the paddock at the same time as opposed to some being restricted to the service yards. The zebra, originating (correct me if I'm wrong), from grassy paddocks in Denmark, are not suitable IMO for an enclosure that lacks grazing; if they can go on to maintain a breeding group of the new zebra with a functional stallion, I will be surprised. With Africa Alive not far away (and in competition), I would love Colchester to just choose a single grazing (or small number of non-grazing) species to work with for this enclosure, and leave visitors to seek out Africa Alive if they want to see some panoramic suggestion of an African plain. Would it really impact on visitors for this to become solely a black rhino facility, or just a mixed enclosure for giraffe and kudu? Even edible browse species planted amongst the rocks would create some kind of natural enrichment here. Because I think it increases the chance of remaining, I was disappointed that the pygmy hippo were able to breed successfully in the enclosure they're housed in, and hope one day they are given a strip of land with at least a little grazing (Whipsnade rather than Marwell-levels would do), and access to a natural pool they can disappear into from time to time. While there are good views of the elephants against a naturalistic backdrop of rock and vegetation, I really don't like the use of low hotwire: while uglier, fencing would provide scratching and leaning posts, and a secure surface to push against when interacting with other elephants (especially for young animals play-fighting). I was pleased that Colchester really tried to create a cohesive breeding herd, using ex-circus animals, but I wish they'd scrapped the mixed 'reserve' and doubled the space available to the elephants. People forget that they initially meant the elephant paddocks to be grass - there were early articles on their website soon after the exhibit opened about the elephants enjoying digging up the turf and the need to replace it. I very much hope that Colchester don't rest with what they've created here. I do think Colchester has very high-quality environments for many of its species - the bears, sea lions, wild dogs, hyenas, cheetahs, mangabeys all come to mind. I think the chimpanzee extension is going to be a very positive step, and hope that the comments above reflect a desire for change rather than a condemnation of a collection that can't or won't.
