New species at the zoo : Emperor and Crested penguins : PressTV-Group of penguins make their debut at Dalian Zoo
I had no idea that emperor penguins could be kept outside. I've always heard that they would die if kept outside of a chilled penguin house because of their fat reserves which would cause them to overheat.
Bit of a late reply but in winter at least Dalian is very cold. I couldn't really say whether it is cold enough though, and certainly in summer it wouldn't be.
Even later reply: I visited this winter and there certainly seemed to be no outside enclosures for penguins.
Anyone - either Funky Gibbon or another PR.China frequent poster - visited beyond can report or create a review of changes, comings and goings at Dalian Forest Zoo.
Dear drill, - no offence intended - if this is your reply, we can sure find that kind of information while surfing on the internet. What I specifically meant was current and personal direct news of Dalian Forest animal transfers, new species, new exhibits, masterplanning and what have you not. I really do hope someone can provide some new insights into the most recent comings and goings at Dalian Forest Zoo in 2018 and 2019. Also the Chinese site is: http://www.dlzoo.com/. However, most of us are not proficient in Chinese Madarin and Google Translate is a notorious crappy affair.
I have visited once at the beginning of this year. I have medium-term plans to do a short write-up as much of a longer thread, but I have no idea about changes as I have nothing to compare that visit to.
A few thoughts on my visit of February 2019, now that I have uploaded photos: Dalian Forest Zoo - ZooChat I visited in part because I was interested to see if they are actually keeping emperor penguins outdoors, and in part because it is a zoo in the city I was visiting. I got way more than I was expecting, but somehow less than I had payed for. Admission wasn't expensive, 80 yuan I think, but this is more than you expect to pay for a state run zoo. Situated in a park outside the main part of the city, the zoo is divided into two parts, one at the top of a hill and one at the bottom. An escalator links the two. I had to rush the zoo because I had lain in bed for the morning (travel apathy), but I got it done in less than three hours. In summer it would deserve more. Highlights: A tropical house with potential to be incredible. At the moment it is a sort of foliaged mountain inside a glass dome, and that's it. It needs some freeflying birds and perhaps a couple of reptile species as well. There are some terrariums and these are the sort of size that is starting to look very out of date in European Zoos. In what was loosely an African section there was a mix of good and great enclosures, including a pair of wonderful exhibits for Spotted hyaena. Pretty Good: The primate holding. Golden monkeys get the usual good complex, but other species are also not hard done by. A long Monkey House offers decent exhibits inside and out (except for the chimps). Newish Chinese panda houses are often attractive and well done, and Dalian's is no exception. I quite liked this raptor cage as well, holding several species (No, I don't remember what) Ugly: A few on-show holding cages for separated individuals. Note that the species in these had much better exhibits elsewhere in the zoo. It was incredibly cold on my visit, and it was Chinese New Year's Eve, which is a bit like visiting on Christmas Day in the West. So I was almost the only one there, and many animals weren't outside. Frustratingly, much of the top zoo was 'closed' as well. A large walkthrough aviary, the intriguing looking Ecological Birdhouse and also the polar complex, to name but three. This meant I didn't see any penguins, although I could confirm they weren't outside. Other indoor holdings were also shut, and an entire section of the zoo reached by crossing bridges over a ravine. I am unsure whether this last one is actually usually open or not. As a result of all of this, by the time I had seen the whole zoo I was actually pretty fuming and resolved to go back to the ticket office and ask for a 50% refund, but in the end I thought better of it, partly because this is China and it would be a waste of time and partly because it was New Year's Eve and staff had probably gone home to spend time with their family. Anyway, by the time I got back to the entrance complex literally everything was closed, including the public exit gates. I had to leave through a side gate that I think wasn't intended for me. Some parts of Dalian Forest Zoo make exactly the same mistakes that you can see elsewhere in China, but these are relatively thin on the ground and are more than outweighed by the positives. Dalian was my first experience of an emerging class of Chinese zoo: new-build, state-owned and on a larger site outside the city centre. They are, I believe, the future, although we are clearly not going to see inner city zoos or commercial safari parks disappear.
One huge and presumably temporary negative: This tiger exhibit contains more than ten tigers. It is viewed on foot from a walkway above and to the side, the road being for zoo use only because the exhibit is situated in a narrow valley. The exhibit has a slightly unusual feature, in that it has large 'big cat' fences at the perimeter, and then lower fences that keep the tigers off the wooded slopes at the edges. It is this fence that you can see in the picture. The exhibit is divided into two, and all of the tigers were being held in the lower exhibit because construction work was ongoing in the upper one, as you can see above. This work was extensive, and and as you can see seems to feature a ramp going from the visitor walkway to the enclosure. It will be interesting to see the finished project. What filled me with dread however, and I checked this several times because I really couldn't believe it, is that the separation fence between the two exhibits was the lower kind, not the tall one on the perimeter. There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that a tiger could scale this if it was sufficiently motivated to do so, and once it had done so it would have access to both the workmen in that exhibit and the ramp that led directly to the visitor walkway and the rest of the zoo. I have felt unsafe a few times in zoos (including about twenty minutes earlier at Dalian's leopard exhibit), but this is undoubtedly the worst I have had it and the only time I have genuinely contemplated turning around and leaving a zoo there and then. The only reason I didn't is that I figured the risk was already 'baked in'. I didn't have to go back across the walkway and I was sort of at the halfway point anyway. I hope that this building work is now complete, but I am not shy of drawing attention to this appalling situation at an otherwise well above average zoo.
