Dudley Zoological Gardens Dudley Zoological Gardens in 2017

Another yellow breasted capuchin has been born - the 7th to be bred at DZG
Another baby capuchin! - Dudley Zoological Gardens

 

Take a look at the tiger webcam to see the new climbing frame being constructed.
Webcams - Dudley Zoological Gardens

 

14 baby Domestic rats have been born to parents Summer and Zaffie - who are also new arrivals to the DZG collection.

14 baby rats - Dudley Zoological Gardens

 

Oh good.

 

Work on extending the snow leopard enclosure has begun.

'Zoo Manager, Matt Lewis, said: “We’re hopeful the frame of the extension will be in place by early next week and the entire build completed in over a month’s time.”

The new-look enclosure, which will double the size of the current outdoor exhibit will incorporate many of the current established foliage and trees.

And as the land is three metres higher than the current enclosure, there’ll also be higher areas for leopards Margaash and Taiga to explore on new platforms.

Plus, visitors will be able to get better views of the big cats with new glass viewing areas – with a prime viewing spot set to be up by the howler monkeys'.

Snow leopard revamp work starts - Dudley Zoological Gardens

Very glad to hear they are keeping the established foliage and that the enclosure will double in size. Of the six developments for 2017 that were revealed last year, this is the one I have been most looking forward to.

 

Let's hope they do a good job at building a much better new enclosure for them than the one at Twycross

 

Indeed, far from perfect but it's pretty good as UK Snow Leopard enclosures go -there's many worse around.

 

Visited For the second time this year with my sister, it’s the first time she’s been to the zoo in over 20 years.

She was very impressed with the way the zoo as moved on from what she remembers as a bad collection with very poor exhibits and staff who as she put it wouldn’t get a job on a pet stall on a Sunday market (her words not mine).

At the end of the day she said that the exhibits were much improved but some still needed work and reminded her of her last visit, the species collection was smaller but the exhibits were much bigger and better for the species.

From my point of view, I was still a little underwhelmed by what I saw, yes, they had cleaned out some of the aviaries of the overgrown scrub and removed some branches from the trees within them this did make for better viewing but they had also removed at least 50% of species from them as well.

Did notice a few new species in the waterfowl exhibit the had the Black Sawn back, a pair of Ne-Ne and a small flock of Red Breasted Goose and again they had cut back some of the scrub but the main problem was still apparent the trees branches were still hanging into the water and causing a distortion of the water colouring.

I did manage to see all the species on show except for the Grey Kangaroo, why are there 2 Sulawesi Crested Macaques in the Black/Golden Howler exhibit, did see the extent of the new Snow Leopard Exhibit it looks OK I wouldn’t go overboard about it but it will be an improvement on what they currently have.

On the Tiger, Bear & Chimp vote it’s clearly going to be TIGERS IMPROVEMENT as the charity coins clearly show the Tigers are Miles ahead of the Bears with Chimps a poor third.

Now here’s a thought that one or two people were discussing the Bear Ravine why couldn’t the zoo get more Guanaco or how about extending the enclosure up the bank and adding ALPINE IBEX (Capra Ibex) I think this would be a great addition to the collection myself.

Did notice the one thing I think needs to be got rid of the Fair that is being used by many youngsters so perhaps it does bring in money not £1,000's but a steady income that is.

Only the Ballroom café open and at ridiculous prices I didn't get anything to eat and the food looked like it had been sitting around for some time.

I still think this zoo needs to move on from the last management change and new idea's are needed as everything being done now was being talked about 5 - 10 years ago.
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I also noticed the zoo has only one Guanaco left in the paddock by the bear ravine, which is a real shock since there are not many collections in the UK left with this species.

 

It was suggested earlier, that tigers , bears, chimps will all happen in the near future! Someone said changes have already started with the tigers. Bears should be next hopefully. As for guanaco, there must be plenty of places to put them other than the bear ravine?

 

I Always thought of guanacos in there as a "filler". Not the best of locations for them.
I assume Dudley will go out of them.

I seem to remember they had quite a nice group before (???).

 

Yeah, I reckon as soon as their last Guanaco has eventually passed away (Which it will do I'm assuming) they probably will stop keeping the species.

On the other hand, I'm hoping by then they could replace them with some Vicunas or even bring back the Llamas again (Maybe they might, maybe not). Either way it would be nice for the bear ravine paddock.

 

That is perhaps to be expected, and simply reflects the relative popularity of the three species perhaps. IMO more work on the Tiger enclosure is the least important of the three but there we are...

 

After reading on the Twycross thread about them thinking of bringing in a big cat species (Tiger) here's a thought why don't Dudley allow the Lions to leave and put the Tigers into the lion enclosure and then bring in a new species of cat in the tiger enclosure let's say either Jaguar or Cobra just a thought as they seem to be having problems getting the lions to mate..

 

COBRA?!? in the tiger enclosure?!

 

Can we stop with the junk posts please.

We're all guilty of it at some stage, but one of the saddest things about zoochat is that when someone makes a small honest mistake, inevitably someone else, thrilled to find it, leaps on it, highlights it and the rest huddle together pointing and laughing for the next few posts.

It's tiresome. People click on this expecting to read about Dudley zoo in 2017.

 

I think it is just a bit of tongue in cheek ribbing in this instance tbh... it would all be a bit boring to be VERY SERIOUS 100% of the time. I actually do agree that there are some members who delight in putting others down - but I don't think that is the case here.

On the subject of the improvements - I am glad the snow leopards are getting an upgrade but I would place the orangs above any of the three subsequent options. Out of the three the tigers would be last on my list.

I personally would prefer any other big cat over lions - but I can't see it happening.