Chester Zoo Heart of Africa site plans?

I remember that somebody (i think it was bongorob?) posted a link to a large version of the original site plans for Heart of Africa a while back. I have searched through all the recent threads, and been unsuccessful in finding it. Does anybody have a link to the plans i'm looking for?

 

Well there's this:
Media for The Heart of Africa Biodome | OpenBuildings

And the full plans were available through the local planning board
http://pa.cheshirewestandchester.go...ils.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=KV2AQTEO05Y00

 

Is there anyway that this will still go ahead? Or did islands take its place?

 

Islands replaced it as the first part of the zoo's master plan, think there are still plans to do something, maybe just not to the full scale of the original plans, i.e no boat ride, smaller scale maybe.

Looking over the plans, id love to see it completed in full, but the zoo would probably need a very big loan or some wealthy backers to fund it.

 

Yeah I'd agree everyone would love to see it fully done but I reckon if they were just to bring in Pygmy Hippo's and Gorillas that would be sensational

 

I think Heart of Africa has been dropped, but parts of it could be built in the future.

 

I think the zoo learned a great deal from the work on HOA and it shows in Islands.
Now on to gorillas, etc (someday)

 

Pardon the bump but has there been any word on the "Natural Vision" and the Heart of Africa exhibit?

 

Dead,defunct,Polygon

 

Any plans for marsupials yet?

 

Only if they don't come from Australia.

But none would be going in Heart of Africa as this project is dead, also I am not aware of any African species of marsupials.

 

The zoo has a marsupial, a tree kangaroo.

 

It's still not an Australian one though. Are they moving into islands?

 

I imagine so, it seems to be the most logical space for the species to be contained.

 

The zoo has a policy to exclude animals from Australia, because they do not have any field programmes there. I think this is a silly way to do things, but it is what they do,

The tree kangaroo will be housed in Islands when the enclosusure is ready, they haven't started it yet.

 

That's a shame really I would like to see a few Aussie/ Oceanic species in the zoo.

 

Does the cassowary count as an Asian species?

 

Yes they are found in New Guinea and Indonesia

 

They are only found south and east of Wallace's Line, so they are Australasian.

I think that the icing on the Islands cake at Chester should be a large New Guinea complex - possibly covering the Aru Islands, New Britain and New Caledonia too. There are so many wonderful species from that region that are rarely seen in zoos. But, of course, I am not holding my breath . . . .

 

As are Heck's macaque and babirusa

Whilst the Sunda Shelf gives as good a faunal line as any, Wallace's initial hypothesis of vicariance was only partially correct; dispersal was the key determinant of species distributions across much of the Malay Archipelago. As a result, it's probably more helpful to think of the area as a transition zone ("Wallacea") between Wallace's line in the west and Lydekker's line in the east, rather than relying on any one line for all taxa. The westernmost islands of the cassowary's range do fall within this zone, although I believe they may be introduced populations.