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United Kingdom London Zoo 1980s recreation in Planet Zoo

Discussion in 'Zoo History' started by ZSH, 12 Apr 2021.

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  1. ZSH

    ZSH Well-Known Member

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    You Sir are a legend! Thank you! What a bizarre building, I kinda like it. Looks like I have some building to do!
     
  2. Pacu

    Pacu Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Great find. I'm not sure it had the green squared off cladding in the 1980s, and inside, even at the end, you could certainly see it had a pitched roof, supported by iron braces; I think there is a picture of that in the Historic Monuments book. I wonder if I am misremembering looking through the window to see a breeding room, you can see why going in there felt like a railway signal box though :)
     
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  3. oflory

    oflory Well-Known Member 10+ year member Premium Member

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    This is bringing back memories! It always had a slightly cobbled together, 'pre-fab' feeling to me.
     
  4. ZSH

    ZSH Well-Known Member

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    With a huge thankyou to @Pacu & @robmv my London Zoo recreation is completed with the Insect House :) I finally squeezed some Polar Bears onto the Mappins, added a load of other new animals from the recent Planet Zoo updates, polished off the building work and recorded a complete tour of the zoo.
     
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  5. twilighter

    twilighter Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Incredible job !
     
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  6. ZSH

    ZSH Well-Known Member

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    Thanks twilighter!
     
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  7. Pacu

    Pacu Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    You've done an amazing job, it looks as though you have had to build things much bigger than they really were; the Clore for example, even knocked through as it is noe isn't that spacious but you have captured the look and feel of the place very well. I dread to think how many hours it must have taken you. Well done with the insect house - perfect. If you are going to continue to develop it, all of the Sobell Pavillion for apes' outdoor enclosures were grass, although some of it was grown through concrete grids specially designed to hold the ground firm and let grass grow through without the apes digging it all up. I don't think they were ever lemurs there for permanent display, they were in the Clore,. The bird house interior is much more like it is today than it was in the 1980s; there are floor plans if you ever need them. Last thing, the nocturnal house you mention by the children's zoo was long closed by the 1980s, all noctural diaplays were in the basement of the Clore. Just minor things if you wanted to make further developments. Fanastic work on this .
     
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  8. ZSH

    ZSH Well-Known Member

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    Ooh this is the kind of juicy info I need! Thanks. Yes due to how the particular game mode of Planet Zoo I used works, many things had to be sized up due to animal welfare. If I did the whole thing over now I could get them the right size but my dedication only goes so far!

    I read a post on here from someone who visited the old nocturnal house in 1986 but maybe they got the date wrong? The lemurs are a stand-in as there are only a few species of monkey in Planet Zoo. They should be Diana Monkeys I believe. I couldn't do Moonlit World sadly as building habitats underneath other habitats is an absolute nightmare in the game.
     
  9. Tim May

    Tim May Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    The old Nocturnal House, in the Children's Zoo, was still in use in the 1980s; it housed aardvarks
     
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  10. ZSH

    ZSH Well-Known Member

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    Phew! Thanks for the confimation.
     
  11. Pacu

    Pacu Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I'm more than happy to bow to Tim May's superior knowledge on this. When I visited in the very early 1980s it wasn't in use and it was empty again and the windows borded over when I visited in 1985/6 but animals get moved around and as it was basically a brick and timber shed it could well be that maintenace was being carried out or maybe there was a vermin problem. I think there was a single Aardvark in the now closed off section of the Clore during that visit.
     
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