Many newer Gorilla exhibits now feature a 2nd species of primate as well. In Melbourne you now have De Brazza guenons added. In UK Bristol recently also added De Brazza monkeys to their Gorilla exhibit too. The new London Gorilla enclosure has Colobus as well. One or two Gorilla enclosures at Howletts also have a few spot nosed guenons and formerly Samango(Blue) Monkeys which the younger Gorillas interact with. Apenheul used to have Patas monkeys with their gorillas. One German zoo(Munster I think) has Cherry-crowned Mangabeys with the Gorillas.
Pinioned birds wouldn't. Though I don't actually like Pinioning but its hard to know how to keep birds like Cranes, Flamingoes Ducks etc grounded in open areas otherwise. It certainly restricts their lifestyle severely( I have kept pinioned ducks and seen for myself...) Re mixed exhibits for Gorillas- I suspect any mammal species that could stand up for itself- antelope? River hog? Mandrill? could potentially be mixed with gorillas and would soon learn to leave each other alone. However, in captive situations there could well be aggressive interactions and injuries before a peaceful coexistance stage was reached- so this would be a risky experiment. But the possibilities are there.
when gorilla and de brazza geunon were intially introduced at melbourne a confrontation did occur, captured by a doco team and aired on tv. but now they get on peacefully. a mixed species exhibit for chimps would be interesting. i think mixed species exhibits work particularly well for orangs, especialy an acive species of macaque to contrast the orangs mre laid-back lifestyle
I've seen Taronga's chimps in a mixed species exhibit - with a ringtail possum. The two species didn't do well together for very long
well for a while a species of dog i think or peccaries was kept in the chimp exhibit, it was divided into 2, with an elec fence down middle, zoo staff thought would be good, but the chimps quickely got over this high voltage fence and slaughtered what ever it was on other side!
Many years ago when I worked at Taronga we put jackals and Chimps together (didn't work) the chimps killed one of the jackals. we then tried Chimps and Patas monkeys that also didn't work. over all chimps don't live well with anything but chimps. Makes you think how much they are like us
Orangs mix with gibbons Sloths mix with spangled cotingas Marabous mix with Spurwinged geese and grey crowned cranes Saddlebill storks mix with Black spur winged geese and grey crowned cranes Tapirs mix with capybaras and Mara Tapirs mix with vicuna Guanaco mix with rhea Spectacled bear mix with coatis Black lion Tamarins mix with geoffroy's marmoset Pied tamarins mix with black lion tamarins Montserrat oriole mix with Hooded pitta White eyes mix with hooded pitta White rumped shama mix with Bali Starling and green naped Pheasant pigeon Victoria crowned pigeon mix with golden heart pigeon, White collared kingfisher and white naped pheasant pigeons These are just some of the many mixed exhibits that can be achieved. Many are with birds and in large walk-through aviaries there may be hundreds of species
Chimps are outgoing, excitable and aggressive- in the wild they actively hunt other species- monkeys, young pig etc so are liable not be be good mixers with other species in captivity (especially ringtail possums...). Gorillas more laid back, introverted- seem to mix okay with various primate sprecies- possibly other species as I suggested above? I've seen a gorilla nervous of a small peafowl chick which entered the enclosure- wouldn't touch it at all and just pretended it wasn't there after some initial curiosity. Orangutan- yes, often very inactive in captivity- in my opinion they don't make a very good display for zoo visitors, so an additional species or two add interest to their enclosure. They may have to be fast moving ones though as Orangs are very curious, and strong...
Agree with you on the chimps grantsmb. For orangutans, if there are young and juvenile, they can be extremely playful and are no less active than other primates. They have boundless energy especially if enough of them are around to form a playgroup of sorts. The older ones are more laid back though. Besides Siamangs, Orangs have been mixed with Asian otters here in Singapore as well as in Germany (Tierpark) as far as i know. Orangs may be the most placid of the great apes but they're still exceedingly strong and i've seen one of our orangs pick up and fling a poor terrapin with malicious force. Thankfully the terrapin landed in the moat and was unhurt.
I heard from someone at school that and orang at chester killed a terrapin. People dump them in the moats around the enclosure.
Lions and meerkats I heard there was a zoo somewhere in Europe ( possibly Germany ? ) that tried lions and meerkats in the same exhibit . Most of the day , lions just like to laze around . Meerkats are very nervous , fast , and are on the lookout the whole time for anything that might be considered a threat . This is part of their natural behaviour in the wild . Any lion that comes within coo-ee and the meerkats will disappear down their holes faster than you can say "lion" I havent heard if the experiment has been unsuccessful . Has anyone else heard of this one ?
personally i think in most cases its a little foolish to attempt to mix any sort of predator with another species (even if they themselves are predatory). this is certainly true of chimps as well. they actively hunt monkeys in the wild and are even known to cannabalise eachother!! lions and meerkats just spells stress for the poor meerkats to me. hornbill, yep their are many species that do mix (and unlike you i'm not even going to think about bird species dude - how many more examples of that are there!) but generally i find the best combinations are with animals that interact peacefully and naturally in the wild. its also more educational.
I dont believe thet species have to be kept together to interact, Having a group of siamangs in 2 differenet areas in a zoo, is great, very noisy aswell, also at Adelaide, the DUsky Langurs and Siamangs interact, although they connot touch, they can see and smell them, and if they really wanted to they could throw things at em, (lol) BUt on your carnivore comment pat, at adelaide zoo, Mandarin ducks have been sucessfully kept with the sun bears, and pacific black ducks are liking happily in the tiger moat! (they are wild though)
bonobo have also been mixed with another primate species before, african monkeys, but i cant reember anything elese about it. other than that the combination worked. golden lon tamarins work well with pygmy marmosets, but ive not seen cotton top tamarins in with pygmys before. and on another note, even though many zoos mix tamarins with squirrel monkeys there is alot of evidence to suggest that the tamarins die from disease transmission assed from the monekys.
At Edinburgh zoo they have cotton tops with pygmies and golden lion tamarins with Goeldi's monkeys. This works really well. There is an inside area and an outside area.
