Excellent summary on Pairi Daiza I'd say. When I will be visiting this coming October I definitely plan to pay more attention to Pairi Daiza's undeniably very impressive collection and all the rare species in it, rather than to the excess and overbearing theming. I would much rather spend more time at exhibits and species rather than looking at temples and tacky ornaments.
I hope you realise that when you're looking at exhibits in PD you are unavoidably looking at temples and tacky ornaments!
Yes, I know, I've been to the place before, even if the last time was nearly five years ago, and things were already quite bad then - and have only gotten worse since. What I meant was that I will still try to focus on animals and exhibits as much as possible, and avoid waisting too much time on temples and tacky stuff.
Though tacky, a lot of stuff is original or constructed by builders specifically flown in from Asia. I am not a great fan of it, but the owner is a collector of everything. "Fortunately" for us he also collects animals and not only cultural artefacts.... I think zoo visitors do notice it and many seem to interpret the high level of theming as a high quality zoo, thinking all animals are also well-cared for. Many visitors will go away thinking Pairi Daiza is the best zoo of them all, which is further reconfirmed by an in my opinion horrible marketing department, which is very effective...
I think it's about time someone tells Mister Eric Domb that his collecting has gone about far enough, if not already a bit too far. Definitely in terms of theming, but possibly also when it comes to animals. Not too long ago there were actually big billboards in the street here in Belgium (or at least in Brussels, where I work and saw them) very ostentatiously advertising Pairi Daiza as the "Best zoo in Europe". Admittedly they were indeed voted the best zoo in Europe at the 2019 Diamond Theme Park Awards, which aren't exactly unimportant, but still it's only one organization, and one can I think safely presume the vote at least partially resulted from Pairi Daiza's theme-park like theming. On another note, I was recently listening to the Dutch Zoo Inside podcast and one of the guys discussed a recent visit to Pairi Daiza (this spring, possibly during the 2019 opening weekend) and he mentioned that in several places the park showed poor or neglected maintenance (i.e. rotten/decaying wood, loose or damaged tiles). I cannot vouch for the correctness of this statement, but generally this podcast is quite trustworthy. All I have to say about this is: it's all good and well and really cool that you call finance building all that new stuff, but please, also continue to invest in maintaining your existing infrastructure.
The final two of Pairi Daiza’s shoebills have moved onshow into an aviary behind their African village; this pair consists of the original female they got in 2003 and her son that hatched at the zoo in 2008. This means that Pairi now has six(!!!) shoebills onshow in the zoo (the other four being the new pair from Al Wabra next door to the Mersus Emergo, and Wuppertal’s last female and Pairi’s female chick from 2008 in an aviary within the village on stilts) and means that of the 12 in European zoos only two are kept behind the scenes (this being Prague’s second pair).
Which pair is in the big covered 'aviary' in front of the big 'boat' with its own marsh etc? They were the only pair I saw recently.
Pairi Daiza has imported 2 new long-nosed potoroos from Australia(a male and a female), they will accompany the female they already had. But does this mean the new 2 have the mainland subspecies? Because the ones from Hamerton do and these also came from Australia. Pairi Daiza NL
Pairi Daiza director Eric Domb has filed a lawsuit against Jean-Michel Stasse, president of the organization Wolf Eyes, an anti-zoo and animal rights group that has become well-known as critics of Pairi Daiza (they for example also helped organize the protest again the coming of polar bears to Pairi Daiza which was discussed earlier in this thread). Jean-Michel Stasse posted a message on Facebook accusing Domb and Pairi Daiza of importing their white rhinos from a hunting estate in South Africa owned by businessman and trophy hunter Philippe Vastapane who apparently is a contact of Domb - which Pairi Daiza did not do, their rhinos came from a different South African wildlife breeding estate. The court has already ordered Jean-Michel Stasse to remove his accusations and to publish an apology and a corrective post on his social media channels and keep it pinned for 90 days, with a severe penalty payment per day that he didn't. The case has yet to be determined further by the court and Stasse still risks being made to pay 25,000 euros in damages. And yet he couldn't resist posting another attacking jab at Domb with his apology. I hope that is not going to curry him any favors with the Judge. Man die Pairi Daiza aan schandpaal nagelde op Facebook moet zich excuseren While animal rights and anti-zoo messages and opinions are legally protected as freedom of speech and should unfortunately be allowed to be published and organizations like Wolf Eyes are allowed to exist and to protest within the bounds of the law, however idiotic such opinions and organizations may be, I think this is a good precedent to show that slanderous accusations and damaging falsehoods are not acceptable and will not be tolerated. You can be anti-zoo if you want to and you can voice those opinions, but what you cannot do is attack zoos with slanderous lies.
Visiting this amazing zoo this Saturday 8th June. First visited about 4 years ago, looking forward to seeing new gorilla exhibit and all the other new exhibits! Is there a faster growing ( animal collection and new exhibit openings ) existing zoo in the world? Any Zoochatter question please ask and will see if l can find out.
They've just had another female Asian elephant calf born. Apparently this brings their total to 22!(?) When I was there recently I only saw about half of that number but I missed the big open field exhibit at the back. Is the indoor housing for a lot of these eles offshow? I only saw a simple temple-type building with glass windows that you can't go in, situated between the two main sand paddocks, but the video of the latest birth shows modern indoor housing which I didn't see.
The temple is occasionally open to the public - it is the indoors for two of their females - Praya and Jana. The modern indoors you’re referring to is actually a huge barn behind the massive open field you’re referring to - you can see the building (and the bulls if you’re lucky) from the train.
No problem According to the Dolfinarium instagram, Pairi Daiza has also received a male, named Micai (from where?). So Pairi Daiza will start with 1.2 Steller's sea lions.
I don’t know a Micai....however I do know that Faunia have a male called Mirai....? Could that be who they’re referring to?
