Just wondered what everyone thought on which Zoo has the best primate collection(species wise) and single primate exhibit and why? Oh and you must of visited it. Personally I do like Gorilla Kingdom at London Zoo - although probably not the biggest well thought out and a lack of bars where necessary. The best collection I would probably have to say Monkey World/
In terms of sheer number of species, Twycross would still probably win; however in terms of the quality of species displayed and how unusual they are, Howletts is probably the superior collection. However, the best primate exhibit in the UK is, in my opinion, a narrow toss-up between the Realm of the Red Ape at Chester and the Golden-cheeked Gibbon enclosure at Edinburgh. Which I would choose likely depends on what day I was asked
I like colchesters primate collection however my favorite enclosure would have to be between paignton zoos orang enclosure and lost Madagascar at colchester
I would say Edinburgh's Budongo exhibit for Chimpanzees is by far the best primate exhibit I have seen in the UK, and certainly superior to RotRA, which I thought was surprisingly awful given how everyone on here seems to adore it!
I think RotRA is much better for the orangutans than the people, if they'd been able to keep a lot of the planting alive it would look better but it offers the orangs a lot of freedom.
Have to agree on Budongo being the best exhibit by far. Collection wise, after the obvious (Twycross), it would be Howletts or Port Lympne. Colchester is certainly better than most too.
I think the best collection of lemurs is at Cotswold, with a particular mention for the Madagascar walk-through. Port Lympne has one of the best all-round collections of primates and I still think that, in spite of its silly name, the Palace of the Apes rivals Budongo as the best primate exhibit in the UK. Alan
I think ROTRA followed the same basic design as in the old Orangutan house viz public corridors/viewing windows looking into/down on the displays. But in the new design they lost the amount of viewing frontage of the indoor areas( where the Orangs spend most of the time) resulting in the complaints about over-crowding/poor viewing. It is better designed for the animals. They should know better than to bother planting up an indoor area for Orangutans though... Re best Primate collections. I would vote Twycross and Howletts/PL as the most extensive, with both Paignton and Colchester having good collections too, with Cotswold perhaps the best for Lemurs.
Edinburgh once had the finest display of guenons in the Uk, still a few interesting species there. Twycross for quantity and probably Chester for quality of presentation. For me, the single finest exhibit is the Japanese macaque enclosure at HWP.
They did indeed. Nowadays anywhere with more than about two species would be the top Guenon exhibitor. Even zoos with two species are hard to come by.
And a monkey house that in the recent past has held such beauties as golden cheeked gibbon, drill, purple faced langur, specracled langur, L'Hoest's guenon, Diana monkey, Hamlyn's guenon, Allen's swamp monkey, Japanese macaque, red titi, yellow breasted capuchin, aye aye, Sclater's lemur, broad nosed gentle lemur. Probably the last untouched monkey house in the Uk, perhaps with the exception of raising the height of the outdoor cages.
I can't think of any others nowadays. There used to be similar houses at Bristol, Chester, London, Paignton and Belle Vue but all have either gone or been converted into bigger exhibits but with a smaller range of species.
Paigntons primates Paignton has a pretty good collection: Mandrill, Swamp Monkey, King Colobus, Sulawesi Macaque, Diana Monkey, Brown Spider monkey, Lemur X 3 species, Gibbon X 2 species, Orang X 2 species, Gorilla and numerous Tamarins & Marmosets.
And De Brazzas..don't know how much longer it will be there though. Would be nice for any zoo to have a large monkey themed area keeping different species in their own enclosures but would need a lot of space to be done properly. I would enjoy seeing something along those lines. There would a lot of scope for interesting interpretation as well. Maybe there is something like this already in existence?
???? ....They only have Bornean Orangutans. But they do also have Cherry-crowned Mangabey & Hamadryas Baboon.
Orang - one species, sorry! Orang - one species, sorry! Yes, how could I forget the Mangabeys and baboons? I also forgot the Saki's !
Shaldon probably has the best collection based on size of the zoo - 18 species, more than all of the other species put together and on a tiny plot!
