Let's now hope they will equally invest in the bird department, which has been neglected for years....
Last few years they added some rare and unusual mammal species - Tree Kangaroo, Beisa, Balabac Chevrotain, White-beared wildebeest, Sifaka, Roloway Monkey, Masked Palm Civet, Guinan Bearded Saki, Francois' leaf Monkey. Musk Deer returned, now Thomson's Gazelle, Bear Cuscus, Flying Squirrel. Only need to put the Pikas on show Instead of competing with Giand Pandas and Apes, they are aiming exclusive status. I am pretty sure the Bird novelties will follow
Wow, according to Zootierliste Berlin Tierpark received 5,8 Thomson's Gazelles! That's more than both of the existing German populations in Hannover (1,5) and Leipzig (1,3) combined. I guess there'll be at least 2 groups: 1 breeding group and 1 bachelor group. Of course, this increases my anticipation still more. Apparently, somebody already saw them in the park as well. Unfortunately, I don't know where they are kept for the time being nor where they all came from. Besides that, the construction projects all seem to pick up pace. They even started modelling the water zone for the mixed-species Asian exhibit (otters, barbirusas, crested black macaques). If everything works out as planned, most of this (i.e. Savannah, giraffe trail, two new Asian enclosures) should be finished by Spring or Summer next year! By then, you'll probably see most of the outside area of the elephants as well. The building itself, however, won't open before 2024. Still, it definitely will be a bit of a new experience at the beginning of the new season.
They published another (better) video of the flying squirrels: On Sunday, I had a chance to visit the park for just a very short time and I actually got to see one of them. It only was a head, though. Apart from that, I didn't really see much, as I wasn't in the park by myself. But I finally managed to get a closer look at some of the fish tanks in the Cafeteria building. For as much as I could see, they put together some rather interesting and attractive species in there. I particularly liked the big sea water tank with (small) sharks, rays and some other fish in there. Oh, and there is a new video which shows the cranes in the vulture aviary (doesn't feature the secretarybird, though)... Quite a nice addition.
Berlin Tierpark now keeps 3,3 Tasmanian "Forrester Kangaroos" (i.e. the Tasmanian subspecies of Eastern grey giant kangaroos). Apparently, Zootierliste only lists 4 zoos for this species (Berlin Tierpark, Prague, Aalborg and Copenhagen in Denmark).
Update: They don't have any Black faced kangaroos any longer, though. They sent their 1,2 off. So they swapped one rarely kept species for another even more rarely kept one with some more individuals.
And still another interesting new/returned species: They received 1,0 Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew from Leipzig. It is kept behind the scenes, for the time being. But it could well appear in the modernised elephant building.
Well, it is a youngster and the plan to open by 2024. But 1,0 does not stand for a long time perspective anyways. But perhaps they'll get a female as well and start breeding.
The work on said enclosure really picks up now. And they also picked up 1,1 Crested Black Macaques from Neunkirchen. So, now only the Otters are still missing. Or in other words, they just received another rarely kept species (only 3 other German zoos have them, all of them smallish parks)! In this case, it's also a critically endangered one.
