I've deleted a lot of the recent posts on this thread. Please keep the conversation civil and do not accuse people of doing anything that can remotely be considered slanderous.
Good job, jbnbsn99! Gracious, I had thought that with the departure of Sun Wukong, such harsh battles wouldn't be happening here at ZooChat anymore. I continue to be a strong supporter of Dr. B.
@jbnbsn99: I really appreciate that you deleted a lot of this increasingly irrelevant discussion (including my own comments). After all this is a news thread. There allready is one dealing just with Blaszkiewitz as a person. Some updates: -The work at the polar bear enclosure is totally finished by now. The new window and the restorated floating island are well received both by playful young Tonja and the visitors. I have witnessed some spectacular scenes myself and seen some more on pictures. Either Tonja dives towards the window and then shoots out of the water hitting the glass with her pranks or she moves the floating island towards the rocks then quickly climbs up the rocks and jumps on it. Clearly a new attraction in my opinion! Before she mainly played with floating branches or pieces of wood. -Cougar and Javanese Leopard still live together in the Brehm building. -The Gerenuks are often recognized as a new species and their look attracts some comments. Of course hardly anybody knows how special these animals are. -In his latest interview Blaszkiewitz again confirmed he wants to stay till the end of June when the contract runs out.
I'm not too familiar with this building, when I visited last year much of it was shut off, including the central space - is that where the tropical hall is? Is this a walkthrough exhibit? And where is the boardwalk, is that on an upper level or still on the ground floor? What animals are to be/used to be kept here, just birds?
Yes, it is in the central part which is shut off. Yes, it is a walk-through aviary. Before the building started they kept birds, flying foxes and some fish in there. I actually hope for some innovative concept which includes some reptiles, amphibians and small mammals, but I'm not very optimistic this will happen. In the past there was no board walk at all, but visitors could look inside from an outside plateau at a higher level. In the future there also will be a board walk inside of the hall.
The Tierpark just received a young male polar bear from Moscow, Russia. After activists spread rumours about Wolodja being Tonja's brother the Tierpark could refute these accusations. Before that some had claimed Berlin paid 500,000 € for the bear. Moscow refuted that claim as well. Apparently Zoo Moscow and Tierpark Berlin just signed an agreement to exchange animals which I think is a really good thing! For some reason it seems a trend to spread false accusations, however. By the way: I saw Wolodja in a brief video clip and he will become another top attraction for the park beside young Tonja. So far Tonja is reluctant to meet Wolodja, though. He is more interested in her than vice versa. But I am very much looking Forward to seeing them united. Ah, and the rock wallabies just got some offspring. Apparently it is only one youngster which still stays in the bag. And one of the merkats (German: Brazza-Meerkatze) has new offspring as well.
= De Brazza's monkey, Cercopithecus neglectus. Easy to confuse the German "Meerkatze" (=monkeys in genus Cercopithecus) with the English "meerkat" (=the mongoose species known as Erdmannchen in German; should be umlaut at the "a", but it doesn't show on the forum).
Knieriem from zoo munich will be new head at both Berlin Zoo and Tierpark. I don't know him that well but it seems like he is a very good choice indeed. I am really happy about this!
It seems like Knieriem will stay at Munich until the end of 2013. After that it will depend on negotiations (his contract doesn't run out before October 2014). He already announced he wants to develop individual plans for each Tierpark and Zoo (I guess the master plan for the Tierpark won't last any longer in this case). This sounds interesting and I am curious about the years to come. I think it's a bit inpolite, however, to start communicating plans months before he actually succeeds Blaszkiewitz.
I hope you are right. However, given his previous position at Hannover Zoo, where he worked prior to taking the reins at Munich, I would fear what might happen at Berlin. The thought of either Berlin Zoo being Hannover-ised is too dreadful! I hope I will be proved wrong, but there were other candidates who, in my opinion, would have been better suited to the job.
He wasn't head at Hannover zoo. And Munich wasn't exactly turned into a second Hannover either. I think Blaszkiewitz was near the one extreme (function vs. form; ideals vs. commercial aspects) and Hannover may be somewhere close to the other (I heard they neglected bitterly needed renovation for the sake of visible attractions/ decoration!). Knieriem himself seems to be somewhere between and he may bring some needed change to the Tierpark without destroying the atmosphere. He already stated that he quite likes the landscape. He also said he considers creating "Erlebniswelten" in it. In my opinion this doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. I wouldn't mind some large mixed species exhibits for example. I guess it really depends on the way these ideas are implemented...
I totally agree that Blaszkieiwtz achieved a lot and I also won't ever forget what he did for the Tierpark. In my opinion he virtually had to create a "new zoo" under the most challenging of circumstances. So I feel he was about as crucial for the Tierpark as was Dathe. I think his priorities simply were right for the difficult time of renewal. But I'm afraid Berlin still won't miss him very much. Most people don't really get into the details. They just don't care how difficult the circumstances may have been. I hope Knieriem will have a fair chance to start a new era. I guess it will have to be an era dealing with more superficial details as well. It won't be enough to have loads of good or very decent exhibits and to have a lot of good stuff going on. The strengths will have to be made more visible.
Sadly, once again I've had to delete some rather rude comments on this thread. This is the last warning on the Tierpark Berlin thread to keep things civil before I close/delete the thread for good.
The Brehm building won't reopen this year as it seems, the same goes for the eagle aviary near the main entrance. By the way: There won't be any new construction sites under Blaszkiewitz. He basically isn't in charge of any new projects any longer. If Knieriem manages to get released from his contract by the end of the year and Blaszkiewitz refuses to step down they apparently plan to make Knieriem main/ general director over Blaszkiewitz. I hope this whole situation won't cause too much trouble...
Unfortunately they are now visible in one of the 2 capuchin cages, the one that held the bachelor group...
From today in one of the enclosure in Elephant-house, you can watch three New Guinea Short-beaked Echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus lawesii). More info: Hauptstadt Zoo*-*Tierpark*-*Tiere & Wissenswertes*-*Tier-News
