Zoo finally announced the birth of 0.1 Western tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis). She was born on 11th March.
I'm hoping to have time to visit Jihlava Zoo on Saturday coming up from Brno. Any tips for visiting? Layout on the map looks incredibly straightforward to navigate which may be lulling me into a false sense of security... Any secret goodies that are easy to miss?
The bobcats and lynx might slip your mind if you're not careful. The possom were no shows for me, I'd try to visit their exhibit in the Australian area early and often. As long as you go inside all buildings I think you should see everything else.
I visited Jihlava 1.5 weeks ago in the wonderful company of @HOMIN96 , who was a great host and made sure I did not miss the interesting stuff. We were lucky seeing most of the rarities on show, with the Flying squirrels being the only notable miss. The Striped possum showed quite well throughout the day, but were easiest at about 8:30 am when the lights were still on. Jihlava is in parts a wonderful and charming zoo, but many parts left me somewhat disappointing. The main reason for this is that at least half of the enclosures is cramped and basically every single enclosure would profit of being larger. On a site of about 10 hectares Jihlava keeps more than double the number of mammal species than Burgers' Zoo and it shows. There might be some cultural differences here as Czech zoo culture has different viewpoints/standards compared to a Dutch/Swiss/German viewpoint. But there are some parts that are just far too small, notably the Cat house, the row of small cat enclosures, large parts of the Australian & African house and the Seals. I know many people on here love Jihlava, but I put that down to Plzen syndrome, where substandard enclosures at once become acceptable/forgotten when they hold rarities. There are some lovely areas and the view in the early morning from the Savannah to the old town of Jihlava is wonderful. The zoo is also pleasant to walk around, with nearly all the space occupied by animal enclosures, making for a wonderful exploration of finding animals and viewpoints around every corner and in every house. But even when exploring I could not help but wonder how much better it would be with a drastic species reduction. Currently Jihlava is clearly below the better zoos in Czechia like Prague, Ostrava an Zlin, but as it is a day trip from Prague and there are loads of rarities (as well as nice people to meet), Jihlava is a logical stop on any itinerary in Czechia. Btw: for all the species hunters, Jihlava keeps Loewe's guenons, not Campbells and going through older pictures labelled as Campbells, they all appear to be Loewe's as well .
Kifaru: mhm, zoo get some new land next to entrance. I her something about some tropical hall or something similar and that new director would like to get indian rhinos, but that far from sure today and I doubt that its close future
Wow, interesting. I don't know if they can get Indian rhinos. It would be better to use the space for some smaller and less demanding species.
No, it didn't. The Modeta factory land was bought by city and now is deciding what to do with it. Article in Jihlava newspaper from 24th August: "The textile plant Modeta should be used from next year. The current city leadership counts on this. However, it will be a temporary solution until the site is completely emptied and the city has received funding for its fundamental transformation. The temporary use project covers the right side of the 1500 square meter area, which is about half of the existing Modeta. Currently, there is a zoo's warehouse. After the reconstruction, there could be a café, a place for Jihlava clubs or community organizations or exhibition space next year." Production in textile factory will end in 2022.
Some news: • Jihlava cooperates with Brno on getting Sumatran tigers from Indonesia, but it is still uncertain when it happens. • They want to move the current kitchen to the off-show building and rebuild the current kitchen to Roloway's monkey exhibit ("Why should visitors go around kitchen, when there could be attractive exhibit."). Animals could arrive in 2021. • This will also mean moving the current domestic animals section next to the sheep enclosure and changing the species roster, focusing primarily on local breeds. • This year a new stable for Chaco peccaries should be built, with aviary for some bird (Toucans were one of the speculations before) and exhibit for some "smaller South American mammal" + upgrade of heating system in the marmoset house. • Exhibit for Kirk's dik-dik and Blue duiker will be built this year if the zoo manages to prepare all documentation
0,0,3 Rufous bettongs born. Construction of new kitchen started. When it's finished, the old one will be rebuilt to exhibit for Roloway's monkeys.
The male Visayan Warty pig Klaus arrived from Scotland recently (Edinburgh Zoo). After two years trying to compose a Cape Barren Goose pair, this year 3 or 4 chicks have hatched. On March 28th, twins Pygmy Slow Loris were born.
One thing I didn't mentioned here as I slightly forgot about that, but the announcement of this year's Breeding of the year award (Yes, we have those ) results brought it back to my memory. In summer 2019 2,0 Thick-tailed bushbaby (Otolemur crassicaudatus) were born. One of the males didn't survive, but the other one was raised successfully.
