Well the aye-aye one is really small and when I went one of them was running in circles and it seemed really agitated and stressed. The gorilla exhibit is pretty much a field with a fake tree the gorilla's can't even climb.
would love to see a picture of the former manatee exhibit at amsterdam zoo seemingly someone described as a glorified flowerpot meaning that the pool was tiny
The worst I have seen was the otter exhibit at Beijing Zoo;a small barred cage with an enamel bath,like you have in your own home,for the animals to swim in.The bears at Beijing (polar,brown & asian black) and their big cats are all kept in pits & the other carnivores (leopards,wolves,dholes etc) are in chain link or barred enclosures which don't look big enough for the exhibits.
The otters at Dartmoor used to have a really bad exhibit aswell. I think they've changed it now though.
Re: Aye Ayes at London Zoo When i last visited the zoo in April, they had locked the doors, preventing guests from going inside the Round House. Perhaps this is a method to prevent any further stress?
Maybe, they certainly needed it! How they kept gorillas in their I don't know... And dartmoor zoo has really improved its otter exhibit. It's probably twice as big with a huge pond and a stream running through it.
The Round House at ZSL was open in August, I only saw one of the aye-ayes. It was showing repetitive 'pacing' behaviour, which certainly could be due to poor cage size/furniture and/or poor management. The two cages are not that small, but this species is so rare and interesting that animals deserve better. Of course part of the problem is that it's another listed building. Maybe the interior of the Casson builidng should become the world's best aye-aye enclosure. I can't think what else to do with it, although I suppose that as a nocturnal house it would give plenty of flight space for fruit bats too Alan
Yeah, that pretty well describes it. I saw their last manatee Bertus in it in 2002. Thankfully he was moved later that year to Randers Regnskov Tropical Zoo in Denmark, to a brand new exhibit. They now keep some catfish there instead.
The old Amazon dolphin exhibit in Duisburg was really really bad. Tiny square concrete box with a small window and a hoop in the middle and no natural light at all, and they were in there for around 30 years. The new exhibit is one of the best exhibits ever though...
The cages for monkeys in Leipzig Zoo in the old house for small monekys are awful and among the worst enclosures I know. They house Diana guenons, Hamlyn monkeys and De Brazza monekys in there (and maybe one more species). The great ape house in Hannover Zoo is really bad too (indoors and outdoors, incl. the new outdoor enclosure for Gorillas- it`s really bad for the apes).
leipzig zoo has had great success with hamlyns monkey, the enclosure may be awful but the animals have no problems with it.
I don't like to hear of rare species(zoologically) living in very poor conditions, even if breeding successfully. I heard Hanover's Gorilla new exhibit is not ideal- very bare with rockwork and a dangerous moat- I think its called 'Gorilla 'Mountain'. Yet the group is currently very successful with 'beautiful Buzandi' the silverback heading a successfull family group.
I find it very questionable to state that the monekys in Leipzig have no problem with their enclosures - yes they breed sucessfully, but does this justify keeping them in cages barely bigger then my wardrobe?? Animals - not only domesticated ones - are known to breed under the most appalling conditions (mink farming), and there are many examples which indicate that for breeding sucess it is more important that the male and the female are compartible with each other. But a bonded pair of hamlyn`s monekys is an awful small cage is still a totally unacceptable situation. Reagrding Buzandi, he has sired 3 babys yet (and one who was stillborn) but unfortunately the females are still avoiding him, they are no "family"... always sitting far away from Buzandi. I have never ever seen friendly contacts between him and the females. And I don`t think that living in an enclosure which has zero possibilities to get away from each other`s view makes it better. The females are under constant pressure because they don`t feel comfortable in his presence and he isn`t happy neither.
Although people don't welcome this point of view, it seems to me that a successful breeding of any species in captivity depends more upon the compatability of the male and female than the quality of the enclosure. I know of pairs of rare parrots which breed poorly or not at all in large, well appointed aviaries with good diets and other pairs of the same species which breed very successfully in crappy, dirty aviaries and poor, monotonous diets. It all depends on the individual animals.
i've never been one to be suckered by the "they breed therfore they are happy" argument. and even so, you have to question are they as happy as they could be? i have a very entrenched belief that most zoos are exceptionally stingy when it comes to space in enclosures and things haven't gotten radically better in modern times. certainly we have made enclsoures appear more naturalistic, we have even made them more enriching for their inhabitants, but many animal exhibits haven't actually gotten much larger since when i was a kid (some have). i think its pretty unacceptable because i believe large amounts of space is a form of enrichment in iteself. it might not be the only way to provide it, but particuarly when coupled with appropriate landscaping and utilised with other enrichment methods, it certainly gives most animals a less stressed and and boredom-free lifestyle. i mean really, whilst its seems radical, if we really wanted to be fair we would be supplying our big cats and bears with spaces more akin to what we give ungulates at open range zoos. given its the right type of landscaping they would make equally good use of the space. however we know that would be redicuously expensive and due to their natural instincts almost impossible for the public to view. thus whilst i'm not suggesting such enclosures are practical or should become standard i do think us zoofanatics must try not to project our own feeling of pleasure at seeing animals in the artificial habitats we make for them, onto the animals. zoos are constantly in a state of transition and whilst all this new trend (well new in the grand timeline of zoos) of "enrichment" and "immersion" thinking is great, don't let them forget the most common complaint made in all zoos is still "that enclosure is too small". becuse i think many, many many zoos are still missing the point.
I agree completely, patrick. Being miserable or locked up wouldn't stop me breeding, either! Seriously though, I've known some animals to breed in quite lousy conditions. A pair of leopards dragged all over the countryside by Ashton's circus years ago in a section of a trailer approx. 2 metres by 2 metres bred and produced cubs year after year. Naturally the mother wouldn't/couldn't rear them -- apart from anything else, the male was in there with her -- and the whole thing was pretty horrendous. On one occasion they managed to drag the cubs out with a dung scraper straight after birth, but they died anyway. As an aviculturist, I deplore the modern american trend to breed macaws (Aras) in smaller and smaller cages. Some breeders seem to get a perverse pride in "successfully" breeding in the smallest cages they can. It will all backfire on them one day. And as for modern zoo enclosures; what good is a lush planted backdrop if the animals are kept out of it by a "hot" wire? It's just stage dressing! As a kid who had grown up around Taronga zoo ( where the ungulates had been kept on concrete) I remember how impressed I was when I first visited Melbourne zoo to find the ungulates in large grassed paddocks. (This was back in the 50s/60s). What's more there were many more paddocks than there were herds of deer, antelope etc. so that they could be rested and the animals rotated around them. Rather rural, I suppose, and made for a lot of walking for visitors.
my personal belief is that the city zoos that excel into the next century will be the ones with an open range zoo attached to it (as is the situation with san diego, london, melbourne, adelaide and taronga to name a few). what i want to see is better distinction of the two styles of zoos made by the zoos themselves. i don't belive all this rubbish about public acceptance, you take giraffes and elephants from melbourne and you'll just get more visitors out a werribee. same zoo board, same money. this frees up space at city zoos and allows them to not only display and manage the speces they do mainatain more effectively, it also allows for larger enclosure sizes. ideally, there may be one or two average sized display enclosures for sunbears, but behind the scenes is a much, much, larger habitat that is shared by both bears on a rotational basis, in which public viewing is not a concern at all.....and i bet they would breed better too! of course this may seem like radical thinking to some and a bit extreme but really, i think it solves much of the dilemma. better design of facilities and better management all really goes hand in hand with better quality of life for the animals. i don't want to see another rigo type situation arise in which not only is the animal unable to be integrated with others, he is also, due to prro facilities, forced to live, permanently in an low standard enclosure.
Now I feel more unhappy still about Leipzig's monkeys... They not longer ago built an enormous modern Apehouse. Surely they could provide some better conditions for these monkeys as well ?(at far less expense than it costs to build a new Apehouse..) I'm also sorry to hear about Buzandi's group. It seems they need some additional enrichment,but maybe that would not help either. The photos I've seen of the outdoor area, it looks incredibly bare-for the year 2007. But I believe two females in this group are expecting infants again?
The very first breeding in captivity of the American Bald Eagle took place in the 1930's I believe on a private owner's verandah. The cage was something like 6ft x 6 ft x 9 ft high....
