After yesterday's decision of the Consultative Committee of the Belgian federal and regional governments, Zoo Antwerpen will finally reopen on Saturday February 13th. The closure begun on November 2nd 2020. All indoor spaces and restaurants will remain closed, wearing a mask will be mandatory in the entire park, the same safety measures that were in place in the summer and fall of 2020 will again be in place and there will be a limited visitor capacity that will be strictly monitored. Member card holders will not have to reserve a time slot as a number of slots is kept reserved for them, but people who buy a day ticket will have to reserve a time slot. Log into Facebook Maatregelen coronavirus - ZOO Antwerpen
Some very interesting recent additions in the Birdhouse: 1.1 blue dacnis 2.2 turquoise tangare 1.1 chestnut-eared arassari 1.0 swallow tanager ?.? spangled cotinga Source: ZTL (info by zoo staff) and www.laafsekikkers.be (belgian zooforum)
Goodfellow's tree kangaroo Lily passed away during the past weekend at 23 years and 5 months of age, a respectable old age for a tree kangaroo. ZOO Antwerpen I hope they will be able to get another tree kangaroo or at least another interesting marsupial for the exhibit. But there aren't too many tree kangaroos around in Europe...
I've seen some excellent pictures in the gallery of Eastern lowland gorillas at Zoo Antwerp and I know that these are exceptionally rare in captivity. Can anyone tell me what the story of these individuals at the zoo is in the sense of how did they end up there?
They aren't just exceptionally rare, there is only captive one individual left, Amahoro (born 1989) at Antwerp. Antwerp did use to have more of them and actually bred the subspecies twice. With regards to the provenance of the animals, Zootierliste states that most of the animals were collected from the wild and transferred straight to Antwerp or to Antwerp via other zoos. But I don't have any specifics here. For Amahoro I was able to find out that she is also wild-caught and was found by customs at Kigali airport, Rwanda, as an infant being illegally transported, in 1992. In 1994 she was transferred to Antwerp Zoo, where at the time a breeding group of the subspecies still lived.
Thanks for sharing @KevinB ! This is really interesting and I think it is a picture of "Amahoro" that I saw in the gallery that was taken by @Tim May. Somehow I'm not suprised she was wildcaught and rescued from the illegal trade as she has a very traumatized look about her and in her eyes / gaze , a very charismatic looking gorilla.
I have also posted some photos of Amahoro in the gallery in the last couple of years. I'm not sure whether Amahoro's charismatic look is a result of her (sub)species or of her past. That said, she can be easily recognized between the other gorillas at the zoo, as she is much larger and darker than the female western lowland gorillas.
I'll check them out. Yes, I'm not sure if I am either as the different subspecies of gorillas do look quite distinctive from eachother but I would say there is definitely something more for want of a better word soulful / brooding about her gaze. Hard or maybe even impossible to tell but I did infer from her look that there was something traumatized about it. Is she kept with Western lowland gorillas ?
Amaharo's looks are certainly distinctive. I don't buy @Onychorhynchus coronatus's anthropomorphic idea: gorilla facial characteristics are often misread by humans, for example the male Matadi at Antwerp looks 'grumpy'. She is the largest female gorilla I have seen, but this is characteristic of graueri and so is her long and very dark hair.
Yes, she lives with a breeding group of Western lowland gorillas (1 silverback, 2 females, a toddler and an infant). She seems to get along well with them, I have seen images of her playing with the toddler and/or the infant. But I've also several times seen her sitting some distance away from the others. That said, fusion-fission is nothing unusual in great apes.
It wasn't really a theory of mine that I was willing to die on a hill for but rather just a passing comment. Yes, it was a bit of an anthropomorphic comment and I agree that facial characteristics of gorillas and primates in general can be very easily misread by humans. However, it is worth mentioning that there is compelling evidence that has come from research into cognition, social intelligence and behavioural studies that something approaching PTSD and mental illness can occur in great apes in response to trauma. Also there is an undeniable neurobiology in the gaze of humans and apes and primates in general.
Great to hear that she is kept in a group and socialized well with the other members. I take it that she has been sterilized or put on some kind of contraceptive to stop hybridization ? Yes, of course, in fact going by what Dian Fossey wrote in "Gorillas in the mist" it is quite common with gorillas.
Yes, I think it must be some kind of contraceptive implant or perhaps she had been sterilized once the other Eastern lowland gorillas had passed away.
Zoo Antwerp has reconsidered its plans for the 'jubuleumcomplex' (the old dolfinpools next to the trainstation) and is finally saying goodbye to the sea lions. The two oldest sea lions will be transferred to an English Zoo for their retirement, the two younger females will go the ZOOM Erlebniswelt (for the breeding-program)
Amahoro also plays 'auntie' to the babies sometimes, and will carry one. More unusually I have seen video/photos of her riding on the back of one of the other adult females- very odd behaviour...might be sexual.
To my knowledge only some relatively minor demolition and cleaning up work was ever done before the projected was halted and postponed. And they put up a wooden wall around the area so visitors now see very little of it.
I'm actually OK with this, as while I have always wanted to visit Antwerp (and still do), the sea lions from what I could see on ZooChat sort of felt out of place amid the Andean bears, tigers and other carnivores. If the old Dolfinarium can be replaced with a bigger and better nocturnal house or nocturnal atrium akin to Kerzers Papiliorama, with larger carnivore habitats on the outside, that'd be a bigger win IMO for all the species concerned. (Hopefully we even see some small cats added like clouded leopards or fishing cats?)
