I left the best for the last and visited the Berlin zoo yesterday. There is not a lot of changes since last year, but the zoo was teeming with life and there was no better place to spend a sunny day in Germany . The Carnivore house looks far from ready and I am not sure, if it is going to be finished this year. The Siberian tigers are in their new home now, which has a Tierpark appearance, but is better planted and enriched. The Lion's enclosure is also ready and looks very good, imo. Will post few pictures in the gallery. The main attractions, Panda's offspring are spending most of day sleeping over the wooden platform. Any activity there attract serious crowd, in the other side, not very busy park. The Sichuan Takin calf and the baby Bonobo were, definitely more playful and intresting to watch. The only closed sections are the Elephant house, Gharial bridge in the Aquarium and the Rhino/Tapir house. The last due to renovation process. Could not see the Baird's Tapir and I'm not sure is he visible. The Lowland Tapir is in the South American new area section. The mother and calf Indian Rhino are in the Black Rhino Station now and they rotating with the other mother and calf Black Rhino outside. The Barasinga left the zoo for the Tierpark now and their enclosure is empty. The Asiatic Black Bears also left the collection and their former home is signed for the Arctic wolves. Haven't seen any there, though. There are "only" 5 species of bears in Berlin now. The best part of the day was not animal related, actually. I met very kind and highly knowledgeable group of Czech zoo fanatics and spent half of the day with one of them, who "only" visited around 220 zoos for his 60 years. It was unforgettable experience and I learned a lot for the European zoo history. Usually I have half extra day in Berlin and hesitating, what extra highlight to visit I am ending in the Zoo again. No difference this time Spend my last minutes in the city watching Tuataras and browsing the empty Aquarium.
The male Baird's Tapir "Chico" is due to leave for Tierpark Cottbus, or has already left, where two other Baird's live. This leaves Wuppertal as the only other collection with Baird's in Europe.
Interesting for sure. Breeding plans? Then again I won't claim to know a thing about Cottbus's tapirs. Either way, I would like an excuse for more of these in Europe.
Of course, inbreeding should be avoided whenever possible. Incidentally, all golden takins and Sechuan takins each come from only one pair, and even with red duikers, full siblings have long been paired with one another. That doesn't matter with the takins, but duiker breeding has stagnated for some time. Without new imports from africa, the species will disappear from european collections in the near future. It would make the most sense to send the tapirs back to the USA - in Europe they are just useless-only show animals.
...which makes them rather more than useless! Being “just” a show animal is not nothing. I am very glad that it is possible to see Baird’s Tapirs in Europe.
I find Baird's Tapirs as a very interesting species. It will be sad, if Europe lose another South American ungulate. May be, someone will import new blood from USA.The chances are not very high, though. Berlin is lacking space and I heard that Wuppertal is not doing very good lately. Yellow-backed Duiker import plans in Frankfurt are positive trend, so who knows ?
I visited Zoo Berlin 2 years ago, and the Carnivore/Nocturnal house was already closed. I am surprised how quick they finished the Alfred Brehm's house in the Tierpark and how long things are taking in the Zoo. Did they schedule an re-opening month or something?
Was there today. Carnivore house looks like it's going to need quite a bit of time, doesn't look close to being finished. I don't remember how the tiger exhibit was prior to renovation, it's well planted but spacious is not the word I'd use, looks a bit like Prague's one. Lion exhibit looks better. Welt der Vögel is still as amazing as it was, only issue is the low light inside. It's a really dark house (just like the Pheasantry), makes it hard to make high quality pictures of the many rarities. Also, not sure what's going on with the Golden-headed manakins. They were on-show two years ago, they even bred according to ZTL but they were no where to be seen. I didn't see the White-bellied bustard nor the Bare-faced go-away bird, and I spent quite some time in the Pheasantry. I still don't know what to think about the zoo itself, I find it a very hard one to judge. I'll revisit in the following days hoping to make up my mind.
I was going through my pictures, I have 2 species not listed on ZTL : - Chukar Alectoris chukar - (not signed as I saw them probably just after they arrived, they weren't there during my first visits) A couple of probably confiscated birds by the looks of the individuals. One with the Little Bittern - Bearded parrotbill - Corncrake, the other with the Cinnamon teals next door. - Western capercaillie Tetrao urogallus - (signed) A couple, alone in the aviary next to the Cinnamon teals.
A male Burmese rock python (Python bivittatus) has arrived at the Aquarium, he will live together with the 3 Burmese rock pythons (2.1) which are already present on the first floor of the aquarium. https://www.instagram.com/p/CGXq08kiuV9/
The world's oldest black rhino Kilanguni (46) has been euthanized yesterday, she suffered from a lot of age-related problems. Mach’s gut, alte Dame
That'll be a shame. Berlin was the first (and only) place I've seen Baird's Tapir. I still have the first photograph I took of him.
I would favour these 2 collections to become out stations for the AZA / ALPZA and Meso Americas conservation breeding consortium. Would really make sense!
