And so we come to the end of the first half of the draw, with the category being... primates! How much is our fourth seed going to pay a price for *that* ape house? Note: I'm dialling the number of days for each poll down to four, and will post one thread per day. The concept behind this poll is explained here: ZooChat Cup In summary, the rules of the game are as follows: - You may choose whatever criteria you like to decide how to vote, as long as it only relates to the category above. - You can use whatever resources you like to inform your vote, including Zoolex, Zootierliste, the ZooChat gallery, trip reviews, zoo maps, books and wherever else. You don't have to have visited both zoos to vote. - Votes are public and can be changed at any time before the poll closes. - The aim of the game is to provoke debate. Post explaining why you voted the way you did, and why others should join you. - Voting closes in four days - The one thing you can't do is vote based on anything other than the relevant category.
Copenhagen's chimp accommodation and primate house aren't much better, to be honest, and it certainly can't rival the experience of watching geladas, squirrel monkeys or lemurs at Zurich. A lucky draw for this category, but Zurich it is.
This was probably the worst category for Zurich to get, but fortunately the competition is Copenhagen, whose Chimpanzee enclosure and monkey house are also not exactly pretty... Zurich easily has the best enclosures for lemurs (Masoala) and Gelada in Europe, but the Orang-utan and gorilla enclosures are appalling, especially outside. Then they have some ok enclosures for Pileated gibbon and smallish ones for Pygmy marmoset and Siamang in the Ape house. The islands for Yellow-fronted capuchin and Squirrel monkey are then again nice, though nothing special. Then finally there are some enclosures for Callithrids in the Exotarium, which are in some cases indoor only, but a fair size (except for the Lion tamarins), with lots of natural lighting. So for Zurich it is a mixed bunch, but based on what I heard from Copenhagen I am still leaning towards Zurich. I am still interested in hearing more experiences and seeing more pictures from the Danish capital zoo.
My thinking too, alas. Zurich is very fortunate not to have drawn primates against any of Beauval, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Twycross, Leipzig, Cologne or even the likes of Lisbon.
In contrast to Zurich I haven't visited Copenhagen zoo. I am judging by the pictures and info on zoochat, google, tripadvisor, the zoo map, and zootierliste (which is not much - primates don't seem to be Copenhagen's strong suit or interest zoochat visitors much). My verdict: It seems a clear win for Zurich. Reason: While Zurich's ape house looks inferior to Copenhagen's primate holdings, they both seem to play in the same league. This however is Zurich's low point (not just regarding primates) with the considerable number of primate enclosures outside the primate house being of excellent quality. Masoala - proclaimed by some here to be the best any zoo has to offer - and walking through the reforested malagasy jungle under the biodome while it reverberates with the frantic exchange of screams and howls between two lemur troops lets you feel why. Semien, a much lauded shared enclosure for two Gelada troops, ibex (though not currently) and hyrax. The exotarium, a fantastic example of how mid 20th century animal holdings can be transformed into excellent modern and naturalistic ones. Pantanal with a series of beautifully vegetated 'swamp' islands - one of which serves as a temporary walk-through at fixed times of the day. Furthermore, Zurich recognizes the need for replacing the ape house, and has reserved large areas of land for a new development in the mid 2020s. Finally, not only are most of Zurich's exhibits of an excellent quality, but it also has the larger and more diverse collection, than Copenhagen. Kopenhagen Zurich
Although I do like architecture-wise the old Copenhague monkeyhouse a lot, I think Zurich clearly beats Copenhague because of the lemur, capuchin, squirrel and gelada holdings.
I'm a layman, so I may be completely wrong, but my impression is that while parts of the monkey house in Copenhagen (especially the baboon grotto) aren't exactly pleasing to the eye, they are sufficient for the animals. But problem is you can't really use much greater superlatives than "sufficient" about the primate exhibits in Copenhagen. The squirrel monkey island looks quite nice on the above picture (outside of the summer months, it's not nearly as lush and green), but honestly it seems to be a bit on the small side for a group that size. I haven't been to Zurich, so I'm only judging by the pictures here: While Zurich's ape house seems worse than most of Copenhagen's primate exhibits, it's certainly no worse than Copenhagen's chimp exhibit. And Zurich's best (geladas, Pantanal, Masoala...) is a hundred times better than Copenhagen's best. Copenhagen's collection is decent when it comes to displaying every type of primate (it has bushbabies, lemurs, callithricids, New World monkeys, Old World Monkeys, gibbons, and great apes), but hopeless when it comes to rarities. Zurich doesn't have any extremely rare species either, but gelada and yellow-breasted capuchin is more interesting than anything Copenhagen can offer, and the rest of the collection seems to be about the same size as Copenhagen (maybe a bit bigger?). Relatively easy win to Zurich.
Two zoos that, based on their great ape exhibits, deserve to be knocked out by a plucky underdog with a couple of good marmoset islands come head to head. As others have said, in the end it's a pretty easy win for Zurich. It would be easier, but somehow I can't bring myself to think of Masoala as a lemur enclosure.
...but if you wanted to see lemurs in a zoo, would you rather visit Masoala or any other 'lemur enclosure'?
That depends, do you want to *see* the lemurs? I recognise that it has its own problems (namely being closed and presumably not in use over winter) but I'd take Apenheul's lemur walk-through over Masaola - as a lemur exhibit - any day.
