Amiens, Amneville. Easy mistake to make, right? Right? Ahem. Helsinki. Amneville. Amneville. Amneville. The category: small mammals. 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. Tomorrow, two zoos that couldn't really be more different: Hannover and Moscow.
Not having been to Amneville (obviously: I had it mixed up with Amiens), I had a quick peek through the gallery. It seems to have a fairly conventional standard, with decent small cat exhibits (the photos don't give a lot of context about size or complexity, but they look 'nice'). Helsinki, alas, is much the same, apart from a genuinely lovely otter exhibit that is among the better ones I saw in Europe. I'm parking my core with Amneville for now, but open to persuasion otherwise.
Small clawed otters are socialised with Orang Utans, wolverines are socialised with brown bears in their new enclosure (and they are playing together, which is hilarious), the fish cat enclosures is not Nuremberg, but nice, meercats are socialised with Gorillas. And the ferrets on everyones way in should make you stop for a while. Amneville used to be one of my favourite zoos to go to juts because it is big enough to escape the masses, I support their decision to build male gorilla groups, BUT ever since they started their tiger circus show, I am having a hard time with the zoo. Nonetheless, i will vote for Amneville.
Both: Red-necked wallaby; pygmy marmoset; bearded emperor tamarin; white-faced saki; gundi; greater guinea pig; Patagonian mara; northern lynx; fennec; northern raccoon; Nepalese red panda Amneville Syrian rock hyrax Southern tamandua Ring-tailed lemur; black and white and red ruffed lemurs; silvery and common marmosets; cotton-top, and red-bellied tamarins; black-capped capuchin; Bolivian (including Peruvian*) squirrel monkey; black spider monkey* Common hamster; northern Luzon giant cloud rat; steppe lemming; crested porcupine; black-tailed prairie dog Meerkat; Arabian sand cat; common caracal; serval; fishing cat; North American river otter; Asian small-clawed otter. striped skunk; ring-tailed coati Kirk’s dik-dik Helsinki Round-eared sengi Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth Golden lion tamarin; Asia minor spiny mouse; European harvest mouse; Azara’s agouti Four-toed hedgehog Dwarf mongoose; European wild cat; Siberian Pallas’ cat; Eurasian otter; European mink; Eurasian wolverine In terms of numbers and variety, Amneville wins this one, although Helsinki has a few more out-of-the-ordinary species.
Amneville is in northeast France, relatively close to the Luxembourg border. It is not be confused with Amityville, which is in New York.
Amneville is an interesting place: lots of animals packed in, mostly well displayed - although very visitor, rather than animal, focussed (not a wholly bad thing). As mentioned above by @SabineB, this place rather jumped the shark when it developed a tiger show thing, but, nonetheless, there is a pleasing panache to much of what is done here, and whilst it is not a great zoo, it is certainly an interesting one - and one which I would very much like to revisit, having not been for a number of years. A whole different kettle of fish to the fairly good, but fairy unremarkable, Amiens!
It's worth pointing out that for its size as a medium zoo, Helsinki does have some nice offerings. The wolverine enclosure is really excellent, and the racoon and arctic fox enclosures nicely done. The warm climate exotics are all very standardly housed in a big green house, although there are some wallabies that draw the short straw in winter. The various mustelid enclosures are also very pleasant. Helsinki is a zoo with a clear vision: to house climate appropriate species that make great use of its island setting, whilst still maintaining a collection of exotics in greenhouses as well. Small mammals follow this theme as much as everything else. It deserves a look here; what I saw of Amneville's enclosures in the gallery didn't exactly wow me.
This is a good argument that might have been more influential if it hadn't been posted literally two minutes before the poll closed.
