I'll admit, a big part of me wants Cologne to win this to set up a dream third round match up with Chester... but that's in your hands, not mine. Ostrava saw off Odense in the first round 10-4 on birds, while Cologne defeated fellow heavyweight Frankfurt 19-4 on large carnivores. That scoreline doesn't do justice to the match-up, which was genuinely close for several days before breaking in Cologne's favour. Now Cologne will have to back that form up in the new, expanded carnivores category. Tomorrow: Hamburg vs Planckendael.
Two great zoos, though each has its flaws. Ostrava’s Asian Black Bear exhibit is one of the best; however, while I love its having quite a big collection of big and small cats, their enclosure are amongst the worst in the zoo: under-sized, tatty, uninspiring. Cologne, meanwhile, has an excellent collection, mainly very well housed. It’s got a claim to be the best zoo in Europe I think, and while others are better, it’s not by much. Certainly, carnivores do not let the place down - so a clear win for Cologne.
Probably the only topic on which Ostrava could have beaten Cologne is Hoofed mammals. But for carnivores most of the cat accommodations are just too shabby, especially for the Leopards... But I want to praise Ostrava's bear enclosure, which is the best for Asian black bear in Europe and gets extra bonus points for the fact that there are Hanuman langurs in with them as well...
I wanted to vote for Ostrava mainly because of the bear exhibit BUT after re-reading the review it got in Zoo Grapevine (thanks Sooty) and reading the above comments about the cat enclosures means it's going to be Cologne.
I did love the snow leopard enclosure in Cologne, but the other big cat exhibits were fine too. The ratel was fantastic, but I don't recall much from its enclosure. The smaller carnivores were housed good as well: the meerkat enclosure is fantastic and ridiculously big. The ring-tailed vontsiras, probably one of the gems of the carnivore collection, have several connected exhibits, and the animals showed a whole range of behaviours when I visited. The only downside were the bear exhibits, though the grizzly bear was an impressive animal to see.
I'll upload some pictures tonight for extra convincing. I am looking forward to the Chester vs. Cologne clash Both are potential winners of the overall title
Both: Geoffroy’s cat, Asiatic lion; Nepalese red panda Cologne Hausa genet Meerkat South African cheetah, snow leopard Siberian tiger, North Persian leopard American grizzly bear, sun bear Eurasian otter, South African ratel California sea lion Northern raccoon Ostrava Binturong European wild cat, Carpathian lynx, jaguarondi, fishing cat, Sri Lankan rusty-spotted cat Asiatic black bear Asian small-clawed otter Cologne wins this on family diversity, but Ostrava did better than I thought it would. It has a more interesting cat collection with only 1 species of big cat. Cologne has a mongoose, pinniped and raccoon and has more species of bear and mustelid than does Ostrava. I also consider the Hausa genet (3 zoos on ZTL) to be a more 'unusual' species than the non-subspecific binturong (40).
Ostrava also keeps Clouded leopards, Sri Lankan leopard and Raccoon dog. Use the advanced search of Zootierliste next time I just uploaded a big bunch of enclosure photos from Ostrava: Zoo Ostrava | ZooChat
Thanks Lintworm. The 'Expert Search' will make compiling information much easier, especially in zoos with hundreds of species.
Do they no longer have tigers? When I was last there, in 2016, a pair (?) were in a dodgy old cage. If they have now moved on, then that is a good thing, I think.
I agree. One of the things I liked about the Ostrava list was that there were more species of small cats than large cats. If other zoos followed this plan, more species of cats could be saved.
There was a lion in what used to be the tiger cages and looking at their year book, they seem to have left in 2016. There are however plans to build a huge new enclosure for Siberian tiger in the style of the one for the bears.
Unanimous. Of the two zoos, Cologne for sure best meets my carnivore needs. It delivers on exactly what I want to see.
@Dassie rat: Whilst I admire your tenacity in making this point, I can never understand why you limit it to felids. Why not replace tigers with amphibians? Or inverts? You could hold (and breed) far larger populations than you could of small cats in the same area. Both groups also receive significantly less funding per species than small cat conservation initiatives. By promoting small cats, aren't you, in fact, guilty of the same bias towards charismatic, marketable taxa you're accusing zoos of?
Hello Giant Panda. I am trying to compare like with like as I would hope that people who like tigers may also like smaller cats. I don't have a bias towards small cats, but I like a few species and enjoyed TLD's collected photos, as well as the current collection of photos on small mammals. I prefer to find a species I didn't expect to see when I visit a zoo, such as Plzen's dusky pademelon, Bristol's tarsiers, Strasbourg's Tonkean macaques and Rotterdam's umbrella bird and rock fowl. I want zoos to keep as varied a collection as possible, rather than repeating species found in other zoos. I liked the lemur collection in Paris Vincennes and I prefer to see species other than ring-tailed lemurs. Similarly, I get bored with meerkats representing mongooses in zoos or Asian small-clawed otters representing otters. I would like some tiger enclosures to be replaced by enclosures for amphibians, invertebrates and other animals. I think zoos should be doing more to save 'unpopular' species. One of my favourite houses was the former rodent house at Berlin Tierpark. It was basically a large garden shed, but had an unusual collection of small mammals.
I'm going to vote Ostrava here, just because I think the match up is closer than a 22-0. The Ostrava bear enclosure is probably the best carnivore enclosure I've ever seen in Europe... Though I will agree Cologne is more qualitative overall.
