'Mixed feelings' is a frequent phrase when talking about this exhibit. This is a nice exhibit, with carefully done theming. However, the area previously contained black rhinos, pygmy hippos, shoebills and unique bird-rhino mix, so it is like two levels down. Educational topic seems rather stretched. Australasian dangerous exotic species are benign natives used to draw interest in nature in Europe (rabbits, mallards, mute swans) or even somewhat in need of protection (chamois). I found myself thinking how this area can be further improved without putting big costs on only just finished exhibit. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I believe people visit the zoo and are interested in conservation projects primarily because of live animals, not theming or education displays. Lorikeet aviary could hold some additional bird species, e.g. crested pigeons, blue-eared honeyeaters to talk about European zoo staples. It might be even already planned by the zoo, once the first group of animals settles? Echidnas could live as a ground-cohabitants with koalas, lorikeets, kookaburras or even in the walkthrough savanna. They sometimes can be seen in city parks in Australia. One can easily, as Anton already suggested, add free-flying birds to the main building. Covering the perentie exhibit with a bird mesh should cost no money at all. Also, there could be more imaginative kangaroo species instead of/together with Tasmanian red-necked wallabies. Yellow-footed rock wallabies thrive in a very similar exhibit in Berlin Tierpark. And their danger from introduced foxes makes an interesting conservation topic. Swamp wallabies are at home in Australian dry areas (not just in swamps), were long time kept in Zurich and live in areas with snowfall in the wild. Or the zoo might even import a completely new kangaroo species to Europe? But that may be too much to ask.
The donation drive for the Lewa project is gaining momentum. Link to donation brochure - you can 'buy' various objects in the development for set prices - with some new imagery and info on the project. What's new? Naked mole rats Fake termite mounds scattered around the development (once more) Life-size models of all rhino species Fake trees as feeding stations. As with virtually all new enclosures of the zoo, there will be timed feeding stations scattered around the enclosure, as behavioral enrichment and to facilitate natural foraging behavior. The construction is progressing fast. The hoofstock stables are finished (at least from the outside), and the raw construction of the giraffe & rhino house together with the cliff edge of the savanna are taking shape. https://www.zoo.ch/sites/default/fi...R_Lewa_Booklet_Spendenobjakte_2018_lowres.pdf
Surely a perentie would eat any bird it could get hold of? I know someone who didn't think a Blue-tongued Skink would eat a young Roulroul Partridge. It did.
I came across this comment in an article on the actuzoo website: "Tout comme Pairi Daiza en Belgique, Zurich a décidé de ne passer par le programme d’élevage international géré par le San Diego Zoo, pour construire l’enclos des koalas suivant leur concept personnel, sans les contraintes exigées par San Diego pour accueillir cette espèce." "Just as Pairi Daizi in Belgium, Zurich decided to forego the international breeding program led by San Diego Zoo, in order to design their enclosure for Koalas according to their own concept, without the constraints enforced by San Diego in order to acquire the species." Can anyone comment on that? Does anyone know what kinds of constraints they are talking about? A web-search didn't render any meaningful information.
One constraint is that Koala cannot be kept in mixed species exhibits. Some birth news from Zurich: in the past months there have been several interesting births including 5 Viscacha, multiple Gelada, Madagascar crested ibis, Rock hyrax, Ultramarine grosbeak, Red-crested finch and Magellanic steamer duck.
Interesting! Does this mean Planckendael is also not part of that breeding program? I thought they were, but they have (or have had for a long time, at least) their koala mixed with pademelons, as I'm sure you know... Sorry for going off-topic. The births are extremely exciting, there's a lot of good species in there!
Interesting, for me the mix with the pademelons is quite new, but I must say I don't follow Planckendael that closely and I think they are the only one, at least in Europe, who mix their koala? My information comes from somebody who is quite close to Pairi Daiza and mentioned this as one of the reasons why PD went to import them from Australia directly...
Just some clarifications on Planckendael. The dusky pademelons are no longer living in the koala house. They lived there between 2015 and 2018 to my knowledge, as evidenced by my photographical archive and as stated on Zootierliste. They were however removed from the koala house earlier this year, somewhere in May or June perhaps. The ground substrate in the koala house had to be changed to a softer material because of the motor skills-related health issues of young koala Sassafras and when that was done the pademelons were removed. I do not know whether they are still kept at Planckendael behind the scenes or have moved elsewhere. As far as breeding goes: Sassafras is to my knowledge the only koala bred at Planckendael since the pademelons were kept, but from what I've heard Sassafras was the result of an intense romance between Maka and Alinga, and that the breeding may have accidental as he has jumped into the female's enclosure a few times.
@lintworm the reason I've always heard about Pairi Daiza directly importing their koalas was that they didn't want to wait until the breeding program had extras that were available for new holders, definitely not because other zoos (Leipzig, I believe) were already in the waiting list before them... However I'm not sure if that was just a rumour or not. It does seem unlikely that San Diego would disallow other zoos to have mixed koala enclosures while keeping koalas in a mixed enclosure themselves, however, as mentioned by @Erythrogaster...
A total of 6 king penguins have hatched this year. 2 of those did not survive the first weeks, but the other 4 are doing fine. Never before did so many chicks hatch in one single season at the zoo: Alternative Familienformen bei den Zürcher Pinguinen
2018 proofed to be a good year also for the Geladas at Zürich : between May and September no less then 7 young were born .
New images Lewa construction Savanna: Baustelle: Lewa Savanne, Zoo Zürich - vetschpartner Landschaftsarchitekten AG (scroll down) Giraffe house: Lewa Savannah, Giraffe House, Zoo Zurich – Tuchschmid Giraffe house 2011 architecture student projects: Archiv Studentenarbeiten - 2011_HS
