Asked a keeper, when was there, but he only mentioned Grevy zebras, which are in the zoo anyway. This is the Lewa conservancy (including Ngare Ndare forest) species list I found : Greater kudu Lesser kudu Sitatunga Bushbok Eland Bush duiker Harvey’s duiker Steinbuck Oribi Klipspringer Moutain reedbuck Waterbuck Kirk’s didk Gunther’s didk dik Grant gazelle Thomson’s gazelle Gerenuk Impala Hartbeest Beisa oryx
I was told about a year ago that the plans were Impalas and Scimitar-horned oryx, but I don't know if that's still the case.
Which if it is true longer term would be extreme lazyness. Does anyone know whether the lare aviary will only hold Grey parrots or are any other (preferably real dryland) birds planned...
Scimitar-oryx are the most common svannah antelope species in east africa, so good choice.. I'm not a Purist, so I don't care what species Zoos are keeping in their"Africa Savannah exhibits", so from my point of view, Zürich could keep Okapi in Lewa, but from the point of feeding it is pure stupidity to keep Desert antelopes on gras ground. Yeah, I know, its wide spread in europe, what makes it not better. By the way- to chain elephants or keep apes in Bathroomstyle indoor exhibits was also wide spread in europe. But maybe sometime in the far future, Zoo will even learn not to keep Desert antelopes on gras.
Thomson's gazelle or Beisa were logical choices for me. Scimitar Oryx currently have a stables with indoor access, I am curious what they would replace them.
Thomson are very hard to keep successful log term in a mixed species exhibit, they are quite stressful. Beisa oryx and Greater kudu are much more hardy species that fit a lot better in the semi-arid theme that Lewa has.
Do they still plan to give a substantial part of the exhibit to domestic cattle? If they absolutely must have live illustration the grazing problem, why not release few African goats, sheep, zebu cows or Ankole cattle together with giraffe? It works e.g. in Amersfoort. The saved space can be used for a more interesting theme, like hunting dogs or black rhinos. The zoo already has cows in the petting zoo.
These enclosures seem to be more a temporary choice, which can be used in future for other species. I asked why they didn't choose Beisas and was told that they don't seem to be good animals for mixed exhibits, which surprised me a bit.
Female Tommies and Beisa are doing well in mxied exhibits, males of both dosen't. Male Tommies even attack much bigger antelopes species ( most male gazelle do), at Frankfurt Zoo, the Tommie buck attacked also the giraffes and hurts their legs, so that was the end of Tommies in the giraffe enclosure. So in general, small Gazelles mostly are not doing well in mixed exhibits, because it means to seperate the males for the most of the year from the females. Nevertheless, most Zoo do that anyway to get offspring only in spring time.
The zoo are now posting images, videos, and short texts (German only) on the upcoming Lewa development every couple of days: https://www.zoo.ch/de/zoonews?f[0]=zoo_magazin:725 some images from the above link: image1 link, image2 link, image3 link, image4 link, image5 link
2 animals died on the same day : - male Tamandua - female Lowland tapir ( article in German ) : Lorenzo und Oroja sind gestorben
Still a pity that there will be just parrots in the aviary, vultures would have been so much more interesting in terms of conservation.
As someone who was already IN the aviary and regarding the fact, that this exihibit was created as a WALK-THRU Aviary I have to say that it is too small for vultures (or at least: does not fit). However, I agree with most here that it does not really fit with the Lewa theme and that there should be savannah species (plural) instead of a single species, that lives MOSTLY in rainforests.
Elefanten-Baby kommt im Zoo Zürich zur Welt Elephant cow Indi gave birth to a healthy bull !!! It weighs 150 kg and already drinks breast milk!
Unbelivable, the first true and large Indoor exhibit for Rhinos. It looks much more than good for the animals and visitors in the video. German Zoos can much l learn from Zurich Zoo...but they don't. German Zoos prefer to keep rhinos even in new houses in small old-style concrete boxes.
