South Asian based exhibits?

TheEthiopianWolf03

TheEthiopianWolf03

Well-Known Member
I’ve seen exhibits that represent areas in Southeast Asia and in the mountainous regions of east Asia, but are there any zoos with exhibits that have the theme of South Asia? If so, which species are housed? South Asia refers to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.
 
I have looked up the map of my visit to Budapest Zoo in 2013 and India-ház had the following species at that moment: Mongolian gerbil and manul in the building, Asian lion and striped hyena in enclosures adjacent to the building, and Persian leopard, Siberian tiger, red panda, Syrian brown bear, Indian antilope and dhole in surrounding enclosures. Not all species are truly South Asian, as you can see.

Singapore Night Safari has (or at least had when I visited it) two sections for South Asian animals: Nepalese River Valley with Indian rhino, axis and sambar deer, Indian wolf and golden jackal among others, and Indian Forest with barasingha, striped hyena, Asian lion and sloth bear.
 
Brookfield Zoo has an exhibit called Clouded Leopard Rainforest, containing the following species:

Mossy Frog
Yellow-Spotted Climbing Toad
Emperor Newt
Mainland Clouded Leopard
Binturong
Fishing Cat
Tentacled Snake
Red Thai Bamboo Snake
Black-Breasted Leaf Turtle
Mandarin Rat Snake
Prevost's Squirrel
 
There are some European zoos with Indian themed exhibits with Asian elephants as main inhabitans:

- Erlebniszoo Hannover, "Dschungelpalast": enclosures for elephant, hanuman langur, (Siberian) tiger, (Persian) leopard and Burmese python in and around a "Maharaja palace".

- Planckendael, "Kerala-dorp": the zoo participates in an elephant project in the Indian state of Kerala. Species kept are elephant, Asian lion, red panda, snow leopard, pheasants and cranes.

- Zoo Leipzig, "Ganesha Mandir": for most Zoochatters the elephants wouldn't be the real stars of this "Hindu temple". Next to these Taiwanese rarities, birds and giant squirrels (an other rarity, but unfortunately still off-show at my visit) are kept.
 
I haven't seen too many in American zoos. I'm guessing the shortage of large carnivores and primates truly native to the Indian subcontinent in AZA programs and in American collections in general might be part of it.

Most of the big draws from Indo-Malaya the AZA works with are Southeast Asian like Sumatran tigers, orangutans, gibbons, sun bears, etc. so that's most collections' tropical Asian theme of choice. But personally I think we have more than enough relatively numerous species to work with. Asian elephants, Indian rhino and several ungulates are all in decent numbers, along with flying foxes, peafowl and numerous reptiles. Sloth bears and dholes aren't as common here, but small carnivores like fishing cat are also somewhat present. Lion-tailed macaques are a distinctive primate as well. Elephants, sloth bears and maybe rhinos are the only big crowd pleasers but that's a great 'supporting cast' right there. (Although, with all the 'generic' tigers you'd think some would have been featured in this theme more often. And it doesn't seem to stop European zoos from including non-Bengals.)

If it's not all Southeast Asian you usually just see generalized 'Asian' areas that focus on Indo-Malaya in general, maybe throwing in the Himalayas too. At times you do see an Indian motif heavily supplanted with out of place Southeast Asian species such as Disney's Maharajah Jungle Trek, with Komodos, white-cheeked gibbons, banteng, etc.
 
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Toronto has a dedicated Indo-Malaya region, though its separate from the zoo's Australasia and Eurasian regions.
 
Yi Qi said:
Toronto has a dedicated Indo-Malaya region, though its separate from the zoo's Australasia and Eurasian regions.
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I was more referring to the climates of India and the rest of the subcontinent region. Unless I’m misunderstanding Indo-Malaya to Southeast Asia.
 
Indo-Malaya is the zoogeographical region that covers both the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, hence the Indo- prefix (in older literature it's usually called the Oriental region). Toronto looks to have Indian rhinos and Indian peafowl in that area but the rest of it is Southeast Asian.
 
Okapipako said:
Indo-Malaya is the zoogeographical region that covers both the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, hence the Indo- prefix (in older literature it's usually called the Oriental region). Toronto looks to have Indian rhinos and Indian peafowl in that area but the rest of it is Southeast Asian.
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Yes. Also, the zoo used to have Guar, Thar, and Lion-tailed Macaques, as well as indeterminate birds, fishes, invertebrates, and amphibian/reptiles.
 
Okapipako said:
Indo-Malaya is the zoogeographical region that covers both the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, hence the Indo- prefix (in older literature it's usually called the Oriental region). Toronto looks to have Indian rhinos and Indian peafowl in that area but the rest of it is Southeast Asian.
Click to expand...

The Peafowl are free-ranging, you can find them all over the zoo. The Rhinoceros are technically in the Indo-Malayan region, but are separate from the main concentration of Indo-Malayan animals, which are in the Indo-Malayan pavilion.
 
Cologne had a nice sourh asian prededator collection

Indian wolf
(left the zoo for the new elephant park)

Siberian tiger
Asian lion
Persian leopard
Snow leopard
 
In the early 1980’s the Bronx Zoo’s Wild Asia was strictly South Asian in focus (although the Tigers were probably Amur).
 
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