Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip: Netherlands, Belgium, France & Germany

[sooty mangabey]

DAY 6: Friday, July 19th (2 zoos)

Zoo/Aquarium # 15: Diergaarde Blijdorp (Rotterdam, NL)

It was a real pleasure to visit Blijdorp with @snowleopard. The enthusiasm which oozes out of his comments above was palpable as we puttered around the zoo, and the knowledge and insight he has of zoos around the word enlightened the visit considerably. In previous threads detailing his zoo visits, there has been disquiet from some about the schedule he maintains - how can he possibly be seeing these zoos properly? How can there be any authority to what he is saying, given how quickly he makes his way through the various collections he visits? I would say that on the evidence of two days spent zoo-ing with him, such fears are wholly unfounded, and say more about the possible snobbery of those who make them than they do about the way in which he visits and observes zoos.

Of course, what he says here may be disagreed with - and I would do so on a number of points! Certainly, the positivity he felt for Blijdorp was not something that I shared wholly. There are aspects of the zoo that are great, no doubt, but it is not the zoo it could be, nor the zoo it promised to be when it first began changing and developing in the mid 1990s.

North America: This whole area is truly excellent, although it is a short section with only 6 species and it can easily be seen in perhaps 20 minutes.

Yes, it's brilliant in parts - that Arctic Fox exhibit is marvellous - but the Polar Bear exhibit is just not very interesting: it looks like it took about 20 minutes to design, and there is nothing in the slightest bit memorable about it. In the post-HWP, post-Yorkshire Wildlife Park world, it looks a little dated.

Amazonica: A splendidly-designed Tropical House that is essentially a large domed greenhouse, with wood pillars stretching far over the heads of visitors. However, John and I both found the space to be a waste as other than butterflies there isn’t really a lot there.

I'm sure many visitors love this feature, but, for me, @snowleopard is right: that house could be used for something a great deal more striking than butterflies! Lepidopterists of the world, I apologise!

Africa: ...visitors are immediately immersed in Crocodile River, a hot and humid Tropical House for Nile Crocodiles, Slender-snouted Crocodiles, Rock Hyrax and Meerkats. The croc pools are world-class and shame many indoor croc exhibits I’ve seen back in America. Then there is the Okapi House, surely the best indoor accommodation for Okapis anywhere. The whole thing is netted, with two densely-planted, shady outdoor exhibits and then a surprisingly well-planted indoor area. We saw 4 Okapi and while John bemoaned the scarcity of birds, I was hugely impressed by the whole thing and I think that it all opened circa 2015.

When I first saw Crocodile River, I was really impressed. But there now appear to be no - or almost no - birds in there. The Meerkat exhibit is essentially a pit, so not ideal for viewing (and its Meerkats!). Crocs are great, obviously, but largely sedentary. Which leaves a small number of Rock Hyrax in a large exhibit. Most visitors seemed to move through pretty quickly. It seemed a waste.

And speaking of waste: that waders aviary that used to be here was a genuine gem - a wonderful exhibit. The Okapi thing that replaces it: hmmm. It's Okapis, obviously, so that's great - but the 'outdoor' bit seems small, and over-engineered, while the birds that should be there don't show themselves easily. It's not a patch on the brilliant Buffalo Aviary at Antwerp, for example.

one of the very best exhibits is a small one that is not even labeled on the zoo’s map. Cape Ground Squirrel (at least 20 of them), Black-headed Weaver (at least 20) and Green Turaco all in the same enclosure and the flurry of activity was so exciting that anyone who stopped to watch was engaged for several minutes.

I'd wholly agree here. A very simple exhibit, but one that works brilliantly. I love it!

The massive Rivierahal, with a tropical bird loop inside but no more terrariums or other animals anywhere…just another large playground!

I completely understand and sympathise with the financial issues that have led to this position, but the state of the Rivierahal is just awful. The whole thing is a horrible mess. For those of us who saw it when it was looking good, it is a real tragedy. One point in its credit: the restaurant at the lake end is now a table-service affair, and is lovely. We had a very good, relatively-reasonably-priced meal here. Much better than in most zoos!

a flaw with the Asian zone is that it is a bit scruffy in places, and birds are a weakness. The Burung Asia aviary is huge, but the rotting, swaying bridge is struggling for life and there is poo and mess everywhere and even a dearth of interesting birds. There is a walk-in aviary with what appeared to be a single night heron when in fact a troop of primates wouldn’t have looked out of place.

I'd wholly agree here, too. The state of the aviary is just shocking, while too much of the rest of this area is looking unloved. So much of this Asian area was genuinely breath-taking when it was first developed, it is a real shame to see it looking so scruffy.

He’s not a big fish fan and so was a little underwhelmed, but for me the Oceanium is easily the best Aquarium that I’ve ever seen inside of a zoo. American zoos like Houston, Point Defiance, San Antonio, Pittsburgh, Toledo and a half-dozen more all have aquariums inside their zoos, but all of them are clearly in the shadow of what can be found in the heart of Rotterdam. d

It's not so much that I'm not a fish fan - although I am less interested in fish than in mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians - but rather that, again, i feel as if this exhibit has lost its way. When it first opened there was an integrity to it, a story it was telling, a logical journey on which visitors were taken. Now? Just a random mess, really. The big tanks? People who like that sort of thing will like this sort of thing, but I would rather have smaller tanks, with fewer fish, so I can properly see the individual species - an old-fashioned point-of-view, I appreciate. I've only seen one of the zoo aquariums in the USA that Scott lists, but I would far rather have Toledo's superb aquarium than this one in Rotterdam: tidy, precise, controlled, rather than being somewhat raggedy and charmless. And again: the lack of apparent attention to detail! The viewing of the Sealion pool was compromised by the state of the windows - and it wasn't the only place where such maintenance appeared to be lacking.

In summary, I would say that in 1995, I would have put Blijdorp near the very top of the zoo tree. Now? Of the three big old society zoos in Belgium and the Netherlands, I would place it third by a considerable margin. And while the future of Antwerp and Amsterdam excites me, that of Blijdorp worries me, a little.

 

[Cat-Man]

1) As @snowleopard points out, everyone smokes! I am the biggest anti-smoker there is and IMO it should be universally banned across the planet. When I had dinner in Zurich with @zoomaniac a few months ago he said it is actually getting better (as in less Swiss smoke now than years ago). But I don't see it. The good thing is smoking is now banned indoors (in all big cities, though they did allow it when I was in rural Spain in 2010).

I will save you a lecture on why banning smoking is a terrible idea but if your only experience of indoor smoking is in rural Spain you’ve been lucky. Every bar and club I’ve been to in Germany, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia allow you to smoke inside.

 

[HOMIN96]

Czechia

Not anymore.

 

[HOMIN96]

When I first saw Crocodile River, I was really impressed. But there now appear to be no - or almost no - birds in there.

Did those Crocs look well fed? I think I might now the reason...

 

[DavidBrown]

What happened to the sea otters at Blijdorp? That seems like a major exhibit to let go away.

 

[KevinB]

What happened to the sea otters at Blijdorp? That seems like a major exhibit to let go away.

The two sea otter sisters, Micas and Maré, were recalled to the Oceanario is Libon, Portugal where they were born to live with their mother who was alone at the time. This happened after Chuluugi, a male sea otter who was originally transferred to Rotterdam from Alaska but later lived at Antwerp, died at Rotterdam during a trip for breeding purposes. From what I understand the Rotterdam Zoo didn't have much of a choice in letting them go as Lisbon held the management of these sea otters.

That said, I'm not sure the Rotterdam Zoo is that unhappy to let the sea otters go. They are pretty expensive customers given their diet (fine fish and shellfish) and from what I remember at Antwerp also prone to damaging the windows of their enclosure. The Rotterdam Zoo hasn't always been doing great financially these last few years so having a really expensive animal might not be on their 'bucket list' right now.

 

[Tim Brown]

According to the latest IZY, Blijdorp does indeed have 1.5 million visitors at the last count. Much as we in the UK might envy the public subsidy of zoos in some other countries, there seems to be a lack of fiscal common sense often enough to erode sympathy for some of those places that get taxpayer`s money. If a zoo cannot balance the books with one and a half million "guests"(how i detest that now ubiquitous word for paying customers....you wouldnt charge a guest to enter your home) then something is clearly wrong (capital projects excluded).I tend to concur with "Sooty", Rotterdam`s zoo is not what it was.

 

[Andrew Swales]

Much as we in the UK might envy the public subsidy of zoos in some other countries..

Forget the public subsidies; even many of the tax breaks enjoyed in other countries, would see some UK zoos 'pop-up', like corks in a bucket...

 

[lintworm]

According to the latest IZY, Blijdorp does indeed have 1.5 million visitors at the last count. Much as we in the UK might envy the public subsidy of zoos in some other countries, there seems to be a lack of fiscal common sense often enough to erode sympathy for some of those places that get taxpayer`s money. If a zoo cannot balance the books with one and a half million "guests"(how i detest that now ubiquitous word for paying customers....you wouldnt charge a guest to enter your home) then something is clearly wrong (capital projects excluded).I tend to concur with "Sooty", Rotterdam`s zoo is not what it was.

Blijdorp is back in black now, as the budget is balanced again. Part of the reason for the subsidies is the management of a large number of monuments, something for which several one-off subsidies are coming soon.

I am also not sure whether the 1.5 million visitors are really 1.5 million visitors or whether they use a key to calculate number of visits of annual pass holders. When Burgers' changed the counting method to real number of visitors, the numbers dropped by 300.000-400.000...

For me Blijdorp was at its height in 2010-11, and I do not think that all had to do with lack of money, as new projects just seem to lack ambition and novelty. It is however good to be remindend that for first time visitors it is still a very good zoo.

 

[sooty mangabey]

Blijdorp is back in black now, as the budget is balanced again. Part of the reason for the subsidies is the management of a large number of monuments, something for which several one-off subsidies are coming soon.

I am also not sure whether the 1.5 million visitors are really 1.5 million visitors or whether they use a key to calculate number of visits of annual pass holders. When Burgers' changed the counting method to real number of visitors, the numbers dropped by 300.000-400.000...

For me Blijdorp was at its height in 2010-11, and I do not think that all had to do with lack of money, as new projects just seem to lack ambition and novelty. It is however good to be remindend that for first time visitors it is still a very good zoo.

It's good to hear that the zoo is balancing its books. I think zoos should do so! It's not an expensive zoo to enter, but neither is it cheap - €24.50 is the adult price for 'on-the-day' tickets. An unfair comparison, but at Tierpark Berlin the equivalent price is €14.50; at the hopeless london Zoo it's €29.45 (although that's the online price, so the walk-up might be more expensive). Blijdorp seems to have its act together in the looking-after-visitors-while-extracting-cash-from-them game as well: lots of (decent) eating places, an enormous (horrible) shop. They just need to clean their aviaries a little more fastidiously....

 

[snowleopard]

DAY 7: Saturday, July 20th (6 zoos)

Today was a day spent in the southwest corner of the Netherlands, within the Province of Zeeland. It was a very busy day of bouncing around from zoo to zoo and I saw 6 in total, but all of them were small establishments. John went his own way in the morning, and I was back solo again after 3 nights.

Zoo/Aquarium # 17: Faunapark Flakkee (Nieuwe-Tonge,NL)

This facility’s official zoo licence was apparently obtained in June 2018, although it first opened its doors to the public in 1995 and underwent an ownership change in the mid-2000s. I only spent 45 minutes at this small, rural establishment and I dearly wish that I could have spent much longer here but Mother Nature came hurtling down on the countryside. Just before I arrived the heavens opened, and rain came bucketing down in torrents. After a mad dash from my car to the entrance, I was greeted by a broad, arms-crossed Dutch woman who appeared to give me a piece of her mind for daring to come to her zoo. She didn’t speak any English, but on realizing that I wasn’t going away she was extremely kind and even gave me an umbrella for my tour. I headed out to the sound of thunder crashing down on me and the occasional bright lightning blasts coming from up above. I pulled out my Iphone and Google assured me that umbrellas are only potential ‘death sticks’ if one is the tallest structure in the vicinity of lightning, and so I made sure to stay in the forested section of the zoo and the rain pelted my legs and shorts but at least the upper half of my body stayed dry.

As I made my way through the park, which doesn’t have a map as it’s very tiny, I noticed that all of the exhibits were adequate, without any standouts as the wood-and-wire approach is very much the status here. Lightning pierced the sky, the thunder cracked, and the rain pelted me as I struggled to snap photos from underneath the deluge. I saw every single exhibit, took over 100 photos, but was rushed due to the weather. One notable thing about this small zoo is that there are plenty of species that are practically unheard of anywhere in North America. These 7 species are all to be found at Faunapark Flakkee but are extremely rare in North American zoos: Siberian Weasel, Raccoon Dog, Cuban Hutia, Yellow Mongoose, Asian Palm Civet, Genet and Caracal.

The rain cleared up enough for me to drive to a human-made island along the far western coast of Zeeland.

Zoo/Aquarium # 18: Deltapark Neeltje Jans Aquarium (Neeltje Jans, NL)

Have any of you watched the movie The Way, Way Back (2013)? It stars Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell and is a coming-of-age flick that is partly set at a crappy old waterpark. Well, this Dutch aquarium encapsulates a mid-1980s vie of decay and decrepitude amidst the waves of the cold North Sea. There is an enormous entrance building, containing a few movie theaters (showing documentaries), a nice gift shop, some ocean artifacts and a massive restaurant. Outside is a kiddie play area, a playground, a tour of the local Delta Works, and some animals. There is a Harbour Seal pool that is as boring as the inhabitants, a California Sea Lion pool that looks as if it was constructed in somebody’s backyard, a small sea lion pool for shows, and the Blue Reef Aquarium. The aquarium has 15 tanks inside, with most of them rather forgettable except for a rather spectacular large shark tank (a couple of Blacktip Reef Sharks and a couple of Whitetip Reef Sharks amidst the fish…oh, and a fake Woolly Mammoth skull). I saw two girls go into a cage that was lowered into the exhibit and they at least felt that they were getting their money’s worth.

It was time to go inland for approximately 30 minutes.

Zoo/Aquarium # 19: Berkenhof’s Tropical Zoo (Kwadendamme, NL)

This place was a major disappointment as for some reason I was expecting a lot more out of my visit. It’s geared primarily for very young children, with a bizarre Dinosaur Room with dino-stuff and a few animals such as Cotton-top Tamarins and various tortoises. Dwarf Mongooses keep popping up on this trip and that happened again here, plus a Tegu exhibit had at least 5 of the big lizards and there were Pygmy Marmosets, macaws, lizards, snakes and a very tiny exhibit for a couple of Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman. Outside there is a nice garden area with butterflies, while inside there are screaming kids and the largest section of all is a huge indoor playground that is also a mini-waterpark. I’m not sure that I even spent an hour here, and that includes a darkened corridor that had various fake bones and dinosaur-related material. It’s amazing at how many non-animal zones there are considering the word ‘zoo’ is in the title of the establishment.

I drove back towards the coast for 30 minutes as the day was set up according to the early and late hours of the various zoos.

Zoo/Aquarium # 20: Reptielen Zoo Iguana (Vlissingen, NL)

This is a small zoo that contains confiscated and abandoned animals that is in downtown Vlissingen, a town of around 45,000 citizens. In the middle of a sprawling square was a full-on fair, with a ferris wheel, loads of rides and games, and what seemed like half of Zeeland. I drove down loads of narrow roads where I felt as if I could brush homes with my hands if I dared to stick my arms out of the window. After I parked, I stopped my GPS/SATNAV and pulled out Google Maps on my Iphone, an essential tool when travelling in Europe down the slimmest streets in the world. Hang a left! Hang a right! Nope, that’s not a road, it’s bike lane number 5,642! Wait, is it a bike lane? It just looks like one because it’s so damn skinny but drive down it anyway. Don’t hit a bicyclist as they’ll catch up to you in seconds…haven’t you noticed their calf muscles?

Anyway, this Reptile Zoo has the most extraordinary setting as it takes up 4 or 5 floors in a building from the 1600s. The walls are crumbling in places, the staircases are so narrow that I had to squeeze by other visitors going up, and there isn’t a map anywhere and the signs on the walls are poorly done and so it was a case of ‘upstairs, downstairs’ until I got to see everything over all of the different levels. One thing that is intriguing is that all of the various terrariums had plenty of branches, wooden platforms and rocks, but I think that in just about every single exhibit the floor was covered in laminate that you’d find in someone’s kitchen. It’s probably easy to clean but looks amateurish.

I’m going with the exact names listed on the signs:

Species list (75 species): American Alligator, Dwarf Crocodile, Spectacled Caiman, Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman, Green Anaconda, Boa Constrictor, Emerald Tree Boa, Rainbow Boa, Pacific Boa, Madagascar Ground Boa, Madagascar Tree Boa, Reticulated Python, Ball Python, Indian Python, Diamond Python, Taiwanese Beauty Snake, Cornsnake, Milksnake, Kingsnake, Yellow Ratsnake, Red Tegu, Green Iguana, Scheltopusik, Chinese Water Dragon, Bearded Dragon, Pinto Chuckwalla, Race Runner, Veiled Chameleon, Warren’s Girdled Lizard, Giant Girdled Lizard, Schneider’s Skink, Eastern Blue-tongue Skink, Giant Blue-tongue Skink, Common Monkey Skink, Gila Monster, Tokay Gecko, Leopard Gecko, Asian Water Monitor, Black Tree Monitor, Galapagos Tortoise, Marginated Tortoise, Yellow-footed Tortoise, African Spurred Tortoise, Radiated Tortoise, Hermann’s Tortoise, Adanson’s Mud Turtle, Western Twist-neck Turtle, Common Snapping Turtle, Alligator Snapping Turtle, Box Turtle, Chinese Pond Turtle, European Pond Turtle, Mata Mata, Monkey Frog, African Clawed Frog, Asian Painted Frog, Cane Toad, Green Toad, Natterjack Toad, Oriental Fire-bellied Toad, Fire-bellied Newt, Alpine Newt, Sword-tailed Newt, Small-mouth Salamander, Fire Salamander, Axolotl, Giant African Land Snail, plus at least 8 invertebrate species.

Zoo/Aquarium # 21: Het Arsenaal Aquarium (Vlissingen, NL)

Only a short walk away from the Reptile Zoo is this bizarre establishment, stretched over several floors and pirate-themed to death. There are pirate statues everywhere, staff members walking around dressed like pirates saying “arrggghhh” in your face, loads of model boats in glass containers and it’s all very kitschy and aimed at younger kids. I fit right into the place…uh…actually no I didn’t.

The top floors are basically a waste of time for a zoo enthusiast and the only animals on display are on the bottom level, which is the aquarium section. There are exactly 20 tanks and so even if one was to spend a full 60 seconds staring at each exhibit then seeing everything on offer in 20 minutes is actually a pretty reasonable pace. Species that I’ll highlight would be Common Cuttlefish, Suckermouth Catfish, Red-bellied Piranha, Common Shore Crab, Spider Crab, Edible Crab, European Lobster, Big-belly Seahorse, Thicklip Grey Mullet (which are everywhere in the Netherlands) and a stingray/small shark tank that looks exactly like the ‘Bay of Ray’ tanks found in practically every single Sea Life aquarium. Was Het Arsenaal a Sea Life at one point or did the place simply order the exact same style of tank?

At this point I have been in the Netherlands for a full week, including Day 1 when I was on the plane ride over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s been a wonderful week that has flown by at top speed and I’ve been to 21 Dutch zoos. My entire journey this summer will take up 32 nights and I’m not posting my entire schedule, but I can say that here ends ‘leg one’ out of six ‘legs’. I have a lot to say about my experience in the Netherlands that is not related to zoos (almost all very positive as I love the country) and that will be posted on another day as at the moment my thoughts are jotted down in chicken-scratch notes that I need to type up into a work of art. Haha!

After ending my one-week, 21-zoo stay in the Netherlands, I headed south knowing that I’ll be back to the nation very soon. I’ve seen most of the zoos in the western half of the county, but I’ll return to polish off a whole whack of zoos in the eastern half of the Netherlands on this trip. I drove through the Western Scheldt Tunnel, which was a really cool experience and cost me a toll of 5 Euros. My first toll in the Netherlands, a welcome respite from the American ridiculousness of charging people to drive on a road. In Europe you cannot pee anywhere without forking over money from your wallet (which I’ve still yet to do!) but in the USA many highways are tolled beyond belief. The Western Scheldt Tunnel, according to Wikipedia, is a 6.6 km/4.1-mile tunnel that opened in 2003, and it feels as if one is inside it forever as the length stretches just long enough for me to ponder the meaning of life. When one emerges, they are practically in Belgium! I had originally scheduled the 5 smaller Dutch zoos today and since I found some of them to be tinier than expected (Het Arsenaal being the perfect example) I made it to Belgium and my second Reptile Zoo of the day.

Zoo/Aquarium # 22: Serpentarium Blankenberge (Blankenberge, BE)

Now here are the venomous snakes that I’d be missing out on in Europe, with some true rarities thrown in to show that whomever runs this joint is a serious herpetologist. Blankenberge is a seaside town and there is a very long boardwalk that runs past loads of shops and cafes right by the water. Many Dutch and Belgian communities have seaside areas that are surprisingly nice, with wide beaches and a lot of shopping amenities. One doesn’t picture the North Sea as being anything but cold and calculating, but in the summer months it looks like southern California with families packed on the beaches. I saw a huge sign for ‘Belgium’s largest Reptile Zoo’, which is a bit silly as is there even a second Reptile Zoo in the nation? It’s like me saying that I’m currently the ‘tallest Canadian in the Province of Zeeland. Look at Snowleopard walk down the street…he’s 6 feet tall and a giant of a man if you look only at Canadians in Zeeland on July 20th, 2019.

I loved Serpentarium Blankenberge, as even though it is not very large the attention to detail is superb. There are mock-rock visitor pathways that make it feel as if one is winding their way through some Utah canyons, and each of the terrariums is beautifully furnished with all sorts of natural substrate set against mock-rock backdrops. There’s none of the ugly, plain, boring laminate flooring that was found at the small Dutch Reptile Zoo earlier in the day, but here in Belgium all of the reptile exhibits were well-designed, and it makes a heck of a difference in terms of visitor appreciation. People weren’t strolling with ease past snakes and lizards, but instead were stopping to take their time or struggle to actually find the denizens of the exhibits. What a difference! Earlier, at Reptilien Zoo Iguana, the furnishings inside the vivariums consisted of a handful of rocks and branches on plain, flat floors and the animals could be seen in seconds as there weren’t a lot of hiding places. At Serpentarium Blankenberge, with its superior exhibit quality and more exciting collection, the contrast was palpable. (That analogy could probably be applied to just about every zoo exhibit in the world.) I thoroughly enjoyed over an hour at this place, and I was the last to leave as they closed down for the evening at 7:00 p.m.

Behold a fantastic list:

Species list (89 species): Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman, Reticulated Python, Ball Python, Jungle Carpet Python, Green Tree Python, Rainbow Boa, Madagascar Ground Boa, Dumeril’s Boa, Black Mamba, Thai Monocle Cobra, Rhinoceros Viper, Nose-horned Viper, Great Lakes Bush Viper, Puff Adder, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, Prairie Rattlesnake, Copperhead, Mexican Moccasin, Taiwanese Beauty Snake, Mandarin Ratsnake, Flower Snake, Four-lined Snake, Baron’s Green Racer, Florida Kingsnake, California Kingsnake, Cornsnake, Central American Milksnake, Green Iguana, Motagua Spiny-tailed Iguana, Eastern Casquehead Iguana, Desert Iguana, Green Water Dragon, Plumed Basilisk, Spiny-tailed Monitor, Veiled Chameleon, Panther Chameleon, Knight Anole, Chinese Crocodile Lizard, Northern Caiman Lizard, Blue Spiny Lizard, Cuvier’s Madagascar Swift, Mexican Beaded Lizard, Gila Monster, Moroccan Spiny-tailed Lizard, Frilled Lizard, Argentine Black and White Tegu, Red Tegu, Prehensile-tailed Skink, Orange-eyed Crocodile Skink, Blue-tongued Skink, Shingleback Skink, Oriental Garden Lizard, Giant Madagascar Day Gecko, Pacific Web-toed Gecko, Leopard Gecko, Common Snake-neck Turtle, Florida Softshell Turtle, Big-headed Turtle, Giant Monkey Frog, White’s Tree Frog, Chinese Flying Frog, File-eared Tree Frog, African Clawed Frog, Sambava Tomato Frog, Cranwell’s Horned Frog, Malaysian Leaf Frog, Blue Poison Dart Frog, Dyeing Poison Dart Frog, Yellow-banded Poison Dart Frog, Budgett’s Frog, Cane Toad, Oriental Fire-bellied Toad, Axolotl, Red Piranha, Pacu, Blind Cave Fish, Olive-keeled Flat-rock Scorpion, Emperor Scorpion, Honduras Curly Hair Tarantula, Mexican Red-leg Tarantula, Mexican Red-knee Tarantula, Mexican Pink Tarantula, Costa Rican Zebra Tarantula, Peruvian Purple Tarantula, Salem Oriental Tarantula, White-collared Tarantula, Metallic Pinktoe Tarantula, Chilean Rose-hair Tarantula and Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.

 

[snowleopard]

It was a real pleasure to visit Blijdorp with @snowleopard. The enthusiasm which oozes out of his comments above was palpable as we puttered around the zoo, and the knowledge and insight he has of zoos around the word enlightened the visit considerably. In previous threads detailing his zoo visits, there has been disquiet from some about the schedule he maintains - how can he possibly be seeing these zoos properly? How can there be any authority to what he is saying, given how quickly he makes his way through the various collections he visits? I would say that on the evidence of two days spent zoo-ing with him, such fears are wholly unfounded, and say more about the possible snobbery of those who make them than they do about the way in which he visits and observes zoos.

This is a tremendously kind thing to say and I truly appreciate the effort @sooty mangabey . It was a great surprise to log onto ZooChat and see what you wrote, and hopefully it has a humbling effect on a few others as you are well respected in the 'Euro Zoo Nerd' world. I've always maintained that I spend many hours at a big, major zoo, and the tiny places that I bang off in 45 minutes are either a Sea Life Aquarium or a Familiepark Plaswijckpark type establishment. In fact, while at Blijdorp I was the one maintaining a slower pace as John has been to that Rotterdam zoo on many occasions and I wanted to soak it all in and take 400-500 photos (including all animal signs). The day before we even skipped a small butterfly/aviary zoo because we wanted to give more time to other locations. With 6 zoos together over 2 days, it should be obvious now that 'Snowleopard Speed' at a zoo is really no different from anyone else on this forum...I just am open to visiting many more tinier, crappier places amidst the great zoos of the world. I'm not picky and will visit anything once.

On another note, in regards to Blijdorp, I find it fascinating how the word perspective can be utilized here. When walking through the Crocodile House, I had no idea how many birds used to be in there compared to now and I only saw the building for what it is today. I wasn't in the Netherlands years ago to see what was once in place of the excellent Okapi facility and so yet again I can only judge from my own visit. From what I saw I think that Blijdrop will easily end up being one of my favourite zoos of the entire trip and I was duly impressed as it's remarkably consistent. There are many great exhibits and it truly lacks anything in need of a bulldozer. I believe the fact that the zoo isn't as good as it was a decade ago, which is a shame, but I was still mightily impressed with a large portion of the exhibits.

It would be cool for a zoo nerd from Europe to come over for an extensive West Coast trip from California, through Oregon and Washington and up to Vancouver. I'd love to see their perspective on many zoos and aquariums that I know well. Would an individual really enjoy Elephant Odyssey and Africa Rocks at San Diego Zoo, even though much of that zone used to be an endless list of ungulate enclosures called Horn & Hoof Mesa? I toured Woodland Park Zoo with a friend earlier this year and he really liked the zoo. However, years ago there were elephants there, plus a Reptile House and even a Nocturnal House. I personally think that the zoo has regressed over the past decade, but to that first-time visitor did it even really matter what was there beforehand? I find this whole subject fascinating, as well as the ebb and flow of zoos. For example, there are some big American zoos that are in a bit of a funk (Brookfield, Woodland Park, Bronx) but they are still good places. Other zoos have built a whole bunch of new exhibits in the past decade and I'm thinking of Omaha, Oregon and Houston. It's all ebb and flow...ebb and flow...as a major capital campaign or brand-new exhibit complex can totally rejuvenate a zoo.

 

[sooty mangabey]

DAY 7: Saturday, July 20th (6 zoos)

Today was a day spent in the southwest corner of the Netherlands, within the Province of Zeeland. It was a very busy day of bouncing around from zoo to zoo and I saw 6 in total, but all of them were small establishments. John went his own way in the morning, and I was back solo again after 3 nights.

Reading your account of this day, I’m rather glad I elected to leave you and go to see, in three close-to-each-other establishments, squirrels, reptiles, and bats-under-a-staircase, before heading to Calais, and home...

 

[TeaLovingDave]

Zoo/Aquarium # 22: Serpentarium Blankenberge (Blankenberge, BE)

The first of a few "ships passing in the night" moments with regards to your trip; I visited this collection on the 11th July!

 

[Arizona Docent]

...it should be obvious now that 'Snowleopard Speed' at a zoo is really no different from anyone else on this forum...

Umm, no your speed is not the same as everyone on this forum, as you know firsthand from our time together.

As for American toll roads, I will state here as I have stated before there is not one single toll road or toll bridge (or zoo parking fee) anywhere in the great state of Arizona!

 

[snowleopard]

Umm, no your speed is not the same as everyone on this forum, as you know firsthand from our time together.

As for American toll roads, I will state here as I have stated before there is not one single toll road or toll bridge (or zoo parking fee) anywhere in the great state of Arizona!

Yes, there are some lunatics on this forum that love to spend hours looking at a couple of cats cough up hairballs.

Arizona is indeed a great state with its lack of toll roads, handful of excellent zoos, beautiful sunshine year-round, etc. I really love the desert environment in the southwestern USA.

 

[snowleopard]

DAY 8: Sunday, July 21st (4 zoos)

This was a day that for the first half was close to a total disaster, but then the second half became such a delight that everything worked out in the end. Read ahead to find out the details.

Okay, just as if an individual from another continent came over to North America for the first time ever, I would be intrigued as to their expectations over certain items. I’ve actually spent time in Europe before, namely 3 weeks in October/November 2003 when I went all over Italy (Florence, Venice, Rome, Pompeii, Sorrento) and also was centered in Geneva, Switzerland for the rest of that time. For a single day I went alone to Zurich and I toured Zurich Zoo and Langenberg Wildlife Park in an immensely long day, which is kind of cool as I saw the famous Masoala Hall a few months after it opened.

Here are some initial impressions from my first 8 days of this trip and I’ll just list some pros and cons as I go through my notes:

- I’ve mentioned the smoking before, but it has taken me 8 days to recover from the shock of seeing someone blow smoke all over their own kids and not really care about it. People smoke everywhere and all the time: in the street, in zoos, inside the Reptile House at Antwerp, on their bikes, etc. It’s insanity, as I rarely see people smoke in southwest British Columbia. There are anti-smoking signs everywhere, literature floods local schools, it is illegal for cigarette packages to even be seen in stores and so shopkeepers have curtains or locked cupboards or huge sheets to cover up the cancer packs. Canadians do smoke, and probably around 20% of all adults, but it is not even close to being as prevalent as it is in the Netherlands and Belgium. At the Boudewijn Seapark in Belgium there were many people chain-smoking like they were chimneys. “Time to go to the zoo honey…can you grab my car keys, hat, sunglasses and two packs of smokes please? I think that this zoo is a big one.”

- On a positive not, the Dutch and Belgian roads are brilliant. I love the gazillion roundabouts that I go through every day on my travels and the large speed signs are easy to read. The highways are the same as they are in North America except that people drive faster here and I love it! There is some aggression if you don’t move out of the way, but overall driving here has been very easy. I’m not so enamoured with the hundreds of tiny side roads in little villages, with single-lane streets being utilized by two vehicles and a fleet of bikes at the exact same time. It makes for some perilous moments!

- There’s not the incessant ‘police state’ atmosphere that is in the United States. When I take my family to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, which we do three times each year, we can often spot a dozen police vehicles in the space of a few hours there and back. Cops are waiting with their radar guns by the side of the road, in bushes, on motorbikes, etc. One of my brothers is a police officer in British Columbia and for the first year of his job he just pulled people over for speeding 4 days on, then 4 days off, then 4 days of handing out tickets, then 4 days off, etc. He said that the first year of his career was relentless. I have driven though every big city in America and cops are everywhere, whether it is on street corners or just cruising the neighbourhoods. In my first week in the Netherlands I saw exactly TWO police cars. I saw maybe three ambulance drivers and a single fire truck, but two cop cars in a week is a glorious thing. Who wants to see police officers all over the place? It’s been a blessing to not having cops around and it’s made me actually feel totally safe. The Netherlands and Belgium are both safe, secure nations with little crime in comparison to many other countries around the world.

- Zero border control is another massive bonus. There is always a statistic that makes its rounds about how something like 90% of all Canadians live within an hour of the U.S. border, which is true. However, it’s a total pain in the butt attempting to cross that border, and even with NEXUS cards we sometimes are questioned. In Europe, I drove through the Netherlands and into Belgium and no one asked what I was doing, there wasn’t a possibility of someone searching my car (which happened at a North Dakota border crossing once and the guards created an enormous mess) and it was a pleasure to bounce from one country to another without anyone getting upset.

- Amenities are easier to obtain in North America. As I’ve mentioned before, there are what seems like thousands of bank machines all over the place and in thousands of stores. Money can be obtained 24 hours a day from pretty much anywhere. Also, gas stations are usually open 24 hours a day, while in Europe I’ve broken into a sweat on a couple of occasions because some gas stations close down in the early evening. In Maubeuge, France, by 5:30 p.m. I was getting desperate and using my GPS/SATNAV to go from station to station until I found one that was open. Huge shopping malls generally stay open to midnight and then reopen at 7:00 a.m., 7 days a week in North America. Money, gas and food can be obtained 24 hours per day from somewhere, while in Europe amenities are more difficult to locate after the hours of 9-5.

- Things North Americans take for granted are gone in Europe. Paying to use the lavatory is beyond ridiculous, and as I said before it just creates issues surrounding public urination. Not only that, an individual often needs to carry a handful of coins around with them in order to access the turnstiles near toilets, which seems redundant in an ever-increasing cash-less society. No air conditioning in every single hotel is bizarre, as I’ve stayed in at least 300 different hotels in the past dozen years and I think that every single one of them had an air-conditioning unit. Europeans must just leave their windows open, letting in noise and clouds of cigarette smoke from outside, or suffer with the stuffiness.

- Europeans are a million times more environmentally-friendly than North Americans. Whenever I go to a North American zoo, I have my lunch and then toss out all of the packaging. In Europe, the zoos have actual real cutlery, often glass bottles or recyclable containers for liquids, real plates and not paper or plastic, single-use ones. It’s remarkable and refreshing.

- The language barrier has cropped up repeatedly in rural areas, but there is always a way to point and get one’s message across. What is amazing is that when John and I were having our three genuinely lovely meals together (two at the Vogelpark Avifauna restaurant and one near Bergen aan Zee Aquarium) on all three occasions when we spoke, we were initially mistaken for Germans. We never really addressed it amongst ourselves, but it is amazing to consider that our Dutch waiters all knew their home language, then spoke to us in German, then finally in English and so the three waiters all knew a minimum of three languages. Remarkable!

Okay…long enough and lots to digest. I’ve loved the Netherlands and Belgium and I’d strongly recommend someone visiting, but just like anywhere on Earth there will always be pros and cons. On with the zoo reviews!

I began on the Belgian coast:

Zoo/Aquarium # 23: Sea Life Blankenberge (Blankenberge, BE)

Even with a nice outdoor section that includes Humboldt Penguins, Small-clawed Otters (on AstroTurf!), California Sea Lions and some turtles, I struggled to make it to the 45-minute mark yet again at a Sea Life Aquarium because the indoor section is puny. Perhaps families stay for hours, because outside was a splendid play structure high off the ground that was instantly jammed with young children. I wanted to climb up there myself to test it out, but that would have been just weird and so I abstained from the excitement. There is a seahorse section inside, and a Lionfish tank, plus a tiny walk-through tunnel, yada, yada, yada. Another Sea Life in the can, although this one in Blankenberge was better than the Dutch equivalent in The Hague due mainly to a superior outdoor area. However, I must point out that both Sea Life facilities that I have visited on this trip have been extremely busy, with people probably loving their visits and not being aware that the words Sea Life and Shedd could mean vastly different things to zoo enthusiasts. “Shedd…what is that? Thing in garden with lawnmower?”

Aquarium de la Mer du Nord (Ostend, BE) – NON-VISIT

There are only 13 tanks in this small, seaside aquarium but I wouldn’t know because the freaking place closed down 3 weeks ago! I drove for 30 minutes to the town of Ostend, parked on a sidewalk (literally, because there is next to zero parking anywhere in Europe) and stopped people on the street because Google Maps had omitted the facility. I managed to find a news article via my Iphone that stated how right at the end of June, literally 3 weeks ago, authorities closed the place down. Whether that is permanent or temporary I have no idea, but it was tremendously annoying to have wasted time during my day.

For the record, I planned this European trek as a ‘rough draft’ probably two years ago, tweaked it a year ago, added to it substantially 9 months ago, tweaked and changed and edited things off-and-on for months, took another whole stab at it in January, then again in May and finally towards the end of June. When revising a list that includes almost 100 zoos and aquariums, all of their opening times, admission fees and addresses, it is imperative that I recheck places for summer hours as those could change depending on the season. Occasionally a zoo will bump back its opening time by an hour and then that will cause a domino effect that ripples through a couple of days as I have to edit and change things for the umpteenth time. I last went through all 95 zoos around June 27th, which was a Monday during my last week of the school year. At that time there was nothing on this tiny aquarium’s website to suggest closure. Arrgghh! Does anyone know anything about this facility?

NAVIGO – National Fisheries Museum (Oostduinkerke, BE) – NON-VISIT

I drove a further 30 minutes south down the Belgian coast, only to find this damn place closed as well. There are a whole bunch of bright-red California Sea Lion statues out front, some historic buildings and then a shiny museum facility that looks nice from the outside. Due to the fact that today was Belgian National Day, which I was aware of, I double-checked the facility’s website to ensure that the place would be open. It all looked good and does now as I just glanced through the site again. However, when I arrived there was a poster (hand-written) on the front door saying that due to the national holiday the aquarium would not open at 10:00 a.m. like normal but instead 4 hours later…at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Seriously? So, after the possibility of ticking off a couple of minor Belgian aquatic delights on my bucket list, I seethed with fury and drove back the way that I had come, wishing that a Belgian gnome would cross the street as I’d run it over in a second. Ha! Beware the speeding Canadian who has just been shafted out of two small aquariums!!!

Zoo/Aquarium # 24: Boudewijn Seapark (Bruges, BE)

Just over a half-hour later, I arrived at this ‘dive’ of an establishment. Many families with possibly a lower socio-economic backdrop (‘they are financially struggling’) were at this seedy, rundown park. There are two sections closed down, a large waterpark area for kids that is alright but would be scorned at by certain California theme parks. There’s a couple of desultory Harbour Seal exhibits, some barnyard animals, a California Sea Lion pool and adjacent small stadium, some Miniature Horses and geese, and then a Dolphinarium where no one can see the dolphins unless there is a show. Most of the year the dolphins are only able to be viewed for 40 minutes per day (two shows) but in July and August there are 3 shows and so an hour per day sees the Dolphinariuim accessible. I was able to go into the building, but the dolphin pool was strictly off-limits and so the park’s dolphins must spend basically their entire lives in an old-school cement pool inside an old-fashioned cement dome and wonder what the hell they did to deserve such a fate.

At this point my day consisted of a crappy Sea Life park, two missed opportunities at rinky-dink aquariums, and a SeaWorld rip-off that was an embarrassment to all concerned. The good news is that the rest of my day was fantastic as I decided, after a long time figuring out logistics on my Iphone and Google Maps, to head south to a brand-new country. Vive la France!

Zoo/Aquarium # 25: Zoo Lille (Lille, FR)

After an hour drive south, I passed into France and then had great difficulty locating the zoo as it is in a park directly in a super busy, downtown section of the city. Thank goodness for having a GPS/SATNAV in my rental vehicle (which is a brand-new Cactus Citroen) as I eventually discerned the fact that I was going around in circles and the zoo was inside a park that I was rotating around as if I was the Earth and the park was the Sun. The usual European madness of parking a mile away in some obscure little neighbourhood occurred before I had a good walk to find the zoo.

According to Wikipedia, Lille Zoo opened in 1950 and is only set on around 3.5 hectares/8.5 acres and in many ways is reminiscent of Central Park Zoo in New York City. Everywhere online states that it is a free establishment, but I paid 4 Euros to enter on an extremely hot and busy Sunday afternoon. (By looking up the price I found out that it is free for all locals but 4 Euros for non-residents). Just like Central Park, this zoo is tiny, well-maintained and receives a whopping million visitors per year. I bet that there aren’t many zoos in all of France with those kind of visitor numbers. Even with the crowds, I truly enjoyed the experience of visiting this tiny zoo and I should remark on the diversity of the people I saw during my 1.5-hour visit. While in the Netherlands it seemed as if everyone was Caucasian, then Belgium had many changes to that with much more diversity, and then Lille was a mixture of white, black, brown, pink, teal…all types of skin colours and faces all in a tiny little free (mainly!) zoo. It was great to see.

The zoo is divided into 6 major zones:

Around the World: There’s a mixed-species exhibit of Red Pandas and Reeves’s Muntjacs that is the first thing visitors see, and then a long line of cages on both sides that are well-furnished and appear to have been dramatically modernized over the years. Here are the mammal species (12 species): White-faced Saki, Azara’s Agouti, Ring-tailed Coati, Arctic Fox, Fennec Fox, Dwarf Mongoose, Meerkat, Parma Wallaby, Indian Crested Porcupine and Pallas’s Cat. Ring-tailed Lemurs and Black and White Ruffed Lemurs are also here, but at the back of the row of enclosures.

Birds in this part of the zoo (27 species): Burrowing/Little Owl, Barn Owl, Senegal Parrot, Eclectus Parrot, African Grey Parrot, Red and Green Macaw, Scarlet Macaw, Galah, Yellow-crested Cockatoo, Sun Parakeet, Rainbow Lorikeet, Black-cheeked Lovebird, Helmeted Curassow, Superb Starling, Bernier’s Teal, Hamerkop, Guinea Turaco, Demoiselle Crane, Blue-winged Kookaburra, Sclater’s Crowned Pigeon, Java Sparrow, Bali Mynah, White-faced Heron, Pied Imperial Pigeon, Masked Lapwing, Northern Cardinal and Grey-winged Trumpeter.

Exotic Trip: This is a small Tropical House that isn’t over-elaborate but nevertheless remains enjoyable to tour. Species list (21 species): Kinkajou, Java Mouse Deer, Pygmy Slow Loris, Red-bellied Tamarin, Prevost’s Squirrel, Northern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat, Six-banded Armadillo, Linnaeus’s Two-toed Sloth, Lyle’s Flying Fox, Crested Partridge, Aldabra Giant Tortoise, African Spurred Tortoise, Spur-thighed Tortoise, African Helmeted Turtle, Boa Constrictor, Madagascar Tree Boa, Green Iguana, Veiled Chameleon, Blue Poison Dart Frog. Outside is a mixed-species exhibit for two species: Small-clawed Otter and Binturong.

At this point in the zoo visit it was remarkable at how tiny all 60 of the species were, with a focus on smaller animals making sense in an 8.5-acre zoo. However, a few larger creatures were to soon appear.

Island to Island: Here there is a long exhibit for Common Shelduck, Bar-headed Goose, Barnacle Goose, Hawaiian Goose, Ouessant Sheep and Alpaca. Not exactly a scintillating lineup of animals. There are some Grey Crowned Cranes, Upland Geese, Great Cormorants, Great White Pelicans and Common Slider Turtles here, plus a trio of excellent primate islands for White-handed Gibbons, Siamangs and Brown Capuchins.

African Plain: A mixed-species yard that contains White Rhinos and Plains Zebras.

South American Excursion: Lowland Tapirs, Capybaras and Maned Wolves (all interacting in fascinating ways) in a spacious, Pampas-like environment.

In the Tropics: Here is a large, walk-through waterfowl aviary that I walked around but not inside because half of the population of Lille was there and the lineup to go inside was immense. It’s not got a very large visitor area and it’s possible to see many birds from outside and the usual suspects are all present such as various ibises, egrets and spoonbills.

Lille Zoo does a remarkable job on a relatively small footprint, and I’m sure that on many days of the year the zoo is at bursting point. There’s not really enough to keep a zoo enthusiast more than 1.5 hours, and that is with me taking enough photos to compile an extensive species list, but nevertheless it’s a cool experience visiting yet another zoo set inside of a park. Afterward I roamed around and did a lap of the outside grounds of the zoo, as there are enormous brick walls of the Citadel, which is essentially a large French fort. It’s a pretty cool thing to see, even with the plethora of smoking French citizens. Next to the zoo is a small amusement park that is free to enter, but of course each ride costs a fee and it is all aimed at youngsters.

After I was finished in the city of Lille, I made my trek back to my car and drove an hour east in France.

Zoo/Aquarium # 26: Zoo Maubeuge (Maubeuge, FR)

This is another tiny French zoo that is only 7 hectares/17 acres according to its Wikipedia page. Yet, to my utter amazement, as I didn’t know anything about this place, I encountered elephants, giraffes, hippos, bears and big cats. Will wonders never cease.

Maubeuge Zoo has an Asian Lion and an Andean Bear exhibit as two of the first enclosures on the trail, both decent but nothing spectacular. A huge aviary dwarfs those two areas, with dozens of wading birds and there is a walk-in section near the pelicans. A number of South American animals are in a small loop, from Coatis to White-faced Sakis, Common Marmosets, Alpacas, Maras, Capybaras, Maned Wolves, Guanacos and Chilean Flamingos. There’s a couple of Asian Elephants in a modest exhibit and they were very active in the thick sand that made up their substrate. There is a Sri Lankan Leopard, some Vietnamese Pot-bellied Pigs and White-handed Gibbons, all representative of Asian animals. Oceania had Kookaburras, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Bennett’s Wallabies, Emus and Southern Cassowarries, where for the THIRD time on this trip it was possible to pet one through very wide mesh. I didn’t put my hand in, as I figured that the bird’s reflexes were faster than mine. Why do three different zoos in Europe allow anyone to shove their hand inside a cassowary exhibit?

A couple of giraffes in a dusty paddock, some Colobus Monkeys, Red River Hogs, Sitatunga, Ankole Cattle, Chapman’s Zebras, Fennec Foxes, African Spurred Tortoises and a few other species rounded out Africa. The most extraordinary exhibit is for Common Hippos, with a long pool and grassy area leading into a path that the hippos take to access their brand-new barn. The backdrop to this and several other notable exhibits, is an extremely tall rock wall like something you’d see at Doue la Fontaine. Visitors can just about reach over and touch a hippo and what was a little more alarming is that the two animals were then shut in for the night with no access to a pool. The Colobus Monkeys have a large outdoor cage, but I also saw them get shut in for the evening and they were going to spend at least 12-14 hours in a very tiny room with little to no enrichment.

My day, which had a rocky first half with a couple of tiny, crappy Belgian attractions and then a couple more places being closed, improved considerably with my French zoos and I was able to add another nation to my lifetime list. Life is like a box of chocolates…

 

[Brum]

...to head south to a brand-new country. Vive la France!

Plot twist! Check out the M. Night Shyamalan of ZooChat!

Did you always intend to go to France, or was it just because Belgian aquaria were proving to difficult to gain entry to?

 

[Maguari]

I've not been to Maubeuge but my experience of Lille tallies exactly with yours (right down to the parking) - the only difference being that we did get in free!

It's a very nice little zoo - we went (accidentally) on the day of the local massive antiques fair so the whole centre of Lille was heaving with people but it was still, as you say, very enjoyable.

 

[sooty mangabey]

The smoking discussion is an interesting one. As a regular visitor to mainland Europe, I am less shocked by the prevalence of smoking – nonetheless, there is undoubtedly far more smoking in mainland Europe than in the UK, and, apparently, Canada. And if @snowleopard finds it vexing in the Netherlands (44th in the world) just wait till he sees what it’s like in Belgium (7th, just behind Albania). Thank heavens he’s not including Luxemburg (2nd in the world!] on this trip (although I wonder whether that figure reflects the number of Germans, French and Belgians stocking up on low tax cigarettes more than it does the number of smokers in the Grand Duchy).

When I started teaching, in the early 1990s, children smoking was a real thing - large numbers would be caught doing so every week. Now, it has all but vanished. Alas, vaping has filled the gap, a little. But in the UK the social acceptability of smoking has collapsed, with the sort of incident mentioned above, with a parent smoking in the face of the child, simply not seen. Although there is a part of me that thinks something is incredibly sophisticated – I’m thinking James Bond lighting up from his zippo lighter – I am delighted by this turn of events.

When I was in New York earlier this month, I was surprised by the amount of smoking there – but also by the amount of smoking of cannabis: the smell of maned wolves was omnipresent!