DAY 17: Tuesday, July 30th (4 zoos)
Another day and another 4 German zoos. Keep ‘em coming!
Zoo/Aquarium # 49: Wuppertal Zoo (Wuppertal, DE)
Yet another historic German zoo, Wuppertal opened in 1881 and has a little bit of everything. Visitors have to park approximately 200 meters down the road, which became a trend at some German zoos, and then hike up a steep hill and break a sweat in the sunshine before even entering the zoo. This zoo is flat in some sections, incredibly cumbersome to navigate in others (the map’s numbers go up and down like a game of Snakes & Ladders!) and the zoo is packed with older, historic exhibits, more modern ones, and what is a candidate for the single worst zoo exhibit of the trip. I enjoyed visiting Wuppertal because it seems to have a hodgepodge of many elements that make up a zoo, including a site that is heavily forested in spots.
Wuppertal is about the same size as Cologne, at 59 acres/24 hectares, but instead of a 6-hour day it was more like a 4.5-hour visit. There are 550,000 annual visitors and the zoo is quirky enough to sate the appetite of zoo enthusiasts. Going in order via a general visit, due to the numbered map, the entrance is clean, crisp and linear like a typical German zoo entrance. Yaks in the distance (an odd choice), some waterfowl and then a major construction project is ongoing that will see the building of an immense, walk-through aviary called ‘Aralandia’. There are posters of visitors strolling through an aviary laden with flamingos, macaws and other birds, with sort of a Saint Louis Zoo ‘World’s Fair 1904 Free-Flight Aviary’ vibe. It’s going to be big, and does anyone know if this a renovation job of an existing aviary or an entirely new structure?
One passes by the Zoo Director’s house (neat and tidy with green trim on a white backdrop), past Southern Pudus, Emus, a series of small aviaries and then the Bird House looms. There is a line of 6 aviaries down each side of the wall, making it an even dozen in total, and they are all a good size for their inhabitants (which include a couple of reptiles at the end) and there is then a walk-through ‘jungle’ area at the back with free-flying birds. Next up is more birds, and for those that are unaware, Wuppertal Zoo is famous all over Europe for its penguins and in fact there are two penguins as part of the zoo’s logo. The Penguin House has two species (King, Gentoo) and is of average size and width, but the real treasure is the underwater viewing area. An expansive path of mock-rock has curved acrylic windows that go right over the heads of visitors. It’s not quite a full tunnel, but it is spectacular and there is plenty of space for visitors to congregate and watch the zoo superstars that are penguins. Everywhere I go, people are immediately transfixed by seeing penguins swimming underwater and Wuppertal has one of the very best examples of how to design an excellent exhibit for that type of bird.
Immediately after viewing the zoo’s premier exhibit, the worst enclosure looms on the horizon. The Polar Bear grotto has a tiny, all-cement land area and a moderately-sized pool but it is essentially one of those old-fashioned bear pits that went out of style decades ago except that the bears are at eye level in most areas. It is scandalous, especially when I sat on a bench and watched both bears display stereotypical behaviour with head-bobbing, weaving a tiny path back and forth while walking, and then over and over again for a very long time. Later in the day the bears had improved marginally, with some swimming going on but the repetitive nature of their movement cropped up again when they were on the cement blocks. I have no idea if the bears are elderly (one in particular looked younger than the other), or what their situation is, but it is an atrocious zoo exhibit and fodder for anyone with an anti-zoo agenda. Just below the bears, in a panoramic example, are California Sea Lions in yet another crappy European pinniped pool. It’s probably just barely adequate for the animals but it is a boring, dirty old exhibit that could use a good scrub.
A small and old South American House with a lot of character (and smell!) has Chacoan Mara, Linne’s Two-toed Sloth, Southern Pudu and Baird’s Tapir with underwater viewing. Only those four species inside, plus a couple of outdoor paddocks, although one was closed and had a crew of men doing construction on the walls. A nice trio of ungulates are outdoors (Okapi, Yellow-backed Duiker, Kirk’s Dik-dik) in a shady area, plus some aviaries that culminate in a Bateleur Eagle exhibit. Past a second penguin complex (for the African taxon), past the pacing Polar Bears, and up a steep slope to the Aquarium/Terrarium building. Naturally it comes next because the building is #20 on the visitor map and that is the recommended next stop on the zoo map. But of course, this is a German zoo and just like Frankfurt and Neuwied before it, now Wuppertal has a major animal building that does not open to the public at the same time as the rest of the zoo. Why make it one of the earliest stops on the map then? Wuppertal has the earliest opening hours of any major zoo on this trip (8:30 a.m.) but the Aquarium/Terrarium doesn’t open until 10:00…a full hour and a half after the zoo opens. While in Frankfurt and Neuwied it was also a royal pain, at least I could go nearby and see other exhibits on a flat surface. At Wuppertal, there are massive hills towards the big cats, and I saw a whole other chunk of the zoo and then had to navigate all those hills again when I made my way back to the Aquarium/Terrarium. Why not change the order on the map? Maybe get visitors to veer to the right-hand side of the zoo when they begin their tour because the Aquarium/Terrarium is on the left hand-side. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to make some changes. Or maybe tell visitors in the first place. Or open the damn thing at 9:00, only 30 minutes after the zoo opens. To wait an hour and a half is egregious and immensely frustrating at a zoo that requires a ton of walking. The last thing I’ll say is that instead of me being one of only a couple of people in the building when I arrived to find the building closed, of course when I returned an hour later at 10:00 the place was jam-packed and not nearly as enjoyable with tons of families and little kids running around. Between the Polar Bear exhibit that looks as if it could be from the 1930s, plus the opening time of this significant part of the zoo, Wuppertal has two huge blackmarks in this review. No zoo is perfect.
Along one of the ‘terraces’ of the zoo there are European Beavers, Alpine Ibex (on a huge mock-rock blob), Red River Hogs, Bongos, a Red Panda exhibit (an old big cat cage) and a series of smaller enclosures for Sand Cats and Gordon’s Cats/Arabian Wildcats. These small felines were very active during my visit in their old-school exhibits, and then the visitor goes past the zoo’s third Southern Pudu exhibit and a huge row of cages that are actually one single exhibit for what appears to be a single Snow Leopard. It’s not aesthetically pleasing but it works, like a lot of Wuppertal’s exhibits in this older section of the park. A massive, sprawling South American pampas looks large enough to land a 747 plane, and there I got my daily dose of Maras, Darwin’s Rheas and Vicunas. Up at the top of the zoo, which is a back-breaking slog when one is visiting almost 100 zoos in a month, are superb natural habitats for Amur Tigers and African Lions. The tigers have two habitats, with the visitor area encompassing a mock-rock zone and a forested section is in the larger of the two cat exhibits. The lions have a grassy field that wouldn’t like out of place with a herd of bison roaming around and, at first, I was disappointed as there are a million hiding places for the large cats. Then a trio of males emerged from the yellow grass as if they were recreating some scene from The Lion King. Naturalistic environments for zoo animals are stupendous if the right conditions are pulled off perfectly, and suddenly the trek up Mount Wuppertal to reach this part of the zoo was totally worth it. I wonder how many Lion exhibits in Europe are larger than the one here? There is even a long, narrow viewing cave that leads down to view the lions through a mock-rock room, with ropes along both walls so that visitors can haul themselves back up the steep slope again. Those visitors that pass out from exertion are probably tossed into the exhibit. Just like Opel and Neuwied, Wuppertal is a zoo that tests the limitations of how virile a zoo enthusiast is due to the many sloping hillsides.
There are some densely-forested sections that contain some rarities such as Kiang, Mishmi Takin and Asiatic Wild Dog (Dhole), all in nice exhibits although one of the Dholes was showing some stereotypical behaviour of going back and forth over and over again even though the animal had a lush, nice-looking environment as a zoo exhibit. Maybe that’s not enough? Each case is likely different from any other. There are Red-crowned Cranes, Giant Anteaters, a whopping group of at least 28 Collared Peccaries that nearly wiped me out just from the smell. Elsewhere is an old Cat House with basic steel cages that look awful but sort of work due to the combining of exhibits. Indian Leopard, Clouded Leopard and Temminck’s Cat/Asian Golden Cat are the three species on-show, and with Cheetahs in another part of the zoo that means that Wuppertal has 9 cat species in total. The Temminck’s Cat was wonderful to view, and the indoor area had a few small animal exhibits that included Spiny Mice, Zambian Common Mole Rats, Short-eared Elephant Shrews and some girdled lizards. The zoo has a sign up stating that they have four Temminck’s Cats in the collection, and how many other zoos in Europe have any of that species?
At this point I went back all the way to the other side of the zoo to see the Aquarium/Terrarium and that building is divided neatly into two, with one room having 25 aquarium tanks and a second room having 25 reptile exhibits. I’m not going to produce a species list, as the signs are 95% in German with almost zero English anywhere and that takes far too long to translate every sign that I took a photo of. The largest exhibit is one for West African Dwarf Crocodiles, with the rest of the terrariums and aquatic displays mainly all being of an average size in comparison to most other zoos.
There are European Brown Bears and Meerkats and then 7 African Elephants (according to the sign) in an exhibit that I have mixed feelings about. Yet again, as I’ve now been to a number of zoos with elephants on this trip, a European zoo has built a very solid indoor house for its pachyderms, but the outdoor, sloping yard has a tiny pool, is devoid of practically any enrichment whatsoever, and is too small for the number of elephants that are there. With a big male off alone in a side yard (small, dusty, inadequate), the main herd were content to keep themselves busy by their social interactions, but overall, I feel that Wuppertal is going to have to look to the future and perhaps consider putting rhinos in there and raising funds for an entirely new elephant complex. The zoo’s restaurant, ‘Okavango’, is excellent and I had some ‘pommes frites’ while overlooking the elephant herd.
The Great Ape House has, according to its signs, a pair of very old orangutans (hybrids?) that were born in 1975 and 1976, a couple of very old Chimpanzees (1968 and 1983) and also four Lowland Gorillas (1975, 1983, 1992 and 1995). Is Wuppertal a sort of retirement home for great apes? To contrast that, there is a multi-generational troop of 9 Bonobos and this must be the 4th time I’ve seen a big group of Bonobos in a European zoo. One thing I liked is that Wuppertal has got thick layers of mulch with hay and woodchips and other natural substrates in the indoor quarters of all the apes. Just like Frankfurt and others, it is important for zoos to have natural materials on the floors of their primate accommodation. I know that a sparkling cement floor, with a tiled backdrop like at some zoos, is great for cleanliness, but what a difference it makes for the animals when there is a natural surface. A soft, natural material to walk or sit on, plus it is great enrichment for when keepers scatter food and the animals have to sift through the pilings on the floor to locate snacks. The outdoor exhibits are all very nice here, with at least the two elderly Chimpanzees rotating with the Bonobos in one yard, and Colombian Black Spider Monkeys, Red Ruffed Lemurs, Golden-headed Lion Tamarins are there as well in their own exhibits. The real treat of this 1927 Primate House are Drills, and while the two I saw didn’t move much, it was still great to see a species that might now have vanished from North American collections and is even a great zoo rarity in Europe.
Rounding out the zoo are Bennett’s Wallabies, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Babirusa, a couple of White-handed Gibbon islands and then Wuppertal was done. When going through the species list, there are quite a few that I mentioned that are not very common at all. Species such as Drill, Asian Golden Cat, Asian Wildcat, Clouded Leopard, Sand Cat, Dhole, Chacoan Mara, Kiang, Mishmi Takin, Bateleur Eagle and even the Vicuna for this Canadian zoo nerd. I enjoyed Wuppertal Zoo, with my main two complaints being the opening time of the relatively small Aquarium/Terrarium and the god-awful Polar Bear cement pit. The zoo has some treasures, such as the Amur Tiger and African Lion habitats, the Great Ape House, the African Elephant exhibit (more due to the size of the herd rather than the size of the enclosure) and of course the zoo’s famous penguin underwater viewing area.
If you are a zoo nerd, why stop at Wuppertal? Literally 10 minutes down the road is another zoo.
Zoo/Aquarium #50: Tierpark Fauna (Solingen-Grafrath, DE)
This intrepid explorer hits zoo #50 for the trip. Costing only a few Euros to get in, and the second zoo that I visited in the Solingen area in the past 24 hours, Tierpark Fauna was surprisingly busy. Does everyone go to zoos every day in Germany? A large Eurasian Lynx cage is there, plus a small Reptile House with only 13 exhibits (but 30 species) in lots of mixed-species terrariums. The signs were not in English and so I took photos of them all but I’m not going to make the effort to translate everything. There are a few aviaries scattered around, Reeves’ Muntjacs, Llamas, Rheas, Mouflon, Squirrel Monkeys, Bennett’s Wallabies, Indian Crested Porcupines, Raccoons (with a picnic table in their cage) and two separate Meerkat exhibits because one is never enough! The whole place can quite handily be toured in 30 minutes and that’s including dodging domestic rabbits on the trail.
I then drove 45 minutes north to a much larger zoo.
Zoo/Aquarium # 51: Dortmund Zoo (Dortmund, DE)
This zoo opened in 1953 and it has 69 acres/29 hectares and 500,000 annual visitors. It took me approximately 3 hours to see everything, with zero stopping for food, and one thing that was a surprise is that at first glance Dortmund is a traditional-looking German zoo, but my guess is that 50% of all the species are from South America. Just like Wuppertal earlier in the day, which is a superior zoo, Dortmund has a mixture of rarities with more common species although there was a significant lack of great exhibits. What is the best exhibit at Dortmund? Looking at the zoo map in front of me, I struggle to name anything except for the Eurasian Lynx valley that is so enormous that finding a lynx seems like a lost cause. The zoo wasn’t that impressive to me, but the focus on South American fauna and a number of zoo nerd rarities made for an enjoyable jaunt. Also, just like Wuppertal, I had to park very far away and make a trek to the zoo down the street. When people say that parking is at a premium in Europe they certainly aren’t joking.
I went directly towards the zoo’s Tropical House, which seems like a daily occurrence on this road trip. Dortmund’s version isn’t very large, but it does have a row of terrariums and then larger enclosures for species such as Green Anaconda, Smooth-fronted Caiman, Pygmy Marmoset, Emperor Tamarin, with Grey Short-tailed Opossum being a nice surprise. I emerged from this house, with all its South American species, much faster than anticipated as there really isn’t a lot there. European Roe Deer, Red Deer, Reindeer and Gaur (awesome!) are together in a row of enclosures, with some construction going on across from the macropod/Emu paddock. There is a decent Giraffe House with perhaps three giraffes, plus smaller satellite exhibits for Meerkats, Yellow Mongooses and Olive Grass Snakes. I saw a Red Forest Duiker in a densely-planted enclosure, then a Siamang island and a terrible Jaguar exhibit where it’s very difficult to see anything inside. (Intriguing that the zoo altered its logo from a Giant Anteater to a Jaguar in recent years). Roan Antelope, Plains Zebra, a Serval and some Common Eland are a few of the inhabitants in a quasi-African zone, with several lumbering White Rhinos in a large exhibit.
A major section of the top part of the zoo has a focus on South American animals, although there will be some non-South American critters mixed into this paragraph. The zoo has species such as Lowland Tapir, Giant Anteater (at least 4 of them), an Anteater House (Two-toed Sloth, Kinkajou, Southern Tamandua, Six-banded Armadillo), Southern Pudu, Capybara, Nutria, Collared Peccary, Mara, Llama, Rhea, Southern Screamer, Red-legged Seriema, that Jaguar exhibit (ugh), an Andean Bear enclosure (ugh) and even an Otter House. The indoor sections for Giant Otters and Small-clawed Otters are decent, but the outdoor exhibits are rather poor. Still, for a zoo to have not only an Anteater House but also an Otter House is remarkable. A real highlight of the zoo was the section with a couple of Clouded Leopard exhibits (although I went 0-3 for Clouded Leopards at a trio of German zoos) and a row of small cages that appeared to be at least two exhibits for Jaguarundi (I saw two cats) and three exhibits for Oncilla (I saw one cat). Those species are practically extinct in North American zoos and it was a real treat to view the small cats. There is an Amur Leopard cage nearby that is aesthetically unappealing, but it was furnished nicely for the species.
The remaining sections of the zoo consist of yet another uninspiring California Sea Lion pool, but a bevy of treasures in smaller exhibits such as Masked Palm Civet (I saw two), Asian Palm Civet (no-show), a small walk-through owl aviary, Humboldt Penguins and a long list of aviaries along the left hand-side of the zoo’s map. The Orangutan House is impressive, with a large outdoor habitat with many climbing frames and at least three indoor areas that at one point include Malayan Tapirs in with the apes. At least that is what the sign says. Pygmy Slow Loris are also found here, and there is a fine article about the specimens at this particular zoo in the latest issue of Zoo Grapevine & International Zoo News. Subscribe today! Dortmund Zoo has a whole list of rarities, and an extensive South American collection, which makes the zoo a must-visit for an enthusiast. However, at the end of the day this quirky, eclectic zoo isn’t one of the best in Germany.
Should I add on another zoo? Sure, there is one 25 minutes west of Dortmund.
Zoo/Aquarium #52: Tierpark + Fossilium Bochum (Bochum, DE)
Here was a nice surprise, as Tierpark Bochum isn’t very large and I only tacked it onto a very long day because the zoo is open until 7:00 p.m. and that worked out to give me enough time to see it all. My feet were aching after Wuppertal, Tierpark Fauna and Dortmund, but my choices were either go and do boring stuff like grab a quick dinner, find a motel, type up zoo reviews…or stretch the day out even longer and add a 4th zoo to a pleasant Tuesday. Done! I was expecting a 30-minute, leisurely stroll to cap off the day and I ended up staying close to an hour and a half. It’s got a pretty bland list of species in the outdoor section, but each exhibit is well-crafted and thus I enjoyed this zoo immensely because I’m clearly an ‘exhibits guy’. A great exhibit makes all the difference in the world. There are Chilean Flamingos, providing the adjacent restaurant guests something to smell while they sip their wine and smoke a few packs of cigarettes. Coatis, Squirrel Monkeys, Ring-tailed Lemurs and Meerkats sound like a boring quartet of species for zoo enthusiasts, but all four of them have nicely-done exhibits at Tierpark Bochum and therefore I enjoyed seeing them all yet again. There are Cotton-top Tamarins, a very tall Griffon Vulture aviary, a typically unimaginative Common Seal pool that is a bit more exciting thanks to the fact that African Penguins share the same space. I wonder how that works out? There are Snowy Owls, Alpacas, Prairie Dogs, a really cool Kea habitat that almost looks like a Hobbit house, and one large area is blocked off for construction. Anyone know what is going on there? That about sums up the outdoor section, which I must admit might not sound great while reading it, but the quality of the exhibits is much better than some of the so-called ‘lesser’ zoos that I’ve toured. Essentially, Bochum is very small but well done.
That brings me to the Aquarium/Terrarium, which is the name on the outside but in fact once you are indoors the Fossilium name is also seen. There are countless fossil casts on all of the walls and in all directions, from a variety of dinosaurs and other critters. I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to them, to be honest, as the zoo was going to close in half-an-hour, and I had to concentrate on the vast assortment of animal exhibits that were all delightfully done.
Here is a partial species list:
Common Marmoset, Pygmy Marmoset, Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman, Boa Constrictor, Madagascar Tree Boa, Woma Python (a zoological rarity for Europe?), Indian Python, Jungle Carpet Python, Green Ratsnake, Taiwan Beauty Snake, Cuban Iguana, Spiny-tailed Monitor, Mertens’ Water Monitor, Ameiva, Frilled Lizard, Bearded Dragon, Blue-tongued Lizard, Bell’s Dabb Lizard, Veiled Chameleon, Standing’s Gecko, Red-footed Tortoise, Yellow-banded Poison Dart Frog, Silk Spider, plus several other invertebrate terrariums with labels entirely in German…and many exhibits with fish including some floor-to-ceiling tanks.
No joke-you still can see the"pool" and rocks inside...
for that we have the "like" button, and you haven't gone hungry in that department!
And I don't mean it in a bad way by any means. He usually raises some interesting point to discuss.
I've got a few speeding tickets to prove it, and I have a sneaky feeling that I'll arrive home to a couple more. 
