Chester Zoo Grasslands Zone Plans

The end of the year has been mentioned, after planning consent is granted and the holding zoo is complete. Nothing untill after the summer holidays.
 
Will they reduce the admission prices if they have to close so much of the zoo off?
Will be visiting again before the end of summer and getting photographs of how it looks now and then again when the new grasslands as opened.
When the Monsoon Forest re opens will it have the same species or different species within the exhibit?
Mind you Grasslands does look interesting will it hold Bongo, African Sitatunga Antelope and Roan Antelope.
I take it the Waterfowl Exhibit will become part of Grasslands will the tasavo aviary be removed and species moved to other exhibits or will they just leave the collection?
 
Waterfowl exhibit, will be African flamingo, the tasavo will be staying as it is.

Roan will be in the mixed savannah with zebra and giraffe.

Bongo I guess will be in the Forrest zone with the chimps and gorillas when ever that is built.

I'd guess they won't drop the price, maybe a price freeze, but who knows, still alot of zoo open during the work.
 
Cat-Man said:
Is there a potential species list?
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The following are mentioned in the supporting documents for the application (obviously subject to change):

Rothschild's Giraffe
Roan Antelope
Kirk's Dik-dik**
Warthog
Black Rhino*
Grevy's Zebra
Aardvark
Cape Rock Hyrax*
African Wild Dog*
Bat-eared Fox
'Mongoose'
Meerkat
Naked Mole Rat
Ground Squirrel
Cape Crested Porcupine

Ostrich
Greater Flamingo/waterfowl* (existing wetland aviary)
Vultures (with a reference to 'two species')
Owls**
Lovebirds**
Cranes* (the paddock behind the Tsavo aviary is retained)
Tsavo aviary inhabitants*

Red Spitting Cobra
Electric Blue Gecko
Fishes
Locust
Centipede
Dung Beetle
Mantis

* indicates existing enclosures retained
** indicates enclosures scheduled for future phases

Plus enclosures marked generically for 'herps', 'small mammals' and 'mixed taxa', which may or may not be covered by the list above. May have missed a few as they're scattered through the documents, not all nicely in one list. Would expect at least some of the smaller stuff to be different in the final product.
 
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Thanks for typing that out. I can't stand trying to read planning documents, it's mostly incomprehensible to me and I tend to lose focus whilst looking for important details.

Maguari said:
Aardvark
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In a new enclosure?

Maguari said:
Greater Flamingo/waterfowl (existing wetland aviary)
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I personally think that they could easily convert that into two spectacular shoebill aviaries... :p ;)
 
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Brum said:
In a new enclosure?
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Yep - the porcupines are shown as being moved to where the Aardvarks are now (not clear how much the enclosure will be modified) and a new Aardvark enclosure is proposed to go at the corner of the furthest rhino paddock, opposite where the path turns back and into the wild dog section.

Overall a pretty good line-up, to say it's mostly current species - though I can't help hoping they can find room for another antelope species somewhere...
 
Maguari said:
though I can't help hoping they can find room for another antelope species somewhere...
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I agree, get something to replace the kudu that would have been ideally suited for the exhibit. Just a shame Chester got the shyest kudu ever! ;)

I notice the sitatunga and bongo will also be going, and the dik-dik will also temporarily move. I hope that there's enough space in the new off-show section to hold all three species until there's room for them on exhibit again. :)
 
Really happy to see dung beetles in there; post-Nuremberg's successful exhibit I think we will be seeing a lot more of these around.
 
Brum said:
I agree, get something to replace the kudu that would have been ideally suited for the exhibit. Just a shame Chester got the shyest kudu ever! ;)

I notice the sitatunga and bongo will also be going, and the dik-dik will also temporarily move. I hope that there's enough space in the new off-show section to hold all three species until there's room for them on exhibit again. :)
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I believe there is plenty of space for these, the new holding area has a large number of paddocks.

The Bongo I presume will be held until the area around the current giraffe paddock is redeveloped into the Africa Forrest area or what ever they call it with the Gorilla's.

Guess the Bongo could go into there old enclosure near the red panda.
 
As an aside, the species list as presented would of course mean that once the dust has settled there would be a couple of empty existing enclosures that as yet we have no specific information on future plans for - not quite as many as Islands as this is using the existing zoo footprint but the giraffe house of course would be vacant - and so would the warthog enclosure by the entrance.
 
With an opening due around 2022 or as it's Chester a staggered opening lasting till 2023 with the giraffes probably only moving at the end of the construction, the zoo will have the plans already in place for the next phase of development and could start work soon after they move.
 
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