Well, we carried our daughter and that went just fine.
I still have to post my thoughts though.
Well, Lisbon Zoo reminded me quite a bit of Madrid and Barcelona. Not neccessarily a good thing, although i did enjoy Barca, mainly for their extraordinary bird collection which was still there when i visited.
When you enter the Zoo, the first things you see are two ok exhibits for tigers, one containing a sumatran tiger and one an amur tiger. Next to this is the dolphin stadium, which is reasonably large with an extension behind it that also has a viewing into it. I don’t have great issues with exhibits like it, but I can imagine some people do (with it being too small and too “barren”).
Behind the tiger exhibit are a few classic rows and rotund aviaries filled with parrots (lots of amazones), wading birds, a few cracidae and hornbills. All of them are old, with thick wire and they look exactly like the type of aviaries that Artis and Antwerp had before they knocked all of them through to make one large aviary out of them. Lisbon hasn’t arrived in the 21st century yet and still holds a stamp-collection in too cramped cages.
Behind the aviaries, several smaller and larger yards appear for hoofstock, of which Lisbon had plenty. Bongo, nyala, sitatunga, lechwe, black-faced impala, gemsbok, scimitar-horned oryx, addax, roan- and sable antilope are all there, together with two hippo’s in the standard ghastly concrete pool and a few african elephants in a very small yard. The antilope yards are very barren and mostly adequate at best, the hippos and elephants are currently getting an extension to their exhibits. After the extension, the hippo’s will be housed barely adequate and the elephants would (if I can believe Snowleopard) still have protesters outside if the exhibit would be in the USA. The area is topped off with a decent little temple for the herd of angolan giraffes and a remarkably well planted yard for a zookeeper, kept together with what seemed to be a single okapi.
There are cages for quite a few cats, of which snowleopard, ocelot and clouded leopard did not show, but jaguar, white tigers and persian leopard did. The cages are mainly in a large circle of exhibits, most being relatively small but densely planted. Nothing to protest about, but also not much to get the heart racing. Way in the back of the zoo at a dead end is a decent exhibit for the iberian lynx. I’m not a sucker for a little more fluffier version of an European lynx sleeping in a corner, but some of you might be jealous so I thought i’d throw it in.
The ape house is large, but with all three species of ape (gorilla’s, orangs and chimps) and visitors in there, theres not too much space left for the inhabitants, although all exhibits are over two floors so they do have height. The outdoor exhibits are decent for orangs (two ok-sized islands) to impressive for both the chimps and gorilla’s, who are mixed with guereza’s. Large sprawling yards for both, with walls and the side and a moat in front. My only concern would be the lack of cover for the gorilla’s.
What remains are the monkeys. First, a row of concrete and mesh exhibits for howlers, lion-tailed macaque, DeBrazza’s and white-nosed guenons seemed like a blast from the past, neatly topped off with peeling-paint backdrop. Apparantly there has been a time where keeping monkeys like that was acceptable, but some people forgot to tell Lisbon (and Antwerp for that matter) that time has moved on since. The circular area with open, moated exhibits for a host of tamarins and marmosets messed me up. I really liked the innovative way of showing smaller monkeys without barriers, but most of the species were a no-show and looking at tiny monkeys from across a moat didn’t really get me buzzing. A decent island for spider monkeys and a concrete pit for barbary macaques rounded this section off.
I’ve forgotten to mention other exhibits like giant anteater, red panda, penguins, (syrian) brown bears, black-and-white ruffed lemur, ring-tailed lemur, indian rhino, white rhino, koala and pygmy hippo, mainly because their exhibits were entirely forgettable. Even the small reptile house, with a very nice and large exhibit for a monster Mississippi gator couldn’t stand out.
For me, the whole zoo had a bit of an air of neglect and all sections suffered from it. Exhibitry, the botanical section, maintenance, it all seemed to have hit the 1990’s and stopped after that.
Maybe I’m just picky, spoiled, or maybe my views were tainted by the by and large impressive Oceanario some days before, but Lisbon Zoo couldn’t get me going. I guess the total lack of smaller mammals didn’t help, because Lisbon is mainly about mega-fauna.
