Good point, they'd probably eat the birds. Forgot about that
Mixed species enclosures and other changes for Burgers Zoo
- Thread starter Mr Gharial
- Start date
Good point, they'd probably eat the birds. Forgot about that
Some other questions I can create an educate answer to, I'm not a keeper but I believe I do know enough about these cases and Burgers' mentality.
• Mixed birds
The birds in the Bush are fed from a handful of general feeding stations. I suspect that this is the general principle in their other halls for the vast majority of free-flying species.
• Mixed mammals
For some other species it depends on the type of food given. For example on the savanna I believe hay/grass is just given available to everyone, but I'd find it very strange that they don't give specialized pellets for certain species in their indoor quarters when they are separated from other species. In the banteng-enclosure they also give hay and carrots in the communal enclosure, but they for sure also give the more specialized foods separated from the other species. Otherwise you can never be sure wether or not a species actually eats what it needs to eat.
• Mixed reptiles
The snakes are normally fed separately. In the case of the rattlesnakes they have a system of tubes and boxes behind the scenes (between the pathway, the snake exhibit and the peccaries) where the snakes need to go to to be fed. Here the snakes are separated into individual boxes and then fed. The milksnakes were actually taken out the exhibit by hand and all except one were fed outside the exhibit.
• Mixed fish
Some are fed through target-practice (sharks and rays especially) though most species are just given communal food (rocks with paste, brine-shrimp solution, sea-weed leaves, fish, ...). I know that in Antwerp they go diving around the exhibit to feed certain shy fishes more directly but you should ask the keepers wether they do that as well.
For a small mammal like a squirrel or a small aviary possibly, but not a large mammal or a large aviary unless they would get rid of the big-cat-breeding (leopard and/or tiger which would open up space between the leopard and banteng enclosures (the separation cages are located there, though it's sometimes also used for other animals like a single male monkey during my visit). Maybe they could add a few small vivaria here and there.
Wild-caught blacktip-shark should be available, but Burgers' prefers to avoid wild-caught animals. The black-tip reef sharks on the other hand are bred more and more often, making it an interesting breeding program to participate in. I believe their latest sharks were also captive-bred from Emmen.
If you mean wether some animals are possibly dangerous? A lot of animals can be aggressive especially during breeding season. However their greenhouses are very large so most species can nest far away enough from the visitors. Aggressive individuals are of-course possible but these are removed if their behavior remains unchanged. It does helps that almost all individuals are parent-raised, some of the most problematic individuals are hand-raised.
They are as safe as people are careful on them. In the US this would never work off-course because as soon as someone would have the slightest injury thanks to it they would start a huge lawsuit.
I will split this up into a couple of cases:
• Mixed birds
The birds in the Bush are fed from a handful of general feeding stations. I suspect that this is the general principle in their other halls for the vast majority of free-flying species.
• Mixed mammals
For some other species it depends on the type of food given. For example on the savanna I believe hay/grass is just given available to everyone, but I'd find it very strange that they don't give specialized pellets for certain species in their indoor quarters when they are separated from other species. In the banteng-enclosure they also give hay and carrots in the communal enclosure, but they for sure also give the more specialized foods separated from the other species. Otherwise you can never be sure wether or not a species actually eats what it needs to eat.
• Mixed reptiles
The snakes are normally fed separately. In the case of the rattlesnakes they have a system of tubes and boxes behind the scenes (between the pathway, the snake exhibit and the peccaries) where the snakes need to go to to be fed. Here the snakes are separated into individual boxes and then fed. The milksnakes were actually taken out the exhibit by hand and all except one were fed outside the exhibit.
• Mixed fish
Some are fed through target-practice (sharks and rays especially) though most species are just given communal food (rocks with paste, brine-shrimp solution, sea-weed leaves, fish, ...). I know that in Antwerp they go diving around the exhibit to feed certain shy fishes more directly but you should ask the keepers wether they do that as well.
Thanks, but I think you may have misunderstood some of my questions. For the availability, they have blacktip sharks, mangrove mollies, giant sweetlips, Chestnut-bellied seed finches, california bighorn sheep, and ring tailed cats. Which are all incredibly rare in Europe. According to ZooTierListe, the Ringtails and bighorn sheep both came from zoos in America, but it doesn't specify about the other animals.
For the walkthrough question, I have multiple plans for walkthrough enclosures. My current list of walkthrough animals include:
Snowy owl, Great grey owl, Arctic fox
Kangaroo, Emu, Wallaby
European flying birds, European ground birds, European rabbit, Red squirrel
Owls
Ravens
Free-flying birds, Geckos, Ameiva
Free-flying birds, Giant tortoise
Southern three-banded armadillo, Two-toed sloth, Nutria, Lowland paca, Azara’s agouti, kinkajou
Potto, Aardvark, Galago
Cattle egret, Greater flamingo, Hamerkop, African spoonbill, African sacred ibis, Kori bustard, Eastern crowned crane, Egyptian goose, Black-crowned night heron, Goliath heron, Shoebill
White-backed vulture, Egyptian vulture, Bearded vulture, Marabou stork, secretary bird
Prairie chicken, Prairie dog, wild turkey
The question of mixed species also applies to the list above, along with quite some others.
For the bridge / walking stones question, I was planning on making a wooden bridge with only very small fencing that's really just meant to keep baby carts and wheelchairs from rolling off, in both Nighthouses, the wading bird walkthrough and the moose enclosure.
[QUOTE="Mr Gharial, post: 1249624, member: 17080" Ravwna would be a terrible idea, They could very easly escape, steal from the visitors and can get very aggrasive in breeding season to humans
I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that
The blacktip shark (they only have one left) has been present from the beginning, they got three animals from Florida (almost 100% wild-caught). Their chestnut-bellied seed finches most probably came from the private sector, a lot of small passerines are better represented there than in zoos. They are definitively available: VogelMarkt.net . I wouldn't be surprised if the mangrove mollies also came through private, according to this (Poecilia orri Fowler, 1943 | Nederlandse Bond Aqua Terra) a private breeder got their hands on some in 1996 and bred them quite succesfully. In the US they were anno 2012 also available in the private circuit so they are around there. They could of-course also have brought them in from the wild, maybe together with their invertebrates. In the case of the giant sweetlips the question is rather why no other zoo has them, instead of why only Burgers' has them. It's a widespread species and if you have enough money chances are de Jong Marinelife can fix one. Leipzig and presumably also la Rochelle had this species too, so they are probably available. When it comes to marine fish a lot is possible, but some species are just not popular or rather expensive making them very rare in aquaria.
1: bad idea to mix these three, the foxes would probably kill the owls and the snowy owls might wound the foxes. The owls together has been done in the past, also in walk-through enclosures. Important here is that the aviary is closed during breeding season or only males are kept (female owls are in general more aggressive btw).
2: Should be fine, though the emus and to a lesser extent the kangaroos might be aggressive (especially the males)
3: I'd be worried about the squirrels, they are known to eat eggs at rare occasions. This is a low risk, but a risk nevertheless.
4: Depends on the species of owl, the group-structure and the time of the year. Eagle-owls are for example more prone to be aggressive then barn owls and long-eared owls.
5: Seems risky, raven might be a little bit to intelligent for a walk-through enclosure.
6: Depends on the furniture, exact species and room. Might work, might also not. Without anything more specific it's impossible to estimate the odds of succes.
7: Walking between the tortoises seems a bit risky if no keeper would be present to monitor the visitors (turtles pack a nasty bite), if the turtle enclosure is not accessible I don't see much problems.
8: Interesting combo. The nutria obviously can not be allowed to get between the visitors, this would result in a lot of bitten visitors. Nutria are also on the banned invasive species list of the EU, so they don't really have a future in Europe. I also don't know wether they might be troublesome to other ground-dwelling species. For all the rest I don't see any direct problems, but I'm not familiar enough with species like paca and kinkajou.
9: No idea. poto + aardvark seems fine and so does galago + aardvark, but I have no idea how well poto coexist with galago. Aardvark in a true walk-through also doesn't seem like a good idea, they have very sharp claws. The poto and galago would probably avoid the visitor area so a true walk-through would also be quite pointless for them.
10: I'm not sure how well the flamingo's will do with the shoebill (and to a much lesser extent the goose) around. In the current zoological landscape I'd replace the sacred ibis by hadada-ibis btw due to the phasing out of sacred ibises. The same European law also applies to Egyptian goose.
11: The bearded vultures might cause troubles due to aggression and the Egyptian vulture might steal eggs, though I don't think this is much of a problem with well defended nests
12: No idea how well the prairie chickens will react to the busy prairie dogs and the large (and rather aggressive I believe) turkeys. The latter two should get along a lot better.
I'd not do it near the moose, this seems like daring people to get risky. In the nighthouse this could cause accidents with people not seeing the edge, especially in case of a power failure. In general what is the height of the platform? If it's low enough (say about half a meter at most) this should be possible for the wading bird walkthrough
Ok a lot to unpack here so I will list of the possible issues with some of these exhibits, for those I don't mention I don't see a problem with
Owls and foxes shouldn't mix as the foxes will most likely prey on the owls
Depends on kangaroo species the smaller the better as larger Red Kangaroos are known fighters
Avoid predatory birds and this should be fine
Ravens are friendly towards humans but as stated earlier smart so double doors would be better with keepers standing in front of them to ensure the wait for the second door to close policy is followed
Birds and small reptiles don't often mix well so the species would have to be small birds like finches and you would need one of the larger species of gecko, even that could go south though
Tortoises are a mix I have seen before and should be fine just include signage to not put your fingers near the tortoises
Shoebills are a pretty solid no unless the aviary has a large footprint because shoebills are extremely territorial and will kick and bite visitors if they get too close
Now European moose might be different from American moose but in America the general idea si you NEVER go near a moose as they will not hesitate to charge at you so I wouldn't suggest mixing unless the exhibit is very large
My fear would be people tripping and falling especially in the wading bird enclosure as if not properly railed near bodies of water people could trip and fall in (this would definitely set off the shoebills) and I know some of the South American night house animals spend time in water so the same idea can be applied too
I've heard about this happening in Blijdorp, but aviary was very close to the ground. This aviary will be very tall so that they won't be in each other's way. It has been done before
Emus are done quite often in Australia, and the enclosure is quite large with only small walkthrough parts. The emus can go inside, and around the hall (I'll upload the new map later).
Hmmm... never heard of squirrels eating eggs before, but I'll move them for sure
European Eagle-owl, Barn owl, Long eared owl, and the little owl are the exact species, though I could take out or move the Eagle owl if they're aggresive
Good point, I'll turn it into a side-view aviary then
These are both in island, there's a fairly large amount of room, though not nearly as big as the bush. I'll move the lizards into terrariums or just take them out. I've seen a lot of walkthroughs with Aldabra and Galapagos giant tortoises (though sadly, not in person). Every time I have seen them though they were never interested in guests, either not seeing them or ignoring them. So I don't know how big the risk is for biting incidents.
The exact list of bird species for the two island regions are: Malagasy blue pigeon, Malagsy ibises from the bush, Seychelles blue pigeon, Seychelles paradise flycatcher and Aldabra drongo for African islands.
Cuban trogon, Cuban tody, Greater Antillean bullfinch, Cuban amazon, Cuban emerald humming bird, Cuban grassquit, and the blue-headed quail-dove for the South American islands (Though sadly, I don't know if all these species are available)
For the lizards, Seycheles giant day gecko, Madagascar swift and the Seychelles bronze gecko for Africa.
And Common Ameiva, Western bearded anolis, Cuban tree frog, and Cuban spotted toads for South American islands.
In both the night houses the walkthrough enclosures are really raised bridges over the enclosures, with plenty of space for the animals to go under without a way for the ground-based animals to get onto the path. The pottos were a typo, they go together with the bongos, where the pottos will be able to go on the path as they please but the bongos can't.
The hadada ibis does live in East-Africa, though it's a lot less pretty. I'll replace the sacred ibis with the hadada then.
I'm not sure about the behavior of shoebills, but I'm visiting pairie daisa next year. So I'll ask about them there.
I'm pretty sure vultures are very defensive of their nests, but I could make a seperation aviary to be safe
That's a shame, but I can just do prairie dogs, since they're plenty fun on their own
The moose enclosure has a medium sized body of water between the path and the land region for the moose, along with that, there's also a one meter strip of reeds along the path. And I think I'll put rope fence along the Night bridges and wading bird bridge after all. I've made a simulated version and it might actually look better with rope fencing.
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Those last three should pose no problem, yesterday I walked in an aviary containing two of these (long-eared and barn). The eagle-owls might just hunt the smaller owls so for that it's also best to leave those out of that aviary.
I'm not concerned about unprovoked biting accidents, but rather about visitors harassing the turtles when they are in reaching distance and the turtles acting on this.
With most of those you are going into undiscovered territory I believe, so wether or not it'll work is a mystery. Flycatchers are territorial breeders, but wether this will pose a problem to other birds I can't tell so this would need monitoring. The drongo are also quite an aggressive species when breeding, so once again something to monitor. Both of these two species-groups are however almost completely absent from Europe and according to ZTL no species has ever bred in European zoos so this will be a challenging species. However it has happened before that the first breeding of a species happens inside a large greenhouse/aviary like the screaming piha in Burgers'.
Same story for some of these for aggression and once again unknown territory.
A lot of these won't be available, most are (nearly) nonexistent in captivity and some are also almost impossible to import from the wild.
It's impossible to say for sure it would work, but at first glance I believe it's worth the shot with these species.
The hadada ibis actually lives in most of sub-saharan Africa, not just the east. Pretty is subjective, I find the hadada much more attractive than the sacred ibis.
Owls with foxes is much more risky than this, so if you're fine with that I'd say give this a shot and just monitor it tightly. If they turn out to actually steal eggs or cause stress to the birds in other ways you can always remove the squirrels, if not they can stay.
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Alright so, Eagle owls in seperate aviary, warning signs for the tortoises, birds and lizards should be fine but we're not sure how available the birds are, and move the arctic foxes
I specified the Hadada ibises being East African because Burger's Safari is all East African. All the new animals I added were East African as well
I see, nice that you keep up with the existing theme
Well, I am one for theming. That's why the night houses and island areas are seperate. I can't handle mixing continents. Which is why I'm not the biggest fan of the bush's theming.
Give me a second to translate all the mixed species. I'll post them in seperate comments for the different regions though. To make sure we don't get more of these dictrionary comments
For Arctic:
Mixed penguins, Northern rockhopper penguins, Antarctic gentoo penguins, and king penguins, with chinstrap penguins, Macaroni penguins and little penguins as alternatives, depending on availability
Alaskan king crabs and Common spider crabs, though I'm not so confident about how well they mix in which case I'll just do spider crabs
Arctic flounders, Burbot, Atlantic cod, Capelin, and Atlantic herring for the Arctic aquarium and
Antarctic dragonfish and Antarctic silverfish for the Antarctic aquarium (I can't see any other Antarctic fish in captivity)
Atlantic puffin, razorbill and common murres in the basalt pillar river enclosure
And of course the Great Grey owl and Snowy owls in the walkthrough
Single animals include:
Arctic fox, Siberian weasel, European wolverine, American lobster, and either cube jellyfish, moon jellyfish, comb jellyfish, or Lions mane jellyfish. Two of the jellyfish will be in the ice caves, depending on availability, as I doubt jellyfish could mix
Mixed penguins, Northern rockhopper penguins, Antarctic gentoo penguins, and king penguins, with chinstrap penguins, Macaroni penguins and little penguins as alternatives, depending on availability
Alaskan king crabs and Common spider crabs, though I'm not so confident about how well they mix in which case I'll just do spider crabs
Arctic flounders, Burbot, Atlantic cod, Capelin, and Atlantic herring for the Arctic aquarium and
Antarctic dragonfish and Antarctic silverfish for the Antarctic aquarium (I can't see any other Antarctic fish in captivity)
Atlantic puffin, razorbill and common murres in the basalt pillar river enclosure
And of course the Great Grey owl and Snowy owls in the walkthrough
Single animals include:
Arctic fox, Siberian weasel, European wolverine, American lobster, and either cube jellyfish, moon jellyfish, comb jellyfish, or Lions mane jellyfish. Two of the jellyfish will be in the ice caves, depending on availability, as I doubt jellyfish could mix
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It's indeed recommended not to mix jellyfish, even those that don't eat each other supposedly have a negative impact in the long term on each other.
Thought so, are all the others fine?
1: should be, the first three are also the best available
2: No idea
3: Burbot's a freshwater species normally, herring need enough room and a large school so take that into account.
4: Not a clue
5: They should get along, though looking at the current captive populations in Europe razorbills will be very hard to acquire. It might also produce better reproductive results when you have fewer species and larger groups seen as they are colonial breeders.
6: already commented on this one
Their enclosure is rather sizeable, and the razorbills aren't the only hard to aquire animals in the new design. Burgers zoo already has many animals that rarely found in any other European zoos (Mangrove molly, Blacktip shark, Giant sweetlips, California bighorn sheep, ring tailed cat, Chestnut-bellied seedfinch, etc.), So I don't think it's that big of a problem
After a bit of digging it appears you are right that it's quite possible to obtain them in a legal way, unlike some of the other species you have stated before (mostly birds).
The examples you state here are a perfect example of the three types of situations when an uncommon species in zoos is still possible to acquire:
- Wild caught individuals are available (the fish at that point, though regulations are getting tighter)
- Available on other continents (sheep and ring-tailed cat)
- Available through the private sector (seedfinch, probably also the molly)
Well, seeing that gordon ramsay was allowed to kill and cook one I assumed that they were quite legal to obtain from the wild (with permission of course), same for any other animal that's also on markets as food (except for endangered bushmeat like gharials and pangolin, of course)
Quite an old post of you by now, but what do you think is so bad about the lion and cheetah enclosures? They aren't really the most immersive ones, but when it comes down to the animals they are great exhibits with loads of environmental stimuli, variation and quite lot of space. Although I believe their elephant enclosure is just adequate for their two elephants, it's far worse compared to these two cat exhibits.