Mixed species enclosures and other changes for Burgers Zoo

By the way the individual in bioparc has been alone since 2008 apparently, so why would they decide to import an animal now when they haven't done that in the past when there were still more holders? Why did no holder at all did that in the past two decades? Programs are often shut down with a reason, and clearly this one has been switched to a track with a dead end a long time ago.
 
Thanks for the answer! That isn't better than the European population. Hopefully, we can one day keep this species in a much better way.
You can't keep everything, there simply isn't enough space and money for that. I believe in Europe we can already be very happy that we are able to conserve two species (spotted and striped) instead of only one like the US (spotted).
 
Does anyone see any problems, otherwise I'll move on to the second Night house and then the islands
I do see two big problems. First: you are probably taking away one of the major reasons that the aardvark breed so successfully in Burgers': access to nearly full-spectrum natural daylight in which they can sunbathe. Secondly what about separation enclosures for the civets and genets (and also the bongo depending on the group composition)? You will need that if you want to breed them, and both are quite rare in Europe so breeding is definitively not bad for the population.
 
The more I think about it, when looking at the welfare standards that Burgers' is putting up I believe both night-houses might actually turn out to be an economical nightmare. You would need huge amounts of full-spectrum lamps to replicate true daylight.

A certain high-quality brand gives their lamps a lifetime of 8 years. They have a system where you only need to replace the led strip (about 25 euros for a strip of 1 m), but for a project like this (I am guessing you want to have the ceiling have at last 3-4 meter high, otherwise it feels cramped) with more than a few decimeters distance from te ground you'd probably need stronger lamps and specifically made fixtures. Based on other lamps I found I'd say about 200-400 euros per square meter you'd need every 8 years, but maybe it' possible to go cheaper and have it at 100 euros per square meter (I doubt it, but who knows). With a combined area almost that of the bush, but let's take 10.000 square meters to be conservatie, you're talking about more than a million euros just for the lights every 8 years. With 200-400 in mind you'd even need 2 - 4 million every 8 years.

That's quite the ongoing cost for species like tapir, bongo, coypu, cayman/crocodile and anteater that can be kept outside for a fraction of the cost and without much loss in activity in these regions at least.
 
All right, I've made the Australia hall smaller and the Central African night house bigger. (Yes, I have read Jarne's comments. And I'm going to leave this up to Burgers zoo to decide)

Night.png

There's now way more room for the Bongos, and there's also option to seperate the enclosure into two
 

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All right, I've made the Australia hall smaller and the Central African night house bigger. (Yes, I have read Jarne's comments. And I'm going to leave this up to Burgers zoo to decide)

View attachment 465506

There's now way more room for the Bongos, and there's also option to seperate the enclosure into two
Might I suggest having the civet and pangolin enclosures be about the same size? The two animals are about the same size and the two together look very out of proportion.
 
All right, I've made the Australia hall smaller and the Central African night house bigger. (Yes, I have read Jarne's comments. And I'm going to leave this up to Burgers zoo to decide)

View attachment 465506

There's now way more room for the Bongos, and there's also option to seperate the enclosure into two
I'm interested in what's the goal of sending this to Burgers'? Is it just to get feedback or do you hope that they will use parts of it? If it's the latter, I can already tell you that if they even read it little to none would be used. Most of it is impractical, not in line with their vision or simply economically impossible.

B.t.w. if you're not completely done yet with all proposed problems, I did found some more in the Congo Dome this time.
  • The okapi exhibit is too small without any outdoor exhibits. The drill and pigmy hippo exhibits are also rather small for all-indoor exhibits.
  • The okapi exhibit doesn't seem to have room at all for a second exhibit, no separation exhibit almost certainly means no okapi coming from the EEP.
  • Mixing okapi with hogs and colobus indoor in such a small place is a horrible idea, loads of aggression and stress for most if not all parties. Once again the EEP-coördinator would never approve of sending okapis into such an exhibit.
 
Might I suggest having the civet and pangolin enclosures be about the same size? The two animals are about the same size and the two together look very out of proportion.

I made the pangolin enclosure larger because they're more effected by stress, but sure.

Night.png


I'm interested in what's the goal of sending this to Burgers'? Is it just to get feedback or do you hope that they will use parts of it? If it's the latter, I can already tell you that if they even read it little to none would be used. Most of it is impractical, not in line with their vision or simply economically impossible.

B.t.w. if you're not completely done yet with all proposed problems, I did found some more in the Congo Dome this time.
  • The okapi exhibit is too small without any outdoor exhibits. The drill and pigmy hippo exhibits are also rather small for all-indoor exhibits.
  • The okapi exhibit doesn't seem to have room at all for a second exhibit, no separation exhibit almost certainly means no okapi coming from the EEP.
  • Mixing okapi with hogs and colobus indoor in such a small place is a horrible idea, loads of aggression and stress for most if not all parties. Once again the EEP-coördinator would never approve of sending okapis into such an exhibit.

Listen, I get that it's unrealistic but I'm honestly doing this to keep myself from commiting suicide during quarantine. But whatever

Burgers whatever.png
 

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According to zootierliste, their current group consists of multiple subspecies (common, central common, and western common), so I want to keep that group
Getting rid of non-subspecific common chimpanzees is very difficult, so instead of changing the whole group at the same time they are slowly phasing out the non-subspefic and bringing in more west-Africans. They should receive a breeding male soon.
 
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