Establishing a new zoo in Netherlands will be tough. The zoo landscape is crowded, land-prices are high, labour costs are high and all laws you need to comply with challenging. I know of at least one private collection that would like to grow into a zoo, but they are struggling because of all these hurdles. Most people wanting to establish a zoo do not have the cash or the expertise to pull it off. Most people that have those and once considered establishing a zoo are smart enough not to do it.
New Zoos in the Netherlands
- Thread starter OkapiJohn
- Start date
I could imagine the Dutch government wanting to preserve unused land as a space for wildlife (including wild flowers and insects) than build something new.
Wasn't the original Emmen Zoo even called Noorder Zoo? Or was that in reference to something else?
Well, that's why I suggested doing it on the endless fields. Having to expand Burgers' or Amersfoort would require cutting down a lot of forest
Pah! You spoiled Europeans
Considering it only takes around three and a half hours to drive across the entire Netherlands, I would say *every* zoo is close by! Plus any number in nearby Germany and Belgium.
Very true!
No it's often regarded as the ''Noorder dierenpark'' so yeah, the zoo of the north. It still is being refered to as such today.
... Grasslands and "endless fields' are also habitats just like forests with organisms suited for them. Idk if the soil in Netherlands permits the growth of long grass or if land owners are somehow forced to cut the grass of their own land, but if that is not the case I can imagine nature reclaiming those lands as the grass and flowers grow long enough to harbor insects and small vertebrates..
Ehhh it very much depends on the land owners...
Most of it is just plots of farmland. Either in usage or in dormant state to regain fertility.
None of these are actual grasslands as you'd get on google pictures.
As stated by someone else, the green parts in the Netherlands is 17% actual nature. The rest is all farmland
And the 17% is nature that is not allowed to be touched..
So there's actually very little room for building a zoo.
Unless you want to spend a lot of money on buying farmland... And even if you do so.. I don't think building a zoo in the middle of nowhere in the middle of farm fields is the most charismatic.
A bit off-topic, but the situation of wildlife in the Dutch countryside is complicated. In theory, the Netherlands can have (and used to have) a very rich and biodiverse countryside, with plenty of rare and interesting species including our national bird, the black-tailed godwit. In practice however, the vast majority of our agriculture is highly intensive and industrialized to the point where even barn swallows and starlings struggle to survive. Most of our agricultural land is an ecological desert, with very high nutrient levels but poor soil quality, large amounts of pesticides, unnatural hydrology and an almost complete absence of wildlife refuges. There is a reason the number of skylarks, once the most abundant breeding bird in our country and typically associated with farmland, has dropped by over 95% in the last decades. Why our country is this way is a topic for another time.
In contrast, the places where old practices have been conserved for historical/cultural purposes are often teeming with life. Those are some of the best birding spots in the country.
Not to mention that zoos and other parks are actually second-hand nature reserves. Burgers' zoo currently has a breeding couple of Eurasian eagle owls on their grounds. And amusement park the Efteling is always teeming with all sorts of life