Wilhelma Zoo Wilhelma zoo, Stuttgart

ralph said:
The Malayan tapir enclosure is terribly small, and should not house such large animals.
Click to expand...

Until not too long ago that building housed Malayan tapir, pygmy hippo and a pair of common hippo simultaneously, hard to imagine nowadays, but that row from cats to tapirs really is a weak point indeed.

ralph said:
really hope to see some chances for the elephants
Click to expand...

A large new elephant enclosure is in the plans, but it remains to be seen when anything will happen as funding from the Bundesland (federal region) needs to be secured and construction tends to be a slow affair in the Wilhelma... In the budget of 2023-2024 there was no space in the budget of the Bundesland to subsidize the plans, but the zoo hopes there is space in the 2025-2026 budget. But with construction costs of 44 million euros (of which the friends of the zoo have commited 10 million) that is no small project and it remains to be seen what the Bundesland will commit and when.
 
Visited today for the first time. Loved my visit, though the Kaka has managed to elude me as well.

Does anyone know where the bay-headed tanagers/euphonias are housed? ZTL says in "an aviary in the botanical greenhouse row" but I walked through this row (assuming they mean the one at the entrance?) several times and did not encounter this aviary.
 
Penshet said:
Visited today for the first time. Loved my visit, though the Kaka has managed to elude me as well.

Does anyone know where the bay-headed tanagers/euphonias are housed? ZTL says in "an aviary in the botanical greenhouse row" but I walked through this row (assuming they mean the one at the entrance?) several times and did not encounter this aviary.
Click to expand...

They were indeed kept (at least during my visits) in an aviary in the long row of botanical greenhouses right at the entrance. They were mixed with a large variety of other S-American birds such as spangled cotinga and other tanagers.
 
I saw neither of those species and I visited all the greenhouses as well. No cotinga either. Did see the aviary lintworm mentioned, but without those 3 species.
 
lintworm said:
They were indeed kept (at least during my visits) in an aviary in the long row of botanical greenhouses right at the entrance. They were mixed with a large variety of other S-American birds such as spangled cotinga and other tanagers.
Click to expand...
Between the cactus greenhouse and the first tropical greenhouse was an aviary with turquoise tanagers, blue ground doves, Brazilian tanagers and red pileated finches. I'm guessing it was this aviary then.
 
At the start of August 5 Gillen's pygmy mulga monitors (Varanus gilleni) hatched.

JurassicMax said:
In May two young were born!

Source:
Instagram of Zoo Wilhelma (13/07/2023)
Click to expand...
The young servals are a male and a female!

On the 10th of July female Snow leopard (Panthera uncia) Kailash gave birth to a female.

On the 13th of September atleast 4 Cape barren geese (Cereopsis novaehollandiae novaehollandiae) hatched.

Sources:
Instagram of Zoo Wilhelma (22/09/2023)
Instagram of Zoo Wilhelma (03/09/2023)
Instagram of Zoo Wilhelma (12/09/2023)
Instagram of Zoo Wilhelma (24/09/2023)
 
I visited the Wilhelma today and it was my longest time ever spent at any zoo during regular opening hours: I was there from 8:15 until 19:30, which were the official opening times. I covered 17 kilometres and wasn't bored for a second.

The Wilhelma is a zoo that has grown on me, at first I wasn't sure what to make of it, but with each visit I like it more. For sure the zoo has some outdated exhibits, most notably big cats, elephants, rhinos, tapir & spider monkey, but also a good number of the bird aviaries. But the general atmosphere that is a mix of outstanding botanical displays, beautiful historical "Moorish" architecture and a gigantic animal collection are winning out.

In quite some regards this is an old-fashioned zoo, there is little appetite for cultural theming or landscape immersion (though there are sections with either), but the enclosures often speak for themselves and there is just so much to explore. To put stuff into perspective, apart from the huge botanical collection this is the 3rd most species rich zoo in Europe. That is in large part to the 50 year old aquarium building which has around 115 exhibits (of which roughly 80 are aquaria). Behind the Berlin Zoo Aquarium this will be Europe's most speciose building. Many exhibits are small, but for some of the largest fish, they are well adapted to their inhabitants, which are mostly small fish too. But the zoo also has some 170 bird species on display spread throughout the zoo, around 70 mammal species, an insectarium with roughly 50 invertebrate species too and more reptiles & amphibians in other places in the zoo. While it doesn't feel as if you are visiting a huge collection like you feel in Berlin, if you add it all up from the different parts of the zoo, it ends up being a lot. And then the zoo doesn't even have red panda, ring-tailed lemur (or any lemur) or otters, but they aren't missed.

I had no problem to see the quokka, they were outside throughout the day. The fanaloka were always visible curled up in a hollow tree, but around 14:15 both brothers were active. The kaka was the hardest of the big rarities to spot (though I had seen it on my previous visits too), but it was very active in the evening. I passed the enclosure around 18:15 and 19:00 and both times it was on a demolition tour, while it hadn't been outside between 8:30 and 15:00 at all if the food was any indication. Walking through the zoo in the early evening was wonderful anyway as the crowds were gone but most mammals and birds were given the choice to spend the night outside. So that meant there were quite some active animals visible even when all the houses close at 18:15 in September. So if you visit the Wilhelma try to use the generous opening times to your advantage ;).

There are plenty of new enclosure pictures in the gallery:
https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/categories/wilhelma-zoo.818/
 
Thank you for the nice summary @lintworm! I was postponing my Stuttgart visit few times and finally reached them this September. The place has unique atmosphere and would loved it, even if they have only two animals inside. I appreciated some of the concrete exhibits too, especially Bear/Mountain goats area and Barbary Sheep /Macaque/ Hyrax pit. Last year they brought some unique species to their very diverse collection and this only added to the place's legend.

I read your review about Basel and I coincidently visit them as well. One can't help to mention the pure excellence of this place and to compeare the filling stepping in those two classic collections.

Basel has silent architectural beauty, while Wilhema has Royal appearance, but the historical significance and the charisma of good old European zoo facing the modern world, take them very close to each other.
 
I visited Wilhelma irecently. I enjoyed the new Australia house and three new species for me. Vegetation is very good, and turning the floor lights into small education displays is a fantastic idea. The only wish - don't put a free-standing tree trunk in the visitor area in a dark exhibit...

However, the zoo is underfunded. While gardening looks beautiful as always, concrete buildings of elephants and tapirs urgently need rebuilding. I am surprised animal activists have not set on Wilhelma elephants yet.
 
Flyer.Nick said:
Do they have any feeding times for Quokka and Fanaloka? Or is it just luck to see them?
Click to expand...

The quokka are pretty much constantly active outside, so I reckon you'd have to be particularly unlucky not to see them.

As for the Fanaloka, I believe that they don't have any set feeding time within visitor hours and that, as you note, it comes down to luck - although when I visited a few weeks ago I found that both were readily visible around the early afternoon, much as was the case for @lintworm :)
 
TeaLovingDave said:
As for the Fanaloka, I believe that they don't have any set feeding time within visitor hours and that, as you note, it comes down to luck - although when I visited a few weeks ago I found that both were readily visible around the early afternoon, much as was the case for @lintworm :)
Click to expand...
I'm guessing that lintworm isn't just visible in the early afternoon, despite any superpowers
 
(I still can't upload pictures, so just text info)
I spent maybe 6 hours almost just between these three exhibits (Of course, I walk aroud the zoo, but maybe every 20-30 minutes I came back to check Fanaloka and Kaka)
Quokkas were outside whole day, lot of time in bush, but good to take a pictures.
Both Fanalokas were in their den till 14:15, than they were very active maybe next hour.
And Kaka was inside till maybe 15:00, then first 30 minutes she just look outside or be outside just for 1 second. Then she was active and good to take a pictures.
 
Arrival of the Tasmanian Wombats !

Meldung

translated from German :

Wendy comes from the Budapest Zoo, Windemere is a bred from a zoo in Tasmania. They belong to the subspecies of Tasmanian naked-nosed wombats and are both three and a half years old. Now they find a home next to the sea lions in the former mongoose enclosure that was converted especially for them. The two wombats will later move to the Tasmania facility, which is to be built between Terra Australis and the Amazon House. The walk-in facility for wombats, gray kangaroos and Bennett's kangaroos is scheduled to open in 2025.
Because of their stocky appearance, which hardly suggests their relationship to kangaroos, wombats have the unflattering name of slugs in our language - with their short legs and stubby tails, they look a bit like small bears. Wombats are about one meter long and can weigh up to 50 kilos. They live in the south of the Australian continent and on Tasmania.
Like many marsupials, the naked-nosed wombat is mostly active at dusk. “The subspecies that now lives in Wilhelma also copes very well with cool temperatures in our winter months,” says Volker Grün, head of the zoology department. “In their original distribution area in Tasmania, snow can certainly fall in winter.” Wilhelma is, alongside the zoos in Duisburg and Hanover, the third in Germany where naked-nosed wombats can be seen. They form part of the European reserve population for this fascinating marsupial species.
The strange cube-shaped remains of wombats have even piqued the interest of scientists. Five years ago, an American-Australian research group investigated the question of why: The feces serve to mark territory, and the cube shape is supposedly intended to prevent the disreputable marking from rolling down from higher places, according to their findings. For this, the researchers were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in 2019 - a kind of anti-Nobel Prize, a satirical award for scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, then make them think,” according to the jury, which also includes various “real” Nobel Prize winners.

“Next to koalas and quokkas, wombats are certainly the most popular animals in Australia,” says Wilhelma director Dr. Thomas Kolpin. “I am very pleased that with Wendy and Windemere we can show another spectacular animal species in Wilhelma and thus bring our visitors a little closer to distant Australia.”
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top