Pairi Daiza has received two new male Tasmanian devils, Marvin and Merris, aged 2 and 2.5, from the Copenhagen Zoo.
Pairi Daiza NL - Nieuwe bewoners bij Pairi Daiza! Marvin...
Pairi Daiza NL - Nieuwe bewoners bij Pairi Daiza! Marvin...
Pairi Daiza Pairi Daiza News 2023
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Possibly when they offered passes for each year, now they are annual passes so valid for a whole year from purchase.
Ah yes, that'll be it. It's good that they've changed that as the old season pass was a little limiting.
On September 4th an African penguin hatched, named Wasabi, to parents Joan and Tabasco.
Pairi Daiza NL - Deze schattige, kleine vogel, met de...
Pairi Daiza NL - Deze schattige, kleine vogel, met de...
I visited Pairi Daiza again, for the second time in 2023, on Friday October 13th. I have some updates, with some accompanying images uploaded below and in subsequent posts.
- The construction of "The Sanctuary", Pairi Daiza's massive tropical hall and aquarium complex, continues. The truly massive scale of the project is quite clearly apparent now.
- On the day of my visit Pairi Daiza did an inauguration of their new wildlife care center, located in one of the animal care buildings right behind the new entrance. The wildlife care center, part of Wallonia's network of CREAVES (Centres de Revalidation des Espèces Animales Vivant à l'Etat Sauvage - Centers for the revalidation of animal species living in a wild state). This center has been named "Geraldine's Heaven", after former Pairi Daiza keeper and protagonist of Pairi Daiza's TV documentary series "Expedition Pairi Daiza" Geraldine Labille, who sadly unexpectedly passed away in 2017 at the age of just 25.
- The animal care buildings behind the entrance had some new, quite nice signs installed indicating which spaces are used for which purpose.
- The buildings in the farm area near the former entrance continue to be renovated into an expansion of Pairi Daiza's resort. The petting zoo animals are currently temporarily in a pretty nice paddock between The Last Frontier and The Land of the Cold, in front of the old building near the Izba restaurant and the steam train barn.
- In the Oasis African white-backed ducks (Thalassornis leuconotus leuconotus) and Ringed teals (Callonetta leucophrys) have been added to the pond around the monkey island, if I counted well I saw four individuals of each species. Floating forms for the ducks to rest and to feed the ducks were added to the pond.
- The former hummingbird exhibits in the Oasis have been repurposed into a green iguana terrarium, housing several green iguanas including some oddly-colored individuals.
- The monkey island itself appeared to be empty, the white-faced saki pair was kept in the exhibit with the Azara's agoutis that previously temporarily held two black howlers. I also saw a few juveniles among the agoutis in that exhibit.
- Pairi Daiza no longer does animal demonstrations in the arena at the foot of the old abbey tower, but they do continue training and flying some of their former show birds, and they are still flown several times a day a different locations in the park. I saw a mix of birds flying around the animal care building behind the entrance, the Egg of the World area, the dromedary camel paddock and the area of and around the disused show arena. Species I saw being flown include Bald eagle, Marabou, European white stork, American black vulture, Hooded vulture, Common black kite (I always love the aerial acrobatics of this species), Egyptian vulture, Abdim's storks, Western cattle egret, Scarlet ibis, Waldrapp, Black-faced ibis and Major Mitchell's cockatoo.
- Some pond sliders were placed in the pond in front of the aquarium building, platforms were added for them to bask on.
- The Eurasian hobby falcons have moved to one of the old aviaries near the Egg of the World (the smallest, formerly home to cockatoos). The aviary previously housing hobbies behind the large mixed raptor aviary now housed two Eurasian eagle owls. I didn't visit the owl aviaries near the brewery this time, so I cannot give any information on whether anything changed there.
- A bunch of Halloween decorations have been placed around the park, and more were still being put in place. Some of the decorations were nice, but there were also some creepy and somewhat unpleasant ones around, like the giant Bigfoot sculpture in the bear viewing cave and the yeti in the polar bear/walrus underwater viewing area.
- In the aviation-themed barn in The Land of the Cold, near the Beach craft water plane, an indoor aviary and next to it a small aviary were built to house the park's pelicans during avian influenza lockdown periods. Several pelicans were in here, but I also saw four still on the lark with the Izba and the pontoon terrace, and I even some one flying circles around the old abbey tower and briefly sitting in the canopy of a tree.
- I saw the two younger white rhinoceroses enganging in some play-fighting and chasing.
- For the first time I saw all four lemur species on Nosy Komba, Pairi Daiza's lemur island. The crowned lemur eluded me during two previous visits.
- Near the African village the area between the Congo African grey parrot aviary and the marabou/sitatunga exhibit and the African spurred tortoise paddock has become a walk-through exhibit with the tortoises, Cameroon sheep and Anglo-Nubian goats.
- Between the entrance to the indoor koala viewing area (closed at the time of my visit) and the outdoor viewing area on the porch of the koala house, a new indoor and outdoor exhibit were constructed for the Dorcopsis, which I also saw.
- I did not visit the area near the rice fields so I didn't get a super close view of the construction site of the future Japanese world "The Land of the Rising Sun", but I could see that it is continuing. I saw structures possibly indicating a large aviary, some kind of barn and a mountain with an inner structure of as of yet unknown purpose. The outline of the new islands was drawn on the most recent maps in the park.
- In the Australian aviary a bunch of budgerigars (mostly wild colors one, but also several blue, yellow and white ones) and a smaller group of breeding-form cockatiels have been added again. The straw-necked ibis moved from this aviary to the cathedral aviary. The white-faced herons were still in the Australian aviary as were the Australian pelicans (living on and around the former slider turtle pond). The only other species I saw were the rainbow lorikeets, so I don't know for sure which ones have or have not moved. There was some construction or renovation work ongoing inside the Australian bird house.
- I saw three juveniles in the kea aviary. Unfortunately that aviary also had several brown rats running around. Brown rats running around in daylight, in close proximity to people, tends to not be a good sign.
- The indoor wombat episode had a view viewable den added, in which the remaining wombat was sleeping.
- At least one hamerkop moved into the aviary near the African village housing the saddle-billed storks (formerly shoebills and African openbills).
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To my knowledge the male greater birds-of-paradise kept free-ranging in the Tropicalia greenhouse are still there, but seeing them can be hit or miss. The lesser birds-of-paradise are also still on display, but I'm not sure whether the male currently is.
Sadly not - I'm given to understand the free-ranging Greater have all died. The Lesser male was visible in August.
In a comment on this post Pairi Daiza mentioned that the male Saad, the male kept separetely in an aviary, has moved for breeding purposes. His former aviary held toco toucans at my recent visit.
Pairi Daiza - Des nouveaux arrivants dans le Royaume...
With the other males passing away, it seems Pairi Daiza sadly no longer has greater birds of paradise. With the magnificent already being off-show or gone they are now down to just one species. Still more than most zoos have in terms of birds of paradise, but nonetheless a bit of a decline in their collection.
Indeed; I wasn't sure if this was on-record information or not, hence my not mentioning it
Wonder where he has gone... I guess I was lucky to see him on my visit in May then. He was in the first aviary coming into the greenhouse. I just checked my photos and its definately a Greater. Then there was a pair(?) of Lessers in the last individual aviary further along, but the male was rather scruffy/ lacking plumes. I hadn't realised there were any free-flying BOP's so don't know if any were still present then.
Somewhere else I've read the male BOP 'Saad' that was in the aviary is/was a hybrid between Greater and Lesser. Anyone can confirm that?
According to Zootierliste Pairi Daiza's species tally is currently already at 511. There will probably a few added in The Sanctuary, but as far as I am aware, they also plan to move quite a few species they already have to this area.
I always thought the individual "Saad" was a hybrid of greater bird-of-paradise subspecies.Where did you read about him being a greater/lesser hybrid?
Oh, I presumed 'hybrid' meant between greater and lesser. My mistake there. So hybrid of different greater subspecies...makes sense as my photos of him matched a GBP perfectly.
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