cerperal
Well-Known Member
Some unnecessary thoughts as promised, but as this will inevitably devolve into a rudderless ramble and this is after all the News thread, not "I went to the zoo today and have a few opinions", I'll start off with a few things regulars may find of note:
-The warthogs and hunting dogs were both nowhere to be seen all day
-Despite the gale, all the colobus were out
-Both gorilla babies are doing very well
-A single warty newt is still on display
-The mouse lemurs may be introduced to breed if they haven't already recently
-The Congo Caecilians are 100% no longer visible - the vivarium I found earlier in the day was indeed the one they were previously in
-Both large hairy armadillos are being used in the animal displays again
-As mentioned in the walk-through thread, the three-banded armadillo is now mixed with the spider monkeys
If anyone has anything else they want to know, I did my best to memorise as much as I could given it was all new to me.
So now the vaguely useful stuff is sorted, I will present my particularly hot take of an overall opinion. London Zoo is really very, very good. Fantastic, some might say. I think I might be one of them. I think it helps you're met with a fantastic selection of exhibits and species variety as soon as you enter, but overall I don't think there are any bad exhibits and for the most part the land is very well used. The exception, however, is of course the Mappin Terraces. I've read at this point thousands of messages here and elsewhere saying how the current use of it for emus and wallabies is at best a waste and I can't help but agree. There's undoubtedly reasons for holding species like that there but with such a huge area (for London) it does feel like a bit of a crime. And I'm not entirely sure why but the grass just looks odd. That may just be me.
But aside from that (and even then that didn't detract from the visit at all, it's a very good exhibit for those species), I thoroughly enjoyed everything and saw pretty much the entire on-show collection, minus the dogs, warthogs, javan magpies (not for want of trying), any of the lorises and potto. As I said earlier, SLoRA is superb and every species can be easily seen with a bit of patience. It's especially nice to see a king cobra able to actually stretch out fully, which was pretty spectacular.
I followed the advice given here pretty much to a tee and it worked out perfectly, arriving at Into Africa around 2pm and spotting that Monkey Valley was packed after looping around. It was blowing quite the gale today, but all the colobus were out and really active. I can see why it gets criticism for being quite a situational exhibit, but as my first visit was about as much of a success as you could get my opinion is very much distorted towards the great end of the spectrum. Definitely easier viewing of them than the Longleat boat regardless.
Oni was also lovely to see. Okapis have always been special for me as Marwell was the main zoo I went to when I was younger, and she is a lovely individual with great viewing. According to some of the volunteers she's doing alright since the loss of her daughter, so hopefully a male will come in at some point. I also saw a duiker around 5pm which I was very happy about. Amara and Thug are the most active pygmy hippos I've ever seen, with the former spending about half an hour swimming outside while the latter tried to get through the bars into her side. And then once she stopped, he got in and did the exact same thing. I imagine once they are fully integrated it's not if but when for a pygmy, uh, pygmy hippo to pop out. On the subject of active animals, I'm convinced ZSL mix some strong catnip into whatever they feed the tigers because between the 4 at London and Czar I've never seen any so constantly active through the day, a real joy to watch and a lovely exhibit for them. Bhanu was sleeping outside all day, unsurprisingly, and it was quite fun to listen to everyone wondering where the lions were and then direct them to the livestream of the den. All 3 cubs certainly look healthy, so hopefully that is the case.
Again I have to thank everyone for the suggestions on Night Life + Rainforest Life, as well as the lemurs. It was still busy but less so than other areas of the zoo, and I managed good views of just about everything. I went back a few times to try to see the Aye-ayes and the gentle lemurs (the mouse lemurs were, for want of a better word, zooming), and I did manage to see an Aye-aye midafternoon before it was scared off by a legion of screaming children. I had a nice chat with a keeper about them - apparently the Aye-ayes are the ones people struggle with most, and he told me exactly where to watch for the gentle lemurs. Eventually both got fed, and I got the best views anyone could really ask for of both. So cheers to @JVM and @Kalaw, your advice was spot on. And I remembered the deer!
I was wondering though - do the gorillas have an off-show area? They disappeared midafternoon, which was a tad odd. Oh, and I must have spent all my beginner's luck on the colobus and lemurs because the Indian mongooses were no-shows and their food bowl was untouched all day. I give it a year before it turns out there aren't any and it's just a ZSL conspiracy.
Alright I'll put a sock in it finally, but those were the real highlights of the day. There were others, and I thought all the major exhibits like Tiny Giants were at the very least good. Overall it's a bit hard to compare to other zoos I've visited, the most recent otherwise being Berlin which is obviously a much larger collection. I definitely felt like the zoo could make use of its space better in places, and especially in the nocturnal house perhaps certain duplicate exhibits would be better off with different species instead. But I also know ZSL well enough to know that isn't really what they aim for, and I still went away thinking I'd got my money's worth.
So to summarise - London is a very good zoo, even to an outsider. Therefore we can stop arguing about that (you're all welcome). Clearly there are still spots being developed/going to be developed, the mystery arboreal exhibit, the empty primate exhibit in the gorillas and the old aquarium and tortoises notably. So I will definitely be back, and maybe one day one of us will see those damn mongooses.
Fin.
-The warthogs and hunting dogs were both nowhere to be seen all day
-Despite the gale, all the colobus were out
-Both gorilla babies are doing very well
-A single warty newt is still on display
-The mouse lemurs may be introduced to breed if they haven't already recently
-The Congo Caecilians are 100% no longer visible - the vivarium I found earlier in the day was indeed the one they were previously in
-Both large hairy armadillos are being used in the animal displays again
-As mentioned in the walk-through thread, the three-banded armadillo is now mixed with the spider monkeys
If anyone has anything else they want to know, I did my best to memorise as much as I could given it was all new to me.
So now the vaguely useful stuff is sorted, I will present my particularly hot take of an overall opinion. London Zoo is really very, very good. Fantastic, some might say. I think I might be one of them. I think it helps you're met with a fantastic selection of exhibits and species variety as soon as you enter, but overall I don't think there are any bad exhibits and for the most part the land is very well used. The exception, however, is of course the Mappin Terraces. I've read at this point thousands of messages here and elsewhere saying how the current use of it for emus and wallabies is at best a waste and I can't help but agree. There's undoubtedly reasons for holding species like that there but with such a huge area (for London) it does feel like a bit of a crime. And I'm not entirely sure why but the grass just looks odd. That may just be me.
But aside from that (and even then that didn't detract from the visit at all, it's a very good exhibit for those species), I thoroughly enjoyed everything and saw pretty much the entire on-show collection, minus the dogs, warthogs, javan magpies (not for want of trying), any of the lorises and potto. As I said earlier, SLoRA is superb and every species can be easily seen with a bit of patience. It's especially nice to see a king cobra able to actually stretch out fully, which was pretty spectacular.
I followed the advice given here pretty much to a tee and it worked out perfectly, arriving at Into Africa around 2pm and spotting that Monkey Valley was packed after looping around. It was blowing quite the gale today, but all the colobus were out and really active. I can see why it gets criticism for being quite a situational exhibit, but as my first visit was about as much of a success as you could get my opinion is very much distorted towards the great end of the spectrum. Definitely easier viewing of them than the Longleat boat regardless.
Oni was also lovely to see. Okapis have always been special for me as Marwell was the main zoo I went to when I was younger, and she is a lovely individual with great viewing. According to some of the volunteers she's doing alright since the loss of her daughter, so hopefully a male will come in at some point. I also saw a duiker around 5pm which I was very happy about. Amara and Thug are the most active pygmy hippos I've ever seen, with the former spending about half an hour swimming outside while the latter tried to get through the bars into her side. And then once she stopped, he got in and did the exact same thing. I imagine once they are fully integrated it's not if but when for a pygmy, uh, pygmy hippo to pop out. On the subject of active animals, I'm convinced ZSL mix some strong catnip into whatever they feed the tigers because between the 4 at London and Czar I've never seen any so constantly active through the day, a real joy to watch and a lovely exhibit for them. Bhanu was sleeping outside all day, unsurprisingly, and it was quite fun to listen to everyone wondering where the lions were and then direct them to the livestream of the den. All 3 cubs certainly look healthy, so hopefully that is the case.
Again I have to thank everyone for the suggestions on Night Life + Rainforest Life, as well as the lemurs. It was still busy but less so than other areas of the zoo, and I managed good views of just about everything. I went back a few times to try to see the Aye-ayes and the gentle lemurs (the mouse lemurs were, for want of a better word, zooming), and I did manage to see an Aye-aye midafternoon before it was scared off by a legion of screaming children. I had a nice chat with a keeper about them - apparently the Aye-ayes are the ones people struggle with most, and he told me exactly where to watch for the gentle lemurs. Eventually both got fed, and I got the best views anyone could really ask for of both. So cheers to @JVM and @Kalaw, your advice was spot on. And I remembered the deer!
I was wondering though - do the gorillas have an off-show area? They disappeared midafternoon, which was a tad odd. Oh, and I must have spent all my beginner's luck on the colobus and lemurs because the Indian mongooses were no-shows and their food bowl was untouched all day. I give it a year before it turns out there aren't any and it's just a ZSL conspiracy.
Alright I'll put a sock in it finally, but those were the real highlights of the day. There were others, and I thought all the major exhibits like Tiny Giants were at the very least good. Overall it's a bit hard to compare to other zoos I've visited, the most recent otherwise being Berlin which is obviously a much larger collection. I definitely felt like the zoo could make use of its space better in places, and especially in the nocturnal house perhaps certain duplicate exhibits would be better off with different species instead. But I also know ZSL well enough to know that isn't really what they aim for, and I still went away thinking I'd got my money's worth.
So to summarise - London is a very good zoo, even to an outsider. Therefore we can stop arguing about that (you're all welcome). Clearly there are still spots being developed/going to be developed, the mystery arboreal exhibit, the empty primate exhibit in the gorillas and the old aquarium and tortoises notably. So I will definitely be back, and maybe one day one of us will see those damn mongooses.
Fin.
