ZOO Antwerpen Zoo Antwerpen News 2024

zoofanbelgium said:
There are only two lesser flamingos left. They are among the oldest animals in Planckendael, if not the oldest.
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One must have died then recently, last time I was there I thought I saw 3.

Kifaru Bwana said:
Too bad... I found them the most attractive flamingo species around. I suppose this underlines or confirms my suspicions that maintaining the lassers at Planckendael was never a success (and the exclosure sub par / non optimal for breeding).
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There have been at most 3 lesser left for years now, around 2016-2017 they still had a fourth if I remember the year correctly.

I assume the fact that the American flamingo’s actually breed in Planckendael is the most likely reason they want to keep them there for now. Breeding has happened in Antwerp, but only 4 chicks have been produced since they moved into the new exhibit (2016 I think). They probably want to increase the group a bit before sending them back, as that might give them more incentive to breed in Antwerp as well.
 
A new design for the jubilee complex was posted recently, and for the first time also a timeline for the new complex was given. It should open in 2027. According to the post linked below construction will start this fall.

It will feature a renovated exhibit for spectacled bears at the location of the former exhibit, with removal of the old stairs to the sea lion building. The spectacled bears will be mixed with spider monkeys, which will get indoor housing where the off-show part of the sea lion building used to be.

Two big cat species, Amur tigers and snow leopards, will take up much of the rest of the space, with tigers at ground level and snow leopards on the upper level. Two netted exhibits will be built for both species.

The inside of the building (old sea lion building, perhaps also old Nocturama space) will become an "underwater experience", unfortunately very little details are given about this, so it is unclear what kind of species or exhibits this will include.

Zoo inside

I kind of like the new design, but personally would prefer if they had only gone for one big cat species in the limited space and with regards to the project being more future-proof - and snow leopards would in my opinion fit this multilevel project very well.
 
According to recent posts in the "Fans Zoo van Antwerpen" Facebook group Antwerp's warthog pair has now started going out into the giraffe exhibit together with the giraffes, starting the mixing of both species. So far both species still seem rather apprehensive about each other.
 
KevinB said:
A new design for the jubilee complex was posted recently, and for the first time also a timeline for the new complex was given. It should open in 2027. According to the post linked below construction will start this fall.

It will feature a renovated exhibit for spectacled bears at the location of the former exhibit, with removal of the old stairs to the sea lion building. The spectacled bears will be mixed with spider monkeys, which will get indoor housing where the off-show part of the sea lion building used to be.

Two big cat species, Amur tigers and snow leopards, will take up much of the rest of the space, with tigers at ground level and snow leopards on the upper level. Two netted exhibits will be built for both species.

The inside of the building (old sea lion building, perhaps also old Nocturama space) will become an "underwater experience", unfortunately very little details are given about this, so it is unclear what kind of species or exhibits this will include.

Zoo inside

I kind of like the new design, but personally would prefer if they had only gone for one big cat species in the limited space and with regards to the project being more future-proof - and snow leopards would in my opinion fit this multilevel project very well.
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Questions:
  • What other species are going to be involved in the project?
  • Andean bears and spider monkeys - excited to see how this mix turns out!
  • Are the tiger and snow leopard exhibits going to be rotational? Curiously it appears that they got rid of the moated tiger exhibit design in favor of the netted over design, which will definitely add more usable space on a more limited footprint.
  • An "underwater" experience... I'm hoping it involves the teased sea turtles or even something outta left field like manatees...
 
StoppableSan said:
Questions:
  • What other species are going to be involved in the project?
  • Andean bears and spider monkeys - excited to see how this mix turns out!
  • Are the tiger and snow leopard exhibits going to be rotational? Curiously it appears that they got rid of the moated tiger exhibit design in favor of the netted over design, which will definitely add more usable space on a more limited footprint.
  • An "underwater" experience... I'm hoping it involves the teased sea turtles or even something outta left field like manatees...
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  • Only other species I am aware of that has been confirmed and that I didn't mention is some species of Callitrichid, which will move into the former red panda exhibit between the restaurant and gift shop building and Antwerp central station. The species has not been specified, they currently have golden-headed lion tamarin, Geoffroy's marmoset, Pygmy marmoset and Goeldi's marmoset in their small monkey house, so presumably one or more of these.
  • Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on Jersey (UK) has done a mix of Andean bear and howler monkey, which is the closest to this mix I know of. Antwerp formerly mixed Andean bears with ring-tailed coatis, and later on with squirrel monkeys.
  • The big cat exhibits will not be rotational, there will be two netted exhibits for each species, the tigers at the lower level and the snow leopards on the upper level, where the raptor aviaries used to be. A netted set-up definitely seems to be the most reasonable for this area, although personally I still feel they should have limited themselves to one big cat species in a truly top notch multi-level facility (which I think snow leopards would be best suited for), and perhaps still have some space left over for something else.
  • They have not confirmed what the underwater experience will be exactly, but currently it seems that jellyfish tanks and a large tank with sea turtles, sharks and large fish are the most likely.
 
KevinB said:
  • Only other species I am aware of that has been confirmed and that I didn't mention is some species of Callitrichid, which will move into the former red panda exhibit between the restaurant and gift shop building and Antwerp central station. The species has not been specified, they currently have golden-headed lion tamarin, Geoffroy's marmoset, Pygmy marmoset and Goeldi's marmoset in their small monkey house, so presumably one or more of these.
  • Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on Jersey (UK) has done a mix of Andean bear and howler monkey, which is the closest to this mix I know of. Antwerp formerly mixed Andean bears with ring-tailed coatis, and later on with squirrel monkeys.
  • The big cat exhibits will not be rotational, there will be two netted exhibits for each species, the tigers at the lower level and the snow leopards on the upper level, where the raptor aviaries used to be. A netted set-up definitely seems to be the most reasonable for this area, although personally I still feel they should have limited themselves to one big cat species in a truly top notch multi-level facility (which I think snow leopards would be best suited for), and perhaps still have some space left over for something else.
  • They have not confirmed what the underwater experience will be exactly, but currently it seems that jellyfish tanks and a large tank with sea turtles, sharks and large fish are the most likely.
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Are there any more renderings of the Jubilee Complex out there? Either way, hopefully the zoo's able to maintain its stellar primate collection with this development, everything looks amazing already!
 
StoppableSan said:
Are there any more renderings of the Jubilee Complex out there? Either way, hopefully the zoo's able to maintain its stellar primate collection with this development, everything looks amazing already!
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I haven't seen any designs other than the ones in the Facebook post I linked in my post from March 20th.

I don't think they will able to maintain all of their current primate collection. By 2029 all primates other than the nocturnal species will legally be required to have outdoor housing, so they have a substantial amount of work to do in that area. The small monkey house needs a major overhaul, if not a completely new structure anyway. That said, by moving out the American primates, presumably the remaining African primates in the small monkey house will get more of the space.
 
StoppableSan said:
Are there any more renderings of the Jubilee Complex out there? Either way, hopefully the zoo's able to maintain its stellar primate collection with this development, everything looks amazing already!
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The primate collection might nowadays still be stellar, but it will not be in the future. We all know what the future is of the eastern lowland gorilla, while the mandrills certainly will disappear and I fear the same for the owl-faced guenons. If we're lucky there will be 2 callithrihidae in the new complex as their future enclosure has a good size.
 
Philipine eagle said:
The primate collection might nowadays still be stellar, but it will not be in the future. We all know what the future is of the eastern lowland gorilla, while the mandrills certainly will disappear and I fear the same for the owl-faced guenons. If we're lucky there will be 2 callithrihidae in the new complex as their future enclosure has a good size.
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With the female owl-faced guenon no longer allowed to breed after delivering at least two offspring with birth defects, the last one not surviving, and given the low population of that species, I'm afraid it's highly likely we will lose that species not only in Antwerp, but also in other European zoos. I haven't heard any updates about the proposed move of the guenons to the gorilla exhibit, but if that still goes ahead I'm not sure how well that will end either.

I still think Zoo Antwerpen should get L'hoest's monkeys again, given that this species was named after three former directors of the zoo. However that species is also not that common.

Given the ties between the zoo and Belgium and Central Africa I do think the zoo should try to keep at least one (Central) African monkey species in the future.
 
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KevinB said:
With the female owl-faced guenon no longer allowed to breed, and given the low population of that species, I'm afraid it's highly likely we will lose that species not only in Antwerp, but also in other European zoos. I haven't heard any updates about the proposed move of the guenons to the gorilla exhibit, but if that still goes ahead I'm not sure how well that will end either.

I still think Zoo Antwerpen should get L'hoest's monkeys again, given that this species was named after three former directors of the zoo. However that species is also not that common.

Given the ties between the zoo and Belgium and Central Africa I do think the zoo should try to keep at least one (Central) African monkey species in the future.
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The guenons will eventually move to the gorillas. The infrastructural changes needed for keeping them there have been made, but I've understood that they have postponed the move due to the death of the male gorilla, because they don't want to introduce a new species to the gorillas as long as the hierarchy between the females isn't completely stable.

That said, the changes they have made to for keeping the guenons at the great ape house seem permanent enough to suppose that Antwerp will be able to keep at least one guenon species in its collection for the forseeable future, even if the owl-faced monkeys would eventually disappear. I would also love to see l'Hoëst's monkeys make a return to Antwerp.

When the spider monkeys and callithricids are moved to the Jubileum Complex, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the small monkey house, as it will be totally devoid of animals except for the mandrills and a single tree kangaroo (although the latter one is already used as place filler anyway and I suspect the former to eventually disappear too). The space used by the monkey house has much potential, I don't think it is monumentally listed, and with a clean slate, there are many possibilities for completely new developments.
 
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Rensrobert said:
what is the deal btw with the sea lions? Are they going to stay or are they giong to be phased out?
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That is not officially known currently. I currently have the idea that they are staying without further notice. There are 3 individuals left -two younger females and an elderly male called Kees- and the species won't leave at least before Kees passes away, to make sure that no sea lion will be left alone if one dies.

I think that Antwerp is still deciding how they will deal with the keeping of pinnipeds in the long term, certainly now that the common seals have gone too. When the seals were leaving, they hinted at the possibility that they might be returning in the future, so I personally think that the most probable scenario is that the sea lions eventually will leave the collection and that common seals will return to (re)take their place.
 
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KevinB said:
According to recent posts in the "Fans Zoo van Antwerpen" Facebook group Antwerp's warthog pair has now started going out into the giraffe exhibit together with the giraffes, starting the mixing of both species. So far both species still seem rather apprehensive about each other.
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Do you know which giraffes are still present in Antwerpen Zoo. For a time they maintained some of the last hybrid females giraffes from other zoos. Any up close and personal update????

I would wish an European zoo consortium would endeavour to get some cooperative ex situ programs going between Central African and West African zoos on guenons and mangabeys (away from the already well established WAPCA of Ivory Coast/Cameroon/Ghana.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Do you know which giraffes are still present in Antwerpen Zoo. For a time they maintained some of the last hybrid females giraffes from other zoos. Any up close and personal update????

I would wish an European zoo consortium would endeavour to get some cooperative ex situ programs going between Central African and West African zoos on guenons and mangabeys (away from the already well established WAPCA of Ivory Coast/Cameroon/Ghana.
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I believe the giraffes are called Balisalagh, Buna and Clea. Buna is the one that is mostly reticulated, the other two are mostly Rothschild's.
 
KevinB said:
I believe the giraffes are called Balisalagh, Buna and Clea. Buna is the one that is mostly reticulated, the other two are mostly Rothschild's.
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Right, thanks. I suppose they are all some of the oldie hybrids. They must be coming on in years. I believe a good 8-10 years ago they held at least 5-6 giraffe hybrids. Some may already have passed on ... now.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Right, thanks. I suppose they are all some of the oldie hybrids. They must be coming on in years. I believe a good 8-10 years ago they held at least 5-6 giraffe hybrids. Some may already have passed on ... now.
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I quickly found that Dana, mother of Balisalagh, died in 2017, and that Dawa, who was a Masai giraffe, died in 2015.

Also interesting to note: the skeleton of giraffe Dana is now at the University of Antwerp, where it is displayed on campus and used as a study object for students.

Giraf leeft verder tussen de studenten.
 
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