Anyone fancy breaking down what Prague has to offer in detail?
Indonesian Jungle:
@MagpieGoose - orangutan outdoors. Not too large and a little bare but plenty of climbing.
@Robaque - the largest of the two indoor orang islands. Very ugly but a fair amount of climbing. There are offshow areas as well as a second smaller island.
@Kalaw - Southern Pig-tailed Macaque island. All-indoors, but a fair amount of climbing and natural substrate in most places. Also with an offshow portion, I
think.
@Kalaw - home to the only Sunda Slow Loris in Europe. Reverse night cycle with the picture above being from its 'daylight' mode.
Africa Up Close:
@Robaque - home to a stunning group of
nine Senegal Bushbabies! Also a nocturnal enclosure most of the time.
@lintworm - the Moholi Bushbaby enclosure in its nocturnal mode.
@MagpieGoose - Crowned and Ring-tailed Lemur enclosure. When the photo was taken, it held talapoins. From memory of my visit last year, it has become a
lot more dense since the monkeys left for the lemurs. The mesh walls offer a fair amount of climbing.
@Robaque - lemur indoor area, again when it still held talapoins. I don't remember seeing it last year, so am purely guessing here, but presumably the lemurs still have access to it much like the monkeys once did, merely it is offshow?
Not depicted in the gallery is the enclosure for another major rarity: the Garnett's Greater Bushbaby. It's a daylit enclosure, fairly tall but not that large, with limited climbing but plenty of privacy. Not sure how many are kept as I couldn't see any on my visit, but I'd suspect for a smaller number it's sufficient.
Dja Reserve:
@MagpieGoose - the stupendously big Western Gorilla indoor area, housing a family group and shared with colobus. The biggest and best indoor area I've seen (possibly in Europe?).
@twilighter - the outdoors, again ridiculously big (one of Europe's largest) albeit a little sprase in places. Hopefully this improves with time as the enclosure is still quite new, and the amount of climbing on offer is brilliant.
The other primate enclosures here are not depicted in the gallery. The new Gabon Talapoin enclosure is quite good (shared with porcupines), and the De Brazza's Monkey enclosure (shared with RRH) is even better.
Something no photos demonstrate about Dja is the amount of planting and conservation-related theming present in the very clean and modern interior of the building. I understand criticisms that a lot of this space could've been devoted to animals and is wasted on this, but I personally really liked it. I mentioned in my review that it's the area of Prague that reminded me most of Zürich, and to anyone who has been to the latter collection I think that's the best way to describe it.
Rock Outcrop:
@Jana - home to Barbary Macaques. One of the best zoo exhibits on the planet. The drop really is as sheer and tall as it looks.
@MagpieGoose - alternative view.
@Kalaw - view from above.
@Rhino00 - a macaque making use of it.
There is a genuine argument to be made that this enclosure exceeds the best of Chester (which I would deem as being the two orangutan complexes). The opportunity to observe a macaque making use of such an extreme setting and demonstrating behaviours hard to replicate elsewhere is arguably worth a point in and of itself.
Méfou Centre:
@FunkyGibbon - the old gorilla enclosure at Prague now holds a bachelor group while the family live in Dja. For just a few individuals it is perfectly sizable, and very pretty with the rolling hills and all the trees. Could do with a little more climbing though.
@Robaque - bachelor group indoors. Under construction on my visit so I can't comment on it, but unless said reconstructions improved it drastically it's pretty mediocre, and presumably a large part in the decision to create a new home to the family group.
Water World and Monkey Islands:
As the two-part name of this very large complex suggests, WWAMI is a delightful corner of Prague Zoo where a series of moats and streams (presumably running into the Vltava) are used to create several charming islands, used by hoofstock, waterfowl, and of course various primates. For the latter in particular (which is of course all that counts here) this area truly is excellent, offering most of the species access to a network of very tall and living trees which is so rarely done these days.
@Kalaw - the best of the islands for me holds a very choice taxa: the Mexican Spider Monkey.
@Robaque - Silvery Gibbon island.
@Chapman'szebra - a portion of the squirrel monkey island.
Sadly, the Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur island, which is also very good, isn't photographed in the gallery.
Lemur Island:
@Maguari - the Ring-tailed Lemur walkthrough. Large and pretty with a curious indoor area.
I did all of this only to realise that I have already written up an overview for Prague's primates in the Wroclaw thread and just wasted all that time!
Oh well, it's always fun to go through photos of the best zoo in the world regardless. In future matches, for categories where I've already given a Prague overview, I hope it will be okay for me to simply link those should nobody else want to provide such a description themselves.
Chester has more species, more exceptional exhibits, fewer mediocre enclosures and better in-situ conservation involvement. It's very hard to vote against them! However, I think Prague merits not one but two consolatory points for the following reasons:
- world-class Barbary Macaque enclosure in a setting replicated by so few zoos for primates.
- one of the best executions of the very ubiquitous 'primate islands' concept to be seen anywhere.
- among Europe's best gorilla enclosures which I'd say surpasses Chester's chimp island by far (but not the orangutans).
- arguably a more novel roster, with three species of bushbabies, Sunda Slow Loris and Mexican Spider Monkey (not that Chester is lacking in primate rarities).
- numerous breeding successes with both gorillas and orangs over the years, the first in Czechia for both instances.
This is one of those instances where 3-2 is just about a perfect ratio in my opinion and I'm pleased to see that everyone so far has gone of the same scoreline.
