I don't envisage London taking on Orangs in the next 20 years if ever. It just doesn't seem the sort of thing they'd do. A city zoo like London always wants to maintain a really big diversity to keep visitors happy and so one great ape is enough- especially when that is a gorilla. Same goes for Bristol I'd say.
ZSL London Zoo Londo Zoo 'ZooWorld'
- Thread starter Pertinax
- Start date
Bristol have applied to keep Sumatran Orangutans again- but it will be in the new Environmental Park, not on the Clifton Zoo site.
Some of the documentary footage of the near-demise of London Zoo at the start of the 90s showed staff explaining that, out of all the apes, the orangs had been chosen as the ones to leave as visitors percieved them as lethargic and 'sad'. It really is only in the last couple of years that any collection has really learnt to exhibit orangs appropriately, still these are few and far between.
Yeah, sorry, I meant on the actual orginal city site.
I know what you mean about orang-utans, and I've seen the Bristol and Twycross ones. I think it can be a kind of downward spiral with inactivity and weight issues. I am interested that you often say Sumatran are more active- I wonder why? I guess Chester is the best place to test that theory with nearly identical exhibits for both species.
I think i've said it before, but I don't expect the Zooworld exhibit to change for a while now. The interior is quite developed; it seems finished and permenant. How long has it been like that? I seem to think they were building it in my 2005 visit to the zoo, but back then they had small monkeys on the inside instead of birds. I think that was to do with Clore overspill at the time as there was also building work soon to begin there.
It's just that it feels like a dated visitor experience largely because of the acoustics, and with wild birds entering the building, the sound of starlings or sparrows would accentuate this. Every gate closed or sweep of an elephant's trunk would create quite an echo, not to mention the voices of visitors. If they can plant out in any way and fill some of the dens with substrate I think it would go some way towards providing an immersion exhibit. Certainly it would be suitable for smaller ungulates, and the bearded pigs are a good example. I'm surprised the moats haven't been replaced with low-impact fences and extended out.
Have the Bearded pigs really been permanently prevented from breeding? Aren't they extremely rare in captivity?
I'm sure this is the last thing anybody here would want, but I would personally like to see it emptied of all livestock and preserved in its orginial, barren state, with statues of the elephants no longer alive who served time in this building, as a kind of museum piece to reflect on the distance achieved between the Zoo today and the zoo 20 years ago. Kind of like the penguin pool is just now maintained as a piece of architecture.
Have the Bearded pigs really been permanently prevented from breeding? Aren't they extremely rare in captivity?
I'm sure this is the last thing anybody here would want, but I would personally like to see it emptied of all livestock and preserved in its orginial, barren state, with statues of the elephants no longer alive who served time in this building, as a kind of museum piece to reflect on the distance achieved between the Zoo today and the zoo 20 years ago. Kind of like the penguin pool is just now maintained as a piece of architecture.
Yes, I agree with that- they become inactive and lazy with no incentive to climb- in captivity,food is always supplied at ground level, not up a tree or high platform,- so why bother to climb?
Regarding Sumtran versus Bornean activity levels- I can't explain it fully but I've noticed it time and time again... At Chester, the Sumatrans currently live in a family group with offspring, while the Borneans on show at present are adult females. So that could also create some differences but I'm sure there's more to it than that. Sumatrans are usually slimmer than Borneans and they do seem generally more active in captivity.
Writhedhornbill
Well-Known Member
Bearded pigs are quite rare in captivity yes, only four or five U.S zoos house the species, London, a few european collections, and singapore. There will probably be a few more asian zoos that house them.
The main problem is it was designed to house the World's largest mammals, so anything else looks miniscule in that setting. It is a real 'problem' building.
Exacty. That's why I think it would make such a good museum piece, especially with life-sized statues of some of its former residents, it would really give you an idea of how the whole building was designed around these animals. There really isn't any hope in diguising that amount of concrete with vegetation indoors, without plenty of light any substrate kept moist will attract all sorts of fungus, or if allowed to dry out will just become very dusty. There's something slightly eerie to me in seeing half-hearted tropical theming in dry indoor spaces, when tropical forest is characterised by constant moisture on the ground and in the air. Outdoors would really benefit from huge mounds of topsoil being dumped over the entire area, and planting out with trees. I'm sure these would make superior spaces for say, tapir or bearded pig as the trees mature, and modern, low-impact sleeping quarters could be erected outside. But the interior, for me, really should not be disguised as anything but a brutalist monolith designed to dramatise the physical presence of our largest land mammals, only with statues and history replacing living specimens. While some innovation of older buildings at regents park is absolute genuis, in other parts it would be really good to see london zoo engage with its history more through some of the buildings it is forced to maintain.
Maybe...
...but wouldn't the average zoo guest just say, "I didn't see good money to see a fake elephant!".
Would it be feasible to create an exhibit on animal species that live in caves? Its a big concrete cavern with an echo, how hard can it be? I'm not sure what species to use in such a case (maybe Marhkor in what is now the camel paddock, fish, reptiles, amphibians and bats inside).
Its just I can see what you mean about the fake rainforest looking very false in a building not designed for it...hard to achieve the right atmosphere.
i like the idea of zooworld but i think its stupid for london zoo to try and plant out the interior or anything like that. better to just jazz it up with more small mammal, bird and herpes exhibit and tie it all together like that.
in a space restricted site like London Zoo it is inevitable that the exterior Casson paddocks will always have something in them. but i do like the idea of turning it into a museum. maybe thats what zooworld could be. the inside could focus on the contemporary role of zoos, and the exterior maintained as a reminder of the pas.
in Sydney, Taronga Zoos landmark Elephant Temple, a listed building, has been converted into a museum. a steel plate catwalk takes vistors right inside the old den areas, where fantastic graphics compare and contrast the story of elephant keeping in zoos.
this idea could be applied equally well to London Zoo.
in a space restricted site like London Zoo it is inevitable that the exterior Casson paddocks will always have something in them. but i do like the idea of turning it into a museum. maybe thats what zooworld could be. the inside could focus on the contemporary role of zoos, and the exterior maintained as a reminder of the pas.
in Sydney, Taronga Zoos landmark Elephant Temple, a listed building, has been converted into a museum. a steel plate catwalk takes vistors right inside the old den areas, where fantastic graphics compare and contrast the story of elephant keeping in zoos.
this idea could be applied equally well to London Zoo.
Bristol zoo were similarly unfortunate in having to maintain an exhibit suitable for no animals. Their problem was slightly different, but they solved it by converting their ex-monkey temple in the Smarty Plants area. It was quite a good idea really. Obviously it wouldn't work with the Casson Pavillion but it was the same kind of problem.
i can remember when Bristol Zoo's monkey temple had the Rhesus monkey colony living in it. Sometimes in the evenings a monkey or two could be seen running around on top of the perimeter wall- but they never seemed to do it in the daytime when there were visitors about....
So you mean, they could escape but chose not to?
I can imagine that actually. It would fit quite well, just a shame it couldn't have a more animal based use. What a dire building.
Apparently so... maybe they didn't want to mix with visitors. It was only the odd one or two that seemed to do it.