Mixed species exhibits
- Thread starter Al
- Start date
- Status
Sun
I'm afraid I was a little hasty with this one......should have waited until I had seen it for myself!!
The Siamangs and anoas share an exhibit BUT not an enclosure. See link.
Marwell: Get Involved: The Gibbon Appeal
Apologies for incorrect info .....looks like LA still remains only one.
D
I'm afraid I was a little hasty with this one......should have waited until I had seen it for myself!!
The Siamangs and anoas share an exhibit BUT not an enclosure. See link.
Marwell: Get Involved: The Gibbon Appeal
Apologies for incorrect info .....looks like LA still remains only one.
D
Writhedhornbill
Well-Known Member
Chester did the "anoa-babirusa thing" when they first got Babirusa in 1998.
zoogiraffe
Well-Known Member
The tapir died of natural causes,you could say very natural if you know what i mean,but they are all still mixed nothing has been taken out.I think the male bear killed a tapir recently in that enclosure, so not sure they are still mixed......
Have heard of South American exhibits which mix tapir, capybara, vicuna/ guanaco, rhea, mara with maned wolves and giant anteaters (somewhere in France I think) which can work if enough escape space but I think the addition of potentially large and aggressive carnivores like bears can be dangerous. I suppose it can work with smaller animals that can escape into crevices, etc.
Have also heard of polar bears being mixed with arctic foxes (again with escape holes for foxes) which worked (can't remember exactly where this was but place also tried to mix brown bears with red foxes and the foxes repeatedly jumped out of enclosure into moat (which the arctic foxes didn't do).
Didn't colchester also mix lions and meerkats? (also predicatable outcome).
Meerkats are mixed with Zebra and Lechwe at Newquay quite successfully.
I'd imagine it would've been the congo buffalo enclosure on the opposite side... (bongorob, correct me if i'm wrong)
I'm not a great fan of mixed species exhibits: it's a good idea in principle, but the devil is in the detail. The only off-beam one I have seen recently that may work is the maned wolves and giant anteater at Edinburgh - it's quite a large paddock and as neither species seems to use it much (at least when there are visitors around) it appears to be quite successful.
Alan
Alan
I think zoos should be very careful to make sure that the individuals of each species come along with each other without putting one species under permanent stress.
What seems to work really well is the combination of orang utans with short-clawed otter or orang utan and gibbons. I`ve seen great interactions and play between a female gibbon and orang utan kids in Leipzig Zoo. In Gaiapark Kerkrade in the Netherlands, the combination of gorillas with black mangabeys works great too. The mangabeys are playing with the baby gorilla and jump on the lap of the (gorilla) mother! Gorillas with de brazza monekys works very well in Duisburg, but with gorillas, it seems necessary to watch the reactions of the silverbacks towards smaller monekys very carefully, since Motaba in Melbourne killed one de brazza monkey. It will be interesting to see how the new Duisburg silverback Mapena reacts to them, hopefully the de brazzas can continue to use the big habitat with the gorillas.
Mandrills and pygmy hippos did not come along with each other in Halle because the male mandrill was too agressive. Okapi and red duiker in contrary seems a conflict-free, great combination. It works well in Berlin and Leipzig.
Onager and camels can work, but it seems this depends very much on the character of the individuals. In Rotterdam, it failed permanently and the mongolian savanna is now seperated into 2 parts to keep the species apart.
What seems to work really well is the combination of orang utans with short-clawed otter or orang utan and gibbons. I`ve seen great interactions and play between a female gibbon and orang utan kids in Leipzig Zoo. In Gaiapark Kerkrade in the Netherlands, the combination of gorillas with black mangabeys works great too. The mangabeys are playing with the baby gorilla and jump on the lap of the (gorilla) mother! Gorillas with de brazza monekys works very well in Duisburg, but with gorillas, it seems necessary to watch the reactions of the silverbacks towards smaller monekys very carefully, since Motaba in Melbourne killed one de brazza monkey. It will be interesting to see how the new Duisburg silverback Mapena reacts to them, hopefully the de brazzas can continue to use the big habitat with the gorillas.
Mandrills and pygmy hippos did not come along with each other in Halle because the male mandrill was too agressive. Okapi and red duiker in contrary seems a conflict-free, great combination. It works well in Berlin and Leipzig.
Onager and camels can work, but it seems this depends very much on the character of the individuals. In Rotterdam, it failed permanently and the mongolian savanna is now seperated into 2 parts to keep the species apart.
Sun Wukong
Well-Known Member
@MARK & all: Sorry to interrupt Your questioning ArA, yet, please, please stop with that open-range zoo concept as "the" solution to everything going wrong in the zoo world: even there, You have plenty of clashes between different species. And even if the animals have a lot of "space" to avoid each other, You still end up with "bottleneck" situations at feeding lots or at the stable areas.
@Ara: Sorry, I have to dare to differ to that: if carefully planned ahead and with the animals calmly, competently & slowly introduced to each other, mixed species exhibits do not have to ultimately result in stress. Although several disadvantages, like possible, often not easily detectable permanent stress (the LA zoo made some interesting observations in regard to this-see MAMMALS IN CAPTIVITY), increased risk of interspecific illness/parasite transmission/ malnutrition (animals eating the food designed for the other species and iapt for them) or injuries due to "misunderstanding" (defensive behaviour of one species regarded as playful by other-see famous example Cat & Dog -tail waving) and often more elaborate exhibit design/ general care (f.e. seperated feeding) aka gentle lemur's "devil in the detail" should not be ignored, the interspecific display of animals can have several advantages. Mixed species exhibits can even imitate relationships of species in the wild, like the former Hulman langur & Barasingha Deer exhibit in Hannover, and can make zoo-life
more interesting & healthy not just for the visitors, but also for the animals (see lion-tailed macaques, otters & Orang-Utans in Münster Zoo).
The main problem You have with mixed-species exhibits is the unpredictability, which is often based on the individual characters of the animals kept together; a combination that works in one zoo (I think Melbourne has pygmy hippos & mandrills together), does not work in another (see Yassa's example of Halle), and sometimes combinations that seem to be working out fine can go horribly wrong from one second to another due to apparently no reasons (see the example of Basel-or the many, many more or less fatal accidents in the popular "African savannah" big ungulates exhibits worldwide.). Sometimes the reason why combis don't work can be laughable; I remember the tale of a small gazelle male in an European zoo that developed the habit to consider all females in its exhibits as its own-even giraffes and elands-and started to molest everyone...
There are two ways a "good" mixed species exhibit can be like:
1. The "great neighbourhood": positive interaction (f.e. Geladas & Barbary Sheep in Stuttgart Zoo)
2. The "anonymous apartment house corridor": the animals share the same exhibit, live happily along and don't actually interact much if at all with the other species (f.e. Hutias, Costa Rican squirrels & Azara's Agouti in Munich Zoo)
(BTW:Some zoo professionals even encourage the idea of putting (yet not permanently & unnecessarily!) stress on animals, especially on the ones planned to be reintroduced to make them "fit" for the wild (which happens to be quite a stressful place for a lot of species, especially the ones on the lower end of the food-chain...).)
@Ara: Sorry, I have to dare to differ to that: if carefully planned ahead and with the animals calmly, competently & slowly introduced to each other, mixed species exhibits do not have to ultimately result in stress. Although several disadvantages, like possible, often not easily detectable permanent stress (the LA zoo made some interesting observations in regard to this-see MAMMALS IN CAPTIVITY), increased risk of interspecific illness/parasite transmission/ malnutrition (animals eating the food designed for the other species and iapt for them) or injuries due to "misunderstanding" (defensive behaviour of one species regarded as playful by other-see famous example Cat & Dog -tail waving) and often more elaborate exhibit design/ general care (f.e. seperated feeding) aka gentle lemur's "devil in the detail" should not be ignored, the interspecific display of animals can have several advantages. Mixed species exhibits can even imitate relationships of species in the wild, like the former Hulman langur & Barasingha Deer exhibit in Hannover, and can make zoo-life
more interesting & healthy not just for the visitors, but also for the animals (see lion-tailed macaques, otters & Orang-Utans in Münster Zoo).
The main problem You have with mixed-species exhibits is the unpredictability, which is often based on the individual characters of the animals kept together; a combination that works in one zoo (I think Melbourne has pygmy hippos & mandrills together), does not work in another (see Yassa's example of Halle), and sometimes combinations that seem to be working out fine can go horribly wrong from one second to another due to apparently no reasons (see the example of Basel-or the many, many more or less fatal accidents in the popular "African savannah" big ungulates exhibits worldwide.). Sometimes the reason why combis don't work can be laughable; I remember the tale of a small gazelle male in an European zoo that developed the habit to consider all females in its exhibits as its own-even giraffes and elands-and started to molest everyone...
There are two ways a "good" mixed species exhibit can be like:
1. The "great neighbourhood": positive interaction (f.e. Geladas & Barbary Sheep in Stuttgart Zoo)
2. The "anonymous apartment house corridor": the animals share the same exhibit, live happily along and don't actually interact much if at all with the other species (f.e. Hutias, Costa Rican squirrels & Azara's Agouti in Munich Zoo)
(BTW:Some zoo professionals even encourage the idea of putting (yet not permanently & unnecessarily!) stress on animals, especially on the ones planned to be reintroduced to make them "fit" for the wild (which happens to be quite a stressful place for a lot of species, especially the ones on the lower end of the food-chain...).)
Last edited:
MARK
Well-Known Member
South Lakes have pictures of Mandrill and Pygmy hippo together on their website. The hippo is actually threat-yawning at the male Mandrill, so obviously not always a calm situation.
Thanks everyone for answering my questions.
Jurek, I think this is a very interesting combination and something I've often wondered about. I'm fairly sure it'd work, with the only problem being the silverback gorillas. I think it would work very well without the gorillas, if a big area was set aside for colobus, guenons, bongo, sitatunga, red river hog, congo buffalo and pygmy hippo. Would be especially nice if it could be viewed from a central pavillion with a 360 degrees view.
I think you asked about red pandas with mountain goats or takin. I'm sure there is a zoo that keeps red pandas with pheasants and muntjac. There could be some good Himalayan exhibits, such as cranes, muntjac, serow, takin and snub-nosed monkey or markhor, yak and bharal.
- Status