ZSL Whipsnade Zoo Whipsnade

Does anyone here know what zoos have the state of the art bear enclosures in Europe? And what is considered as a great enclosure for bears today?
( i'm no bear expert)
 
I think one can build groups of behaviorally compatible bears. Especially I would think that related animals (like mother+daughter or siblings). But this is not automatic and animals would need to be monitored to notice their real behavior towards each other.

I have a feeling that many zoo keepers don't notice that their bears dislike each other and spend hours avoiding contact.

It looks like bears wandering aimlessly around. Then you notice that when dominant bear moves, subordinate immediately starts moving away. And again, and again. Subordinate may not rest for hours, e.g. float in a water pool and go out only when dominant takes a bath. Or bear sits hours in a corner or steretypies at the fence, just sometimes nervously looks at another.

Good zoos in Europe... Rhenen in Netherlands for both polar and brown, Bern and tiny park Herberstein in Switzerland... They simply fenced a bit of forest. I think there should be good enclosures in city zoos, too, with real ground, grass, bushes and trees.
 
Pertinax said:
I reckon Whipsnade's Bear enclosure, though old, is still about as good as they come in the UK. Spacious and with plenty of vegetation, and I think only three bears using it so not too crowded and they can retreat from each other. This seems to be an early exhibit that has lasted well with very little renovation..
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I would agree that for its age, Whipsnade has a damn good bear enclosure. The factors that work for it - mostly one side of viewing, several compatible bears sharing, alot of natural vegetation, differing heights so that bears can get out of sight if they choose to, and space!

Having worked with several brown and sun bears in the past, all had problems with stereotypics from time to time, apart from a sun bear that, at the time, was kept by himself in a large planted enclosure.

The simple large enclosures usually work the best - too often architects want to overengineer things. I would dearly love to get into Europe and see some of the fenced-in forest exhibits because I think they are the only way forward to keeping large intelligent carnivores.
 
johnstoni said:
The bears at Woburn, and to some extent dartmoor would be less stimulated I feel if kept singly, or without other species. Does anyone know why they stopped keeping red foxes with the brown bears at Dartmoor? Possibly it wasn't so beneficial for the foxes. I have not been to South Lakes, but wonder if the enclosure is a little 'busy' with tapir, otter and coati all sharing the space with five adult spectacled bears?
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I believe that the now-deceased male bear at Dartmoor was 'incompatible' with the foxes, and thus they stayed in their burrows while he was out. Never sounded like a good idea in such a small space.

Not sure about South Lakes as the bears were imminent when I last visited. Unless they enlarged the exhibit which at the time had tapir, coati and maybe agoutis sharing, then I would agree that it would be asking for problems. I have seen Jersey's spec bear exhibit and I quite like it. Bears and coatis seem to behave themselves, and the previous tenants the short-clawed otters were mostly fine too. If memory serves me right the male otter was nobbled (permanently) by one of the bears because it was too bold. Wasn't convinced on the idea with the howlers, but more from concern of mixing with coatis.
 
tetrapod said:
I believe that the now-deceased male bear at Dartmoor was 'incompatible' with the foxes, and thus they stayed in their burrows while he was out. Never sounded like a good idea in such a small space.
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I don't think he died, his name is Ben and he was there a couple of months back, apparently breeding with the younger female due to loosing the weight he put on after eating loads of peanuts the public used to feed him.
The foxes were in there for years, maybe there was some other reason they were removed?
 
For a while, and several years into its existence, the bear enclosure at Dartmoor was called 'Bruins wood', when it was a mixed-species display of Brown bears and red foxes. My feeling is that the foxes obviously bred well at some point and couldn't all be kept in that cobbled pit adjacent to the original bear pit. I'm not sure why they no longer hold them with the brown bears, as the remaining foxes now all live in the 'fox pit', although I've heard it has been improved slightly by the new owners. I guess there must have been aggression from the bears. I wouldn't say the bear area is a particularly small space, it's not as if the bears really utilised much of it until recently when they stopped begging for peanuts, and they are fairly old.

I haven't been there for 10 years but there appears now to be some kind of second enclosure for the bears behind the public one...was this some kind of extension?
 
Has anyone over there seen Zurichs exhibit for spectacled bears and coatis. Is it any good 'cos on Zoolex it looks great.
 
The spectacled bear enclosures in Zurich is one of the best enclosures in Zurich and one of the best bear enclosures (apart from some "fenced forests") I have ever seen. The 3 enclosures are spacious, with lots of places to hide and full of natural vegetaion (trees, shrubs, ect). Just fantastic for both visitors and animals, with the little problem that the bears are not always visible.. I only saw one at feeding time in the afternoon.
 
Zurich Spectacled Bears

Yassa- are Zurich's Spectacled Bear enclosures old style Bear 'grottoes' or terraces that have since been remodelled/planted up- or are they new enclosures designed specially for these bears? (Spectacled are definately my favourite bears...:))
 
johnstoni said:
I haven't been there for 10 years but there appears now to be some kind of second enclosure for the bears behind the public one...was this some kind of extension?
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I've seen this extension on the map of the zoo too. I wondered weather or not the bears actually use it. Maybe it's incase they breed and need to house the male somwhere else?
 
ashley-h said:
I don't think he died, his name is Ben and he was there a couple of months back, apparently breeding with the younger female due to loosing the weight he put on after eating loads of peanuts the public used to feed him.
The foxes were in there for years, maybe there was some other reason they were removed?
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My understanding was that if the male could catch them he would. As to which bear died I may got a little confused (I was probably thinking of Welsh Mountain). I also haven't visited in over ten years, so it will be interesting to see what changes occur with the new owners.
 
Whipsnade Chimpanzee escape.

Does anyone know if its been explained publicly why the two old Chimps at Whipsnade escaped from their enclosure. It seems to have been a news 'blackout' from what I can see. Was it a human error...?

I'd also be interested to know if the surviving female 'Coco' has been allowed to mix with the main group now.
 
Pertinax said:
Does anyone know if its been explained publicly why the two old Chimps at Whipsnade escaped from their enclosure. It seems to have been a news 'blackout' from what I can see. Was it a human error...?

I'd also be interested to know if the surviving female 'Coco' has been allowed to mix with the main group now.
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I aske this a while ago, but it got swamped by the bear posts;)

I would also be interested to know what happened...
 
CZJimmy said:
I aske this a while ago, but it got swamped by the bear posts;)

I would also be interested to know what happened...
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It was your post that reminded me though I've been curious about it ever since it happened. I don't even know which part of the enclosure they escaped from but I think it was probably the indoor 'chimpnasium' area as this is where I saw them and think they were probably living in there almost permanently... at 10 a.m they would have been ready to be on show.
pure speculation but I'm wondering if a door was left unlocked....
 
When I visited, there were 2 chimps in the orginal chimp cage (the one similar in appearance to the old Sobell cages) so I assume these were the eventual escapees (i visited in late 2006, before the escape). So they had some outdoor access.

Perhaps a door into the 'chimpnasium' was left open, or there may have been a fault with the cage...
 
When I saw them they(Jony & Coco) were in the 'chimpnasium', while the larger group were in the old small outdoor cage without access to the Island. I guess this pair had access to the old outdoor cage when the group were using the island.

It is only speculation but I feel it was unlikely to have been a concentrated escape effort on their part, more likely a 'walkout'... ;)
 
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