Hamburg Zoo,
What a treat and l nearly missed it!
A expensive zoo $25 Euro plus parking $3.50, however worth every cent!
Entering through the entrance, not the grand original entrance located inside the park. You are greeted by attendants dressed in smart coordinated pants, sports coat and hat, very formal compared with all other zoos. I think this makes a great impression for zoo visitors that his place is something special.
After entering l first encountered the confronting sight of about 8 Asian elephants 3-50 years old all being fed by the public, they were all lined up very orderly stretching out over a moat, to be fed by the public, who had purchased food from a vendor closer to the entrance to the zoo, l had noticed this but was genuinely unsure of what they were doing, it is staffed by volunteers and had no signs in English.
The public were loving this the elephants loved it as a treat and thee were 2 keepers standing back from the elephants making sure they remained orderly and that a couple of much younger elephants did not access the food given by the public.
It turned out that there were at least 10 other exhibits around the zoo that you could feed the animals, mostly farm animals but also baboons!
The zoo is very well laid out in a numbered fashion and you simply follow the signs numbered 1 -80, I really liked the concept and so did allot of the families that l overheard.
The next exhibit of note was the giant otter exhibit, such a disappointment to see these great animals in a small exhibit with a small pool!
The zoo has allot of non access to the public grass areas, with all sorts of birds, small deer and rodents wandering around.
The walruses had a decent exhibit with great public viewing windows, the last walruses l saw was last year at a solitary animal in a small enclosure.
At Hamburg are two species and excellent viewing windows that really show how they are designed for sea not land! There was 1 there that seemed enormous! Amazing to observe l could have taxed for hours.
This polar area of the zoo is relatively new and okay for the walrus, the penguins are in very small areas, the seals also relatively small. It's the polar bears, that really have the worst new enclosure built this decade. It is really small no natural substrate and no area for hem to not be able to see each other. It is designed so you can sit and watch the walrus show and it true Hagenbeck style see the Polar Bear in the background. Just really disappointing the welfare of the bears was not considered......
A very large green winged macaw aviary with 20 birds was amazing to watch as they flew around the aviary! Interestingly they spent allot of time on the ground. I wish more zoos had this exhibit it really showed the birds very well, allot more inspiring that the clipped wings on a branch.....
The famous panorama shot of Flamingoes then Zebra then Lions was actually a little emotional to see, l can remember reading about this exhibit 35 ago!
I also remember being fascinated by the graphs in the book that showed that Mr Hagenbeck had measured how far and high each animal could go, and all this as visible at the zoo
The zoo has also spent resources on ensuring that many of the non animal views around the zoo were photogenic lakes and Asian themes ect.
The zoo does have plenty of faults but overall l had a ball and did not want to leave.
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