The rainforest section in the new bird house, opened in summer 2011. In this big and lush exhibit lives among others crowned pigeons, bali starlings and Nicobar pigeons.
The rainforest section in the new bird house, opened in summer 2011. In this big and lush exhibit lives among others crowned pigeons, bali starlings and Nicobar pigeons.
Reminds me of the tragic mistake made in the legendary Roberts House in Dublin Zone of the most wonderful zoo buildings to reach us from the nineteenth century and it was refurbished as a sort of walk-through aviary complete with sprinklers , misting systems etc. All the years spent successfully keeping the elements out and keeping the building shipshape and then somebody installed jungle vegetation and sprinklers.Hold that image in your mind for a moment.What would happen in a regular family house if soil was scattered on the floor , jungle plants were rooted and watered with a hosepipe and sprinklers? I can not believe there is not widespread outrage over this kind of mindless vandalism of the zoo heritage.I always said the Roberts House should never have been touched.As it was not suited to modern standards of zoo husbandry, it should just have been polished up & would have been the most spectacular shop / cafeteria / bar / exhibition area. Imagine drinking your Martini inside the old leopard cages - I mentioned this idea to people & they said they would have paid any money - it would have been the most stylish café in Ireland by a long shot.Now it is a humdrum & not very good walk-through aviary ridden with damp & rot.I hope Artis have not made a similarly horrific mistake.
@European Fauna; You might be right, I have never been to Dublin zoo, but this certainly sounds like to house you refer too. It was a historic bird/primate house but now.. I don't like it very much. It's the only house I have visited that has a queve line to get in. There are some free flying animals in the house(monkeys, etc etc) the bird section is moderate, looks nice if you don't know better, but I would have kept the old structure which fits in my opinion with the zoo.
@European Fauna, maybe you should visit this house before "breaking it down". This place isn't very humid or warm, there are no misting systems etc. It is a very nice place to be with modern zookeeping together with very nice old architecture.
