Sorry but I've looked through the pics and we can't actually see any of the cage apart from the area around the chimps body. How can we assume this is a horrible place?
Well the den looks very dingy from the other pics but so did Edinburgh's old chimp house and that was fine. And if the zoo was overall terrible then I don't think the elephant would be on grass.
Hmmm. There is something rather dodgy about what you have written here, Dan. I'm sure you will use the (possibly valid) excuse that English is not your first language, but even so - be careful, please, about damning a whole continent and its zoos.
I have been to a number of African zoos. Some have been ghastly - really, really poor- but some have been good, and some have been amongst the best I have ever seen.
These have primarily been smaller, specialist places, and of course a zoo in the Congo, or Cameroon, is a very different beast to one in Sweden, but do not be quite so dismissive - there are some good places out there.
I hope it is not too self-indulgent to post a link to something which I wrote the best part of a decade ago, about zoos in Tanzania. it may (or may not) be of interest...
Nothing pleases me more than to be proven mistaken in matters like these, so I sincerely appreciate your post and it makes me very curious.
So some African zoos are amongst the best zoos you have seen? If so, that is great news (and I am in no way trying to be ironic, here - I am deadly serious). I would honestly love to know more about it. Maybe you would like to write some more on the subject and - as always on this site - pictures would be very welcome.
But might we just - and, again, I am asking a very serious question here - be comparing apples and oranges?
You use the phrase "...smaller, specialist places...". Are those places "zoos" as we generally know them, or privately owned places where an idealist is trying to do something good? (You know what I mean... I have seen hundreds of TV documentaries on that subject.) Not "zoos" as such, with an entrance gate and people daily visiting, paying entrance fees?
I will readily admit that I am an "armchair debater" (English? ) while you have actually travelled Africa - all the more reason for me to be genuinely interested in your views and observations.
Believe me, all the cages and enclosures are in very bad condition in that zoo. Exception the duikers and the lonely forest elephant enclosure, because these animals are kept like a cows. It's means nothing special just put the animals to somewhere for feed the grass.
The chimps are without enough and good food, sometimes without drinking water, kept in cement floor, no climbing option (except the fence)...
I think nobody can rescue these chimps, because all of the African (and European) sanctuarys are full with great apes....
I visited Abidjan Zoo in 1975 and I would not be surprised if it has not changed much since. The economy and governance of Cote d'Ivoire have been in difficulty for many years. The zoo was once a prestige project, but that had changed when I visited. This is no reflection on the staff at the zoo, but Abidjan has always been an unusual place - when I was there it boasted the only ice rink between Jo'burg and Cairo!
I have been to a number of African zoos. Some have been ghastly - really, really poor- but some have been good, and some have been amongst the best I have ever seen.
Sooty Mangabey what zoos in Africa have you been to!? Which ones were best and which ones weren't great.
Also does anyone know if there are any gems at the Abidjan Zoo?? Water Chevrotain, Zebra Duiker or some other rare species of Duiker? Anyone have any clue if there are any captive members of these species in West Africa?
