The Heart of Darkness. I can only quote Mr Kurtz's dying words 'The horror! The horror!'
To be completely fair, I have once seen worse - the orang toilet at Cologne of similar date. I am sure that this was the exhibit which was so memorably and movingly described, but not named, by Gerald Durrell in The Stationary Ark.
Not the first time this building has been discussed on here and it always arouses negative comment. It was truly terrible. Modelled on Dudley's, which turn was modelled (to an extent) on the 1940's Bronx Great Apes building. Each was smaller than its template before.
Not the first time this building has been discussed on here and it always arouses negative comment. It was truly terrible. Modelled on Dudley's, which turn was modelled (to an extent) on the 1940's Bronx Great Apes building. Each was smaller than its template before.
Yes and I remember what a fuss was made of it when it was built. How modern it was and how wonderful it was! It just shows how much
our concepts of what is acceptable have changed drastically over the years.
I have always said some of the strongest zoo critics are actually the zoo keepers themselves!!
When I visited Chessington with my parents in 1970 (I think) I thought this house was absolutely marvellous. The following year I saw Dudley's for the first time and thought it was not as good as Chessington's - I think I was seduced by the latter's brickwork.
This house was similar design too. There were two or three small outdoor islands mainly used by the 'top' exhibits- the two pairs of Eastern Lowland Gorillas and the Bonobos. Other animals in this overstocked house, e,g. Orangutans and a pair of Lowland Gorillas, lived almost entirely indoors due to lack of outdoor space. (I have it on good authority the Lowland Gorilla pair never went outside in all their adult lives there.) At least Chessington's allowed all the inhabitants daily fresh air- no such luxury in this Antwerp House.
As I commented on that thread, that island was originally considerably larger - you can see parts of it in my photos of the graueri gorillas that previously lived there. Bad as this was, the Cologne orang enclosure was much worse. It was only a little larger than a typical toilet (or your second toilet if you live in a big house) and it had no outdoor section at all: it held a fully adult male
