Monsoon forest

Sulawesi macaque indoor enclosure. Trees are behind the netting but outer leaves make a tasty snack!

I didn\'t get a wider shot but the area is very large and high with multiple tree trunks (fake and real), rock work, ropes and overhanging roots to allow incredible enrichment opportunity and full use of the spacious exhibit.

There has been some debate about this enclosure as viewed from the secondary viewing window. This is the primary viewpoint offering a more natural backdrop. Once the planting has matured to cover the vents and walls I think it will create the look and feel of a 'monsoon forest'. As you can see the macaques are already enjoying climbing the mesh and stripping some of the leaves that can be accessed through the mesh, which actually gave the illusion they were in the tree. I can't see it would be possible to have any live trees or planting in this exhibit unless it was regularly replaced. The macaques had already stripped a lot of the bark off the tree trunks having only been in here for a week. One option for indoors could be to use a thorny plant like holly, which they have used outdoors, to bring some greenery inside but not sure how this would fair indoors?

I would say from a visitor point of view I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibit. Showing true zoo chat dedication (obsession?) I returned 3 times and watched the macaques for a cumulative total of over an hour. In this time they made full use of every aspect of the space - swinging from the hanging straps, climbing the rock faces and trees and as can be seen on the pic using the mesh to access the plants.

Once the new breeding male is added to the group (there are currently 11 females and 2 juvenile males with 6 older males off show) the group will hopefully soon expand to 20+ and offer an even more stimulating display.

ChesterZooFan said:

There has been some debate about this enclosure as viewed from the secondary viewing window. This is the primary viewpoint offering a more natural backdrop. . . . . Once the new breeding male is added to the group (there are currently 11 females and 2 juvenile males with 6 older males off show) the group will hopefully soon expand to 20+ and offer an even more stimulating display.

Click to expand...

I agree with all these comments.
The other thing that strikes me is that this indoor enclosure is large and the outdoor one is huge. There will still be plenty of space if the group doubles in size, and they are such an active animals that they will make a good show.

Alan

There will come a time when this current style of placing abundant fake rock elements all over exhibits will fall out of fashion and favour. I wonder how the current advocates of this style will judge this exhibit then; most likely, it will appear to them like Tropical World now looks to most of us now.