As I will note when I manage to write about my trip to Bavaria, when I went to Tierpark Hellabrunn they had both Drill and Mandrill displayed in close proximity - quite the interesting sight!
I checked the map in my guidebook from that first trip to Chester in '89, and the three enclosures appear, although empty. (They wouldn't have been there if demolished recently of course). They were very small weren't they?
As was the old monkey house, at least, that's my memory of it. Intimate. And absolutely riddled with mice. Not everything was better in the old days!
Year ago I attended a Meeting on the NEZS I have been a member for many years )when there was an attempt to remove Michael Brambell as Director . One of many criticisms levelled was that lar gibbons had been housed in one of these pens , with the lack of proper heating in the indoor housing being totally inadequate for a tropical species .
As I will note when I manage to write about my trip to Bavaria, when I went to Tierpark Hellabrunn they had both Drill and Mandrill displayed in close proximity - quite the interesting sight!
I thought nowadays Zoos were discouraged/not allowed to keep both in order to minimise any risk of hybridisation. Strange that Munich have both as I think they are the SB holders of Drill, though they only got them quite recently, the two females coming from Port Lympne. As they were already the SB holders they were probably able to fast track their own allocation...
I remember somewhere in Europe in the late 60's seeing a large group of Drill/Mandrill hybrids- cannot remember where though(it could have been Munich- or one of Hanover or Hamburg or Duisburg maybe.)
They aren't housed in a situation where the two taxa can intermingle; moreover I have a feeling the collection is in the process of going out of Mandrill as there appeared to be only a single male, whilst ZTL reports they had a full group as of last year. There are a decent number of Drill on display, however.
Probably replaced Mandrill with the rarer Drills then. They certainly weren't listed in the 1990's Studbook I had access too. I don't know why they became the new Drill studbook keeper if they didn't have any...( it used to be Hanover I think.
