No indoor viewing means more privacy. The mandrills are allowed indoors sometimes during the day but as you can imagine it takes a lot of time, patience and wits to move 26 + mandrills out outside to enable keepers to clean up. (they make a hell of a mess!) This is the main reason why Colchester do leave them outside for most of the day. I am not saying it takes all day to clean up!
SHOCK HORROR Colchester give a species on off show area to give them some privacy,is the zoo feeling alright as most of the other species don`t have that luxury!
I doubt it was more than just a matter of the nature of the site dictating what design they came up with. In the 'newer' part of the zoo the layout is such that nearly all the inside areas are offshow at the back of the enclosures, whereas in the older part of the zoo nearly everything has indoor viewing areas. As I said previously, I do prefer the latter where the animals can have 'free choice' whether they go indoors or out- better for the animals, better for the visitors.
I'm not a regular visitor there nowadays so I'm not sure exactly when the different exhibits in 'Edge of Africa' were built. From memory the Mandrill and Hyaena ones were done about ten years ago. The Warthog (and Cranes) wasn't there on my previous visit seven years ago. The Colobus(almost brand new?), Cheetah, Red River Hog etc are newer still- a 'regular' could probably give a more accurate timeline.
Hyaena enclosure and mandrill was completed around early 2000s. The warthog and cheetah were completed probably around a couple of months afterwards I think? The colobus, crane and red river hog exhibit were finished last In around 2005.This is only a rough estimate so sorry if the dates are slightly out.
Hyaena enclosure and mandrill was completed around early 2000s. The warthog and cheetah were completed probably around 11 months afterwards? The colobus, crane and red river hog exhibit were finished last in 2002/2003? This is only a rough estimate so sorry if the dates are slightly out.
"Edge of Africa" was a 4 year long course. It began in 1999 with the hynea and mandrill enclosures then the cheetah and warthog enlosures and finishing in 2003 with the black and white colobus monkeys, cranes and red river hogs.
