Thankyou for your reply. Please could you say why it is the Worst Croc enclosure in the UK, which specific parts are worse ?, is there anything that is done right ? Constructive opinions are always useful.
Long term its far to small for Nile Crocodiles,the water is also far to shallow for me it should be atleast another couple of feet deeper,if not more.Also from looking at it cannot be easy to work with the Crocs if any work is needed to be done in the exhibit,as the area the staff have to be able to work with is not great,which I guess could make it interest when trying to confine them to the what I'm guessing is a holding area,particularly if one of them starts to jump as I'm pretty certain they could clear the barrier at the back where the staff would be!!Also all the surfaces are hard,yes I know there is bark chipping down,but its not going to be a depth of much more than a few inches,you will be surprised how much crocodiliians will dig given the chance,they certainly do when nest building.Finally the from what I have seen the water isn't heated due to the fact that there are Goldfish in the water.
Thanks for your reply zoogiraffe. You are completely right in saying the enclosure is too small long term but it will not be a long term home for the Nile's. The pool is just over 3ft at the deepest point and is heated to min 25C. The fish you saw are Malawi and Barombi cichlids. Managing the crocs at the moment is relatively simple, the intention is to target train them and I will hopefully be working with Shaun Fogget to establish this. The bark chippings are approx 5 inches deep and although I appreciate that a far deeper substrate is necessary for nest making, at this time the crocs are no where near the age when this becomes an issue. I really appreciate your comments and opinion as I'm sure you will agree that as keepers we should all constantly aim to provide quality husbandry standards for the animals in our collections.
Not a problem,while I will never be the greatest fan of this place,I do like to see a place grow and develop hopefully improving its enclosure and the quality of how things look to the public,but more importantly for the animals themselves.Do you now which sub-species of Nile Crocodiles that they are,as depending on which sub-species they are depends on if you have something that will grow to around 8-9 feet or a 14-15 feet monster or anything in between?3 foot would have been my guess for the depth of the pool still say it needs to be deeper.As for the fish my mind had wandered back to when the place got its American Alligators,as the pool certainly had Goldfish in it then!!
To be perfectly honest I'm not sure about the sub species but will do my best to find out. the Alligators were before my time as a keeper but I remember them as a visitor and yes there were definitely goldfish then.
Maybe next time you visit you can make yourself known and say hello.
If you could that would be great as looking at them,I would say that they are either Hybrids or East African.Will be atleast another 2 years before I visit again,too many collections that I rate alot higher to visit that I'm over due to visit,now and some of them have some of the best Crocodilian exhibits in the UK at them!That said you never know where I may turn up,you may even see me when you visit Shaun as I'm due a catch up with him!!!
