They don't even have all the land in the photograph. The whole front area is hotwired off. If they opened this to the animals and covered it with sand or stones it would double their land space.
Glancing through the ZooChat gallery, and looking at the rating system in the new book "What Zoos Can Do", it would appear that Twycross has two excellent exhibits (elephants and snow leopards) and then an awful lot of rubbish. The zoo calls itself the world primate centre and while the collection is fantastic can someone please tell me if there is even one above average primate exhibit? The orangs and gorillas have very basic accommodation that is badly outdated, and many of the other enclosures are simple cages with wire fronts. Also, the sea lion pool in this photo appears to have been constructed many decades ago and it is obviously antiquated.
No, there isn't, I'd say. There's a lot of adequate ones and a few rotters.
There's been what appears to be a curious reluctance to spend money on primate exhibits at Twycross in recent years. The last major primate construction was the second gorilla house, that is in exactly the same style as the other ape houses.
Really, the land area at the moment is so small that I struggle to think what would make suitable inhabitants for this enclosure.
The cost of the exhibit - water filtration, fish and vets' bills combined- does make me wonder if reducing the water level, leaving it as fresh water only, and bringing back the bush dogs mightn't be an answer.
Glancing through the ZooChat gallery, and looking at the rating system in the new book "What Zoos Can Do", it would appear that Twycross has two excellent exhibits (elephants and snow leopards) and then an awful lot of rubbish. The zoo calls itself the world primate centre and while the collection is fantastic can someone please tell me if there is even one above average primate exhibit? The orangs and gorillas have very basic accommodation that is badly outdated, and many of the other enclosures are simple cages with wire fronts. Also, the sea lion pool in this photo appears to have been constructed many decades ago and it is obviously antiquated.
I personnaly think Twycross came out of the book looking like its alot better zoo than it is,I certainly couldn't list as many so called star exhibits as Anthony Sheridan did in the book,in fact I would struggle to list anything other than Snow Leopards and the Bornean Longhouse Aviary,which despite the fact it has nearly no birds from Borneo in it at all is a good Aviary.
