I am as unhappy with that as you are. The theme should be West African and educationally and otherwise - including PR - it is all ill-thought out and stop gap measure.
So, either drill / mandrill or mangabey for primate habitat and at least a Congo peafowl or similar forest type bird species for the aviary.
I have to say that walk-through aviary has never convinced me; there is far too little cover. Covering over the pathway (or diverting it) to house maybe De Brazza's monley seems as good a use as any.
I have to say that walk-through aviary has never convinced me; there is far too little cover. Covering over the pathway (or diverting it) to house maybe De Brazza's monley seems as good a use as any.
I disagree! I rather like this aviary - even if it could be twice as big - and I think it's just the sort of 'support' exhibit the bigger, flashier things need. Tiger Territory is a very nice tiger cage, for example, but it would be a whole other proposition if it had some Indonesian birds alongside it.
Even on a crowded and busy day yesterday, it was wonderful to be able to see the interaction between the von der Decken's hornbills in here, while the barbets were showing themselves to those who looked.
I wholly agree with the comments about the keeping of the pheasants in here, though. Given that the vast majority fo the species that were in the currently-being- demolished aviaries are now off-show, I'm not sure why these fellows need to have been brought in to upset the African-with-spider-monkeys theme of Gorilla Kingdom.
Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle just bred this species, which is apparently extinct in the wild and almost unheard of in North American zoos. Only 15 individuals live in 7 AZA-accredited zoos, and the link below has several photos of the newly hatched chick.
