Basically the same reason the Mappins were closed in the first place-ultimately, it was no good for the bears!
A shame really. I remember when it reopened as "Bear Mountain," with the Sloth bears and a group of Hanuman langur (what happened to them?). And lets not forget the bears bred, with Columbo and Ursula now at Whipsnade.
I really don't know what you could do with the Mappin Terraces but anythings better than it's current incarnation! Pandas and gorillas were previous ideas mooted. Certainly you'd have to hire a top Surveyor before work began (the Aquarium's the only thing preventing it from collapse!) And the costs would be in the millions, certainly far in excess of any of ZSL's recent renovations I would imagine.
I think it was more a case of the Bears not being suitable for the enclosure. One was stereotyped and 'weaved' a lot, and Sloth Bears as a species are pretty nocturnal in the wild so they hid away sleeping a lot too. They seem somehow a lot more relaxed in the Whipsnade enclosure though.
Re the Langurs- I believe the Hanuman Langurs dwindled to two, which I last saw in one of the Sobell enclosures. I know nothing of their fate after that. Combe Martin Wildlife Park in Devon had a few elderly ones but I think they were from the previous Bristol/Twycross groups- possibly the last ZSL ones went there too, but equally, maybe not.
I think the reason they went was twofold: ZSL decided that Sri Lankan Sloth Bears were to be phased out, as decreed by EAZA, (the male "Colombo" has been castrated) and were insufficiently high profile and/or active.
There WERE behavioural problems with "Lanka", the older female, which dated from her previous life in Warsaw. The keepers at London worked very hard to address them and to produce a workable bear exhibit without spending much money.
I suspect that Sloth Bears are psychologically the wrong species for an open space like the Mappin Terraces, but all credit to the then Curator of Mammals for having the gumption to bring back bears to London, and a rare species at that.
