This outdoor exhibit hardly seems appropriate for capybara. There are no bodies of water anywhere in this exhibit for the lone capybara to swim in. Additionally this facility has hydraulic doors that resulted in a capybara being crushed to death. It was built to exhibit great apes. Zookeeper efforts are also becoming quite inefficient in this aging exhibit complex, which adds to their stress.
Capybara do not appear to have been a very appropriate recent acquisition.
The Calgary Zoo is overhauling their institutional collection planning so it will be interesting to see if this species remains at the Zoo.
I agree, when the zoo announced that they were acquiring this species the first thing that went trough my head was where they were to be kept. The idea of putting them with the spider monkeys is good in theory, but the facilities are no where near close to being sufficient. That whole building is inadequate and very confused. De Brazzas and Gibbons in the South America Building??
Yeah, the building is only barely adequate for housing primates, the recent attempts to turn it into a South America exhibit have seemed somewhat ill-planned.
