Eurasia Wilds is officially open as of the beginning of this week, but the zoo won't be advertising it much until next spring. Eurasia has been closed for construction since spring 2012.
It is somewhat an existing area of the Zoo and somewhat a new area. The existing Eurasia area used to be a long loop on the outside of the waterway, with exhibits for Amur tiger, red panda, dromedary/Bactrian camels (used for camel rides), Bactrian camel (visible only from a distance), reindeer, scimitar-horned oryx (phased out), przewalski horse, dhole, Barbary apes, snow leopard, west caucasian tur, mouflon, Barbary sheep, chamois, and yak (and before being phased out, wisent).
The renovated Eurasia Wilds opened in two sections, with Giant Pandas and the Zoomobile drive-thru section opening last year and the rest just opening this week. The drive-thru section combined the old reindeer, oryx, and przewalski horse exhibits into a very large mixed exhibit (with the ability for sections to be separated) for yak, mouflon, and przewalski horse.
The section that just opened is a much shorter loop on the inside of the waterway. Along with a large garden area, there are new exhibits for snow leopards, Eurasian eagle owl, and Stellar's sea eagles. Existing exhibits in this section that were not renovated include red panda, Bactrian camel, reindeer (in old yak exhibit), west caucasian tur, and chamois. The dholes and Barbary apes are now only visible from the Zoomobile.
During my visit yesterday, I ran into a couple regular zoo-goers and they seem pretty ticked off with having no access to the Dholes or Barbary Apes. There was also the lookout to the pond that they wish was still accessible.
And so far the consensus on the Snow Leopards has been pretty negative, although that's mainly due to the fact that the Snow leopard has been hiding in corners of the exhibit since Saturday.
The dhole and barbary apes can only bee occasionally seen as you go by on the zoomobile. Luck of the draw. They are both phase out species at the zoo. The zoo has a pair of elderly female dholes and three older female barbary apes (only two of which go on exhibit due to social issues for the third). The zoo hasnt included them in the walking paths because they probably wont be around a great deal longer. Their space will also be given over to a future project which will see the zoos current Canadian domain species moved up to the table land between The Eurasian Wilds drive thru and Tundra Trek. The Canadian Wilderness will be home to otters, beavers, what appears on a map to be a pavilion, grizzlies, moose, cougars, lynx, probably raccoon, and a huge bison and elk exhibit which may involve a second drive thru.
In the drive thru the camels were supposed to be added this summer but clearly that didnt happen. It might be possible the camels or another species could be added in the future as there is lots of space.
