tamarin and marmoset indoor quarters

this is just really bizarre. Whoever designed this should be fired!

The enclosure holds emperor tamarin and pigmy marmoset which enter through sliding panes on the small windows, as well as Brazilian agouti. There are terrible reflection problems on the glass so sorry about the quality of the photo.

April 2011

I don't get it. Is this meant to be some sort of education message that human have encroached on their land so they have to adapt and live in human houses, or the designers have just had a mental blank as to where South American monkeys habituate?

If it is the former, it is a great exhibit in terms of education, but nothing else. Where are the climbing structures?

Hmm. I have no objection to exhibits that are not necessarily themed to the natural habitat - but why on Earth would you go to such effort to theme it as something absolutely nothing like the natural habitat?

Weird indeed.

I have to say that I was very happy with this enclosure, although I still hate the colour scheme, and the reflections were terrible. It was great to see the monkeys running around very close and interacting with the visitors, and it was possible to find some areas where there were no reflections, which allowed decent photos to be taken (when the monkeys slowed down a bit).

There were also some very funny touches, such as this:
http://www.zoochat.com/15/emporer-tamarin-indoor-exhibit-library-april-210690/

zooboy28 said:

There were also some very funny touches, such as this:
http://www.zoochat.com/15/emporer-tamarin-indoor-exhibit-library-april-210690/

Click to expand...

HAHA!!!

I love the book in the bottom left corner titled "Moustaches for Dummies"!

It is a comical exhibit, so I guess it gets some credibility from me.

I'm with Chlidonias - if this was designed specifically for these monkeys then a great disservice has been done to the animals, the public and the zoo.

that's what I find so awful - the whole exhibit was designed from scratch, specifically to house the tamarins and marmosets, and its a joke. The zoo really is going for a dumb-it-down-as-far-as-we-can approach - witness the photos of their signage in the gallery, for example. Every time I go back to Wellington Zoo it just seems more disappointing than before.

I will say though that I did love the pigmy marmosets themselves, because they were the first ones I've seen, and they are awesomely cute!

At least the outdoor area is more reminiscent of a Sth American rainforest.

the outdoor area is good. There are twisty vines all over the place for the monkeys to scamper along, and various kinds of tropical-looking vegetation to make it jungley