Henry Doorly Zoo 2010 - Malayan Tapir in Lied Jungle

September 2010

Malayan Tapir in Lied Jungle. Javan and Francois Langur share the exhibit with the tapirs.

Can it go up in the planted section or is the whole exhibit this riverbank?

This is where the Omaha Zoo more closely resembles the Capital of Texas Zoo or the Las Vegas Zoo than the world class zoos that it aspires to be.

I know that the new management is trying to fix their problems. How do you undo this mess? How can any zoo of conscience maintain this tapir exhibit?

Am I exaggerating how bad this exhibit is? Someone please reality check me if I am.

The exhibit is horrendous for the tapirs due to lack of space and lack of natural substrate on land, and I've always been under the impression that they could not access the higher ground. I don't think that it would be too difficult to place small-clawed otters in the exhibit, but the zoo has held tapirs here for almost 20 years.

In the wild tapirs soak all the time like hippos so a small land area and a large pool is fine

Malayan Tiger said:

In the wild tapirs soak all the time like hippos so a small land area and a large pool is fine

Click to expand...

And you know this how?

I've personally seen several tapirs at a few different zoos and, in the case of one zoo, seen them many, many times and to this day I've not once seen a tapir in the water. In fact, I've only ever seen them either resting like this or walking around the land area.

~Thylo

Whenever I go to the Detroit zoo, the tapirs are always floating in the water like hippos. Out of 15 or so times, only once or twice did I see them resting in the sun. Those were Lowland Tapirs, though......

For the record hippos also need a considerable amount of land space.

~Thylo

True but they are much larger than Tapirs