@WhistlingKite24 , The old mandrill enclosure was used for some time as a gorilla doctors research area before the cassowary moved in. The peccaries were in the enclosure that Felix the Pygmy hippo is now in and Felix was in the one being renovated for the Brazilian tapir.
This seems strange. This was clearly modeled after an African rainforest, then was used for a South American species, now it is being used for an Oceanian species. The rockwork and trees remained the same throughout. Couldn't this have been at least a secondary gorilla habitat?
It would’ve been a good idea for the mandrill enclosure to be a secondary gorilla exhibit. It would look pretty good with gorillas in it but MZ only have a one main family group. Any surplus gorillas in the region could live in the enclosure though.
Red river hogs would look good in the enclosure, though there are currently none in the region. Bonobo’s would also look good in the enclosure with maybe a bit more climbing opportunities for them.
I don’t think the trail was really made for African species. Orangutans originally lived next to the gorillas in the grotto which Motoba and his sons lived in for quite some time after the orangutans moved out and Otters and binturung have also previously lived in the pygmy hippo enclosures. The treetop monkey boardwalk has always housed other non-African monkeys too.
They just seemingly named the Trail, African Rainforest because of the amount of African rainforest animals the trail has.
@Jambo The pygmy hippo and Mandrill exhibit opened around 1990 and was intended to be an "African Rainforest" exhibit. The signage originally indicated this. Unfortunately the planned further stages, which would have seen African-only primates displayed in the treetops boardwalk and additional exhibits never eventuated and around 5-10 years ago the current zoo directorship changed the name to "Gorilla Rainforest" and started incorporating non-African species and plantings. Its a terrible shame.
I would have liked to see the numerous ape Grottoes (now lemur exhibit), simply joined together and had some landscaping to form a sizeable second gorilla exhibit and a new entrance to the area. This would have allowed the zoos bachelor gorilla troop to stay at Melbourne and rotate exhibits with the family troop - which would have been enriching for the gorillas and saved tens of millions that was spent on the Werribee gorilla and Melbourne lemur exhibit.
In my opinion this exhibit is far too small for gorillas, would need way too much modification to contain them and is impractical as its not joined to the other gorilla facilities. I'd like to see them return Mandrills to the collection but barring that, with some mesh added over the top I think it would convert easily into a nice leopard exhibit.
