Steller's sea eagle aviary, 2019-04-06

Now, Zie-Zoo doesn't really have a continental lay-out, but the area where this aviary is located does house mostly South American and some North American animals - and suddenly in between all of those there's an aviary with Steller's sea eagles from Russia...

I'm not entirely sure what's up with all the random junk - the tires, the metal beam, the left-behind machine thing hanging from the beam, the water well - or what kind of atmosphere it is supposed to create (a deserted port area, industrial area or town somewhere in Russia's far east?) but it does make this aviary another one of the weirder exhibits at Zie-Zoo (although not quite as weird as the log train car and pigeon wagon in the porcupine and prairie dog exhibit or the contraption in the otter exhibit).

On another note, according to signage in the South American house the pond with marsh plants in this aviary is in fact a constructed wetland filter ("helofytenfilter" in Dutch, helophyte being a scientific term for a certain type of aquatic plants) that treats the waste water as well as the rain water drainage from the South American house, after which the treated water goes into the lake in the South American exhibit.

I certainly do appreciate it when zoos educate about these kinds of sustainable and ecologically well-chosen solution when they implement them in their facilities.

Thanks for the lengthy description of this exhibit, which is probably one of the more bizarre aviaries that I've ever seen.

Interesting how there is a mesh cage around the reeds on the edge of the pond... not sure I've ever seen that before.