Second Mandrill indoor exhibit, 2020-05-24

Some of the indoor primate enclosures could certainly do with a refurbishment it looks like. Some are bare green walls, one looks like a fake temple, and this fake rock really isnt very convincing. In the grand scheme of things its not a huge deal, but something they should probably fix at some point in the near future. Definitely some of the more disappointing photos from Antwerp I have seen.

@DelacoursLangur The small monkey house at Antwerp is one of my least favorite parts of the zoo. You are not wrong that the exhibits are a strange mix of styles. Aside from the colobus monkey exhibit I think all exhibits are generally adequate and acceptable, but admittedly not pretty. The green walls are actually the more recent exhibits, and while I'm not a huge fan of that new style I would still prefer it to some of the disappointing rock work or murals.

This whole building is in my opinion an anachronism from several decades ago and it should I think be overhauled majorly, if not demolished entirely to start from scratch. But I'm not sure if they can with regards to the heritage projects for the zoo, and I don't know whether there are any plans for what to do with this building yet at this point.

I think they should use the small monkey house site to make two decent, modern exhibits for perhaps two larger monkey species, some exhibits for smaller species like callitrichids and some exhibits for smaller mammal species. If they renovated the building into a new nocturnal animal house to replace their closed Nocturama I feel it wouldn't be a bad idea either.

In some years time outdoor exhibits will be legally required for all larger primate species here in Belgium, so they will have to make changes with regards to their monkey collection in the coming years. Hopefully they will also do a major update of the exhibits in that process.

@KevinB Switching to focus on a few larger species seems like a reasonable approach. I do however worry that zoos slimming down their collections to focus on just a few usually charismatic species will be detrimental to the ability of the AZA/EAZA to support a greater number of species populations going forwards. Obviously I want animals to have the best quality of life possible, but not at the expense of the species capacity of the zoo.

Currently they are keeping 4 large species in there: black-faced spider monkey, Hamlyn's monkey, mandril and Eastern colobus. The spider monkeys are a nice breeding group, and the Hamlyn's also breed quite nicely. So I suspect that the two species to leave will be the more common mandrils and colobus (non subspecific b.t.w.). Or they could try to keep the spider monkeys with their spectacled bears in the future and keep another African species in there.

In the end zoos already have and still need to slim down the amount of species they keep. The day of post-stamp collections is nearly over. Even Berlin, one of the last bastions of this practice, is slowly having to let go of it.

@Jarne In addition to the four large species you mentioned they also still have small groups of ring-tailed lemurs and red ruffed lemurs living in pretty small exhibits. I do believe those are older animals, and therefore those species are probably in a phase-out scenario at Antwerp.

With regards to the monkey collection, given the most recent changes in the legislation they likely will only be able to keep two larger monkey species. Personally I would prefer it to be the Hamlyn's and another African species. I really would like them to get L'Hoëst's monkeys again, as that species was named after a lineage of three directors (father, son and grandson) of Antwerp Zoo between 1888 and 1944. The remainder of the building I would prefer to see filled up with callitrichids and small mammals, perhaps even some nocturnal species.

Your idea of keeping spider monkeys with spectacled bears, has that been tried before and would it be safe for the monkeys? I know Antwerp kept spectacled bears with squirrel monkeys until the species moved out for renovations, but wouldn't spider monkeys be slower moving and thus is greater danger?

@KevinB You're right. The red-ruffed lemur Jerry is an elderly one, actually the oldest one in the world at 39 years I believe. What the age structure of the ring-tails is I do not now, but it have been two for quite some years so they seem a phase-out too.

I'm not sure wether spectacled bears + spider monkeys has been tried before, but I do think that they aren't that much slower then coatis which have been kept with the bears. Howlers have been kept with them too I believe, so I'd say it's worth a shot.