Viewing area for Common Hippos and waterfowl. The access for hippos and ducks to the outdoor exhibit is via the water - the indoor and outdoor pools are one and the same with a closable gate separating the two.
Viewing area for Common Hippos and waterfowl. The access for hippos and ducks to the outdoor exhibit is via the water - the indoor and outdoor pools are one and the same with a closable gate separating the two.
Anthony Sheridan in "What Zoos Can Do" interestingly enough ranks many exhibits, and in his book he has the 4 best river hippo exhibits in Europe as (in no order): Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne and Valencia. Does that seem correct to you Euro ZooChatters?
Anthony Sheridan in "What Zoos Can Do" interestingly enough ranks many exhibits, and in his book he has the 4 best river hippo exhibits in Europe as (in no order): Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne and Valencia. Does that seem correct to you Euro ZooChatters?
That sounds reasonable. All I would add is that in terms of animal welfare (rather than flashy exhibitry - not that there's anything wrong with that!) you may have to throw Longleat into the mix.
Longleat has by far the biggest water and land areas, and ample grazing (of which Valencia for example has none).
(this incidentally touches on my other problem with Mr. Sheridan's book - anything beyond his 80 zoos seems to be ignored entirely)
Its a pity no UK zoo has this level of indoor viewing for Common Hippo. The problem being; two groups are in Safari Parks (cheap 'n cheerful, or not so cheerful? indoor housing), one is in a leisure/theme park(Flamingo) and only one(Whipsnade) is in a conventional Zoo setting- and Whipsnade built their own new postage-stamp sized Hippo house not so long ago.
Chester would be the obvious UK zoo to replicate something like this I think.
i wouldn't put it beyond flamingo land. they may have to move the hippo to another location in the zoo, however they are a theme park and it would be a large draw to the park
I loved this exhibit. It was my first time seeing common hippos underwater and I have to admit that they really do make a better display when you can see how graceful they are underwater.
@snowleopard. Would a zookeeper would "rank" this hippo exhibit the same way as "zoo-expert" Sherdian did ? I know some, and they would'nt.
What makes this man a "zoo-expert "? The count of zoos worldwide he has visited ? Hmm, I've seen also more than 400 zoos now...
If I see this exhibit with a very big indoor pool, a ridicolous small indoor island and an tiny outdoor meadow with no mud,no sand and,whats worse, no accees to it in summer in the night, when the hippos have to stay in their small concrete stalls with NO aceess to the water.( because of the filter sytem, it can't work, if the hippos are all the time in the water, so the vistors couldn't see them underwater in the morning ) Count this facts together, and I won't "rank" his exhibit as a good hippo exhibit and hippo care, but it is great to the visitors, which seems is more important than the animals,which have to spend their live in it.
I don't like "rankings", they say absoultly nothing about the quality of a zoo or an exhibit, they are only the personal view of one person, no more, no less. By the way, you can't "rank" zoos or the exhibits, thy are to diffrent for that. Fo Sheridan, a zoo without elephants is no"zoo",what a nonsens is that ? I havn't read his book, and I won't read it in the future, why I should do that ? I'm a "zoo-expert" by myself, I've been to so many zoos, but I don't rank zoos.
I've seen so many hippo exhibits in the world, but I'm still looking for the"best". A search with no end, just with nice and bad hippo exhibits, but none of them was really" good", and the newer hippo exhibts in the states had only excellent viewing areas to the visitors. Thats what these zoos are doing, save money in create a good hippo-like exhibit, and give this saved money for an excellent viewing area, all the same with the new hippo exhibits in the states.(and cologne)There is more than only the exhibit to have a good hippo care. Unfortunately, I've not been to Longleat,so I can't say anything about their hippo care.
