It doesn't matter how pools are in the Congo region, as pygmy hippo's do not occur there, but in Liberia and surrounding countries....
@Eagle, that it is bigger than most indoor pools you know, does not make it large enough. You have also seen the large pools the hippo's in Leipzig and Berlin Zoo have and in those zoos I have seen the hippos very extensively using the pool and being so active that the indoor one in Duisburg is not large enough
I think Berlin as a example is wrong, the water- land ratio there isn't ideal. Too much water, too less land. Leipzig is indeed very good. Another good example is Chemnitz and Plzen.
Plzen outdoors is okay-inside ? Defenitely not, and where are the animals most of the time of teh year ? Inside ?
Berlin ? Landparts defenitely too small, but defenitely not too much water-how can that be ?
Leipzig ? Nice-good alnd and waterpart,but where' the outdoor exhibit ? Not existing-der Herr hat seine Hausaufgaben nicht gemacht-Setzen, Sechs !
So german zoos have to learn much more how to keep pygmy hippos, hippos, rhinos-but unfortunately, we are an"elephant country"-zoos can get more more money with cute elephant calfs than with hippos or rhinos.
This is indoor! The pool is much bigger than most of the indoor pools for pygmy hippos I know and I've been to over 100 zoos, I'm sure I can review an enclosure correctly
I've looked more into this enclosure and seen alternate photos of it. The pool is much larger than it appears in this photo and seems absolutely fine. And the outdoor enclosure is excellent! I was wrong and I apologize.
You wasn't wrong-so there is no need to apologize youself.Altough the pool is a bit bigger the as it can be seen on that pic-its still to small-by the way -the whole indoor exhibit is too small for three pygmy hippos. They spend more than six month a year in it....but of course there ar much worser exhibts for them, Duisburg isn't that bad, but nevertheless, it could be defenitely better...
It's a question of money and space and Duisburg made the best out of their situation. Do the lions at Wuppertal use the whole enclosure? NO! We have the same situation in every zoo, there is no need for gigantic exhibits, we need good structurated, varied enclosures and that is the case in Duisburg.
This indoor enclosure is probably equal or better than a lot of U.S. enclosures, and the outdoor one is better than nay enclosure in the U.S. Maybe the pool is a little on the small side, but it's not horrible.
This indoor enclosure is probably equal or better than a lot of U.S. enclosures, and the outdoor one is better than nay enclosure in the U.S. Maybe the pool is a little on the small side, but it's not horrible.
It's not difficult doing better pymy hippo enclusres than in the Us...
Of course Duisburg is far away from to be"horrible", and it is no doubt its better than Stuttgart,Krefeld,Marwell or Plzen, to name just a few examples.
Marwell and Plzen do have huge outdoor enclures, marwell is just a structerless meadow, Plzen is good, but the indoorr facillities ar defenitely poor, small,concrete floor, dark etc.
Neverthelsse, teher is the uregndt need to offer such anmlais in middle europe BIGGER indoor exhibits than outdoros-the animals spend more time inside than outside, and unfortuanetly,most elephants,rhinos,hippos and pygmy hippos in germany only can dream about it, to use their outdoor enclosures in summer time also in the night...some zoos do, most doesn't
As fara s I know, no german zoos allows the pygmy hippos to stay outside in summer-maybe Stuttgart-their hippos are outside in the night, so maybe they do the same with"Hannibal"-the worlds oldest pygmy hippo-48 Years old !
Pygmy hippos move around in their pools, they swim, play, dive-and they can't do that in such tiny"bathtubes"like in Stuttgart or Duisburg-but they do it in Berlin !
It's right that it would be better if the hippos would have a bigger pool, you know the financial situation at Duisburg and you know the house where this enclosures is in. There isn't enough space to build a bigger pool, if they would have done it more spacious the land part would be too small, so this enclosure is perfect for it's limited space inside the building. You're statement isn't wrong when you say that more land and more water would be great but you can say this to 90% of all enclosures everywhere in the world, nothing is bigger than nature itself and even nature is far away from being perfect. Another apsect i want to mention is that the keepers have to clean it, (Bib Fortuna you should be the person who has that in mind at first ) so who wants to dive inside a gigantic pool or walk a mile to reach the next load of poo?
As long as an exhibit fullfills the needs of it's inhabitants it's fine for me
