'Also, there is a small primate cage next to the palace of the apes where a small overhead walkway connects it to the large gorilla cage. It looks too small for guenons or colobus but it may have been used for attempting to mix one or the other with the breeding group. Last time I was there it housed some lemurs which, needless to say, did not have access to the gorilla exhibit.'
Yes Black and white ruffed lemurs used to be housed in the enclosure with the intention of allowing them the run of the palace of the apes cage when the gorillas were indoors or in the outside area. However i never saw the lemurs actually in the gorilla enclosure and think the whole situation became impractical. Bamboo lemurs are now in the exhibit which has since been extended to allow the animals more room and the bridge is never used..
Yes Black and white ruffed lemurs used to be housed in the enclosure with the intention of allowing them the run of the palace of the apes cage when the gorillas were indoors or in the outside area. However i never saw the lemurs actually in the gorilla enclosure and think the whole situation became impractical.
Howletts and PL occassionally do very odd things which puzzle me. I think allowing Lemurs access into a Gorilla cage even without the Gorillas in it was one of those. Since the Gorillas there are allowed access to all parts of their enclosure most/all the time it was really a nonstarter of an idea.
I think the whole concept of Monkeys with the Gorillas proved impractical as the Gorillas proved they would kill the Monkeys on occassion.
I think this idea has now been dropped completely.
I've also never understood why they took the Guinea Baboons from Paris either- I think they were asked to 'help out' by taking some. This is not an endangered species but they still went ahead trying to give them a big enclosure by mixing with Rhinos, nice idea though has this happened yet?
On the other hand the far more endangered Drills have to live in one of the old wire and wood cages behind which are acres of woodland which could make an admirable electrified enclosure for them, but this has not been done.
