Feel free to disagree, I however think having three separate display areas with different enrichment and habitat themes is pretty cool. Yes, one caters to the more typical playground feel but the other side is supposed to be 60 foot trees with vines for climbing and the third exhibit in the back I'm told will allow a mixed species exhibit with siamang or gibbons. The exhibit is also recessed in a hillside to put patrons above ground level and more mid canopy height.. it's a 10-15 million dollar renovation and compared to what they currently have its pretty incredible. Thoughts?
Feel free to disagree, I however think having three separate display areas with different enrichment and habitat themes is pretty cool. Yes, one caters to the more typical playground feel but the other side is supposed to be 60 foot trees with vines for climbing and the third exhibit in the back I'm told will allow a mixed species exhibit with siamang or gibbons. The exhibit is also recessed in a hillside to put patrons above ground level and more mid canopy height.. it's a 10-15 million dollar renovation and compared to what they currently have its pretty incredible. Thoughts?
Most orangutans I have seen in zoos, even given ample climbing space, choose to spend a majority of the time on the ground. Even in this rendering, the apes are barely using their climbing structures. This ends up having the guests look down upon the apes, which is undesirable.
Which makes designing exhibits for orangutans so difficult. However, the Zoo is taking a big step forward with this exhibit over the current. Woodland Park is highly cited for having the best orang exhibit and I believe that the same team is working on our penguin exhibit now. The penguin exhibit is going to be spectacular as well, probably the best in the Midwest at the least.
Orangutans are notoriously difficult to showcase effectively in zoos, and they are much harder to design great exhibits for in comparison to the other great apes. Phoenix Zoo debuted a new pair of enclosures for orangs a couple of years ago and it is fair to say that the response from ZooChatters has been hit-and-miss. Kansas City are getting closer to finally getting rid of the awful hamster wheel that their orangs have been languishing in for a decade, and Minnesota Zoo has an Indonesian Rainforest complex in its long-term Master Plan that will have orangutans as the main attraction. Most intriguing of all is the structure that is being built at the Indianapolis Zoo, with its "beacon of light" and tower that makes zero attempt at conveying a naturalistic environment. That opens in 2014 and at least the orangutans will be able to brachiate on an o-line similar to the one at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
