I believe this is the exhibit for a pack of nine (two adults and two litters) of northwestern wolves (Canis lupus occidentalis), also known as the Mackenzie Valley wolf, Alaskan timber wolf, Canadian timber wolf, or northern timber wolf.
A recent news report about the introduction of these wolves in their public exhibit is linked below. The report shows aspects of the enclosure I recognize like the pool, the wall in te back, the trees with mulch below and the window in the foreground.
That's at least one of the 6 carnivore enclosures of land-of-cold/last frontier that's truly good and outstanding, especially if that forest on the right can grow in a bit.
@Jarne At the time of my visit only The Last Frontier carnivore exhibits and this wolf exhibit had been completed, so I can only speak about those. I really liked this wolf exhibit. I also liked the large bear/wolf exhibit in The Last Frontier and I think it is pretty good. Personally I liked the mixed brown/black bear exhibit the least of them all.
@KevinB It's better then the usual there, but as I already pointed out somewhere bears, pumas and wolves are all secretive animals in the wild that need some privacy. The two bear exhibits and the puma exhibit clearly lack these, and the polar bear exhibits also seem to lack privacy. The brown/black bear is indeed the worst of them all, with just a narrow strip of lang surrounded by visitors on all sides. The moon-lodge-enclosure is better and with a bit more vegetation in the back for the animals to hide in I would consider it a good or even a great enclosure. When it comes to size, all non pinniped-enclosures are pretty decent (the walrus enclosure is just horrible, the sea-lion pool is a bit better but still pretty bad).
@Jarne I don't know that much about pinnipeds but to me the Steller's sea lion exhibit didn't seem that bad, and a lot better than the one I saw at Harderwijk. What do you dislike about it so much?
@KevinB The deeper part is rather small, as is the total swimming space. I would estimate it to be the following dimensions based on the size of the animals:
- Large deep pool: 13-14 x 14-15 m
- Small pool: 6-8 x 8-9 m
All the rest besides this is very shallow water, not really suitable for good swimming. Not that I don't like the shallow parts, but they can not replace real swimming-space. It may in total be larger then this enclosure for example: Sea Lions Bay - ZooChat
but the actual swimming space is similar or smaller (and PD has a larger species). Other enclosures like Blijdorp and Antwerp housing housing a smaller species also have a larger basins if you look at the entire area (including behind the scenes in Antwerp). For a brand new enclosure with loads of money, it's a shame they didn't at least were able to present something like the one at Blijdorp if not better.
If they had made the deep parts deeper this would've been much less of a problem, but even the deeper parts aren't that deep right? I would estimate 5,5 meters at most, but probably less.
Please correct me if I'm wrong with these estimates, wether it's larger or smaller then those measurements.
It might be above average on a European scale, but that tells more about the low standards zoos have when it comes to pinnipeds. And it shouldn't be forgotten we are talking about a zoo claiming to have the highest welfare-standards. In general most of their enclosures are not that bad when compared to the average, but far from the best nor from what they should be to adequately house the species in it.
