A new and ambitious concept for a zoo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ungulate nerd

ungulate nerd

Well-Known Member
This is a concept for a zoo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is one of the most grandiose and ambitious zoo master plans I have seen, it is quite interesting, some of the species to be included or possibly included are quite ambitious and include species like Walia ibex, Swaynes hartebeest, White eared kob, Meneliks bushbuck, Mountain nyala, Ethiopian wolf etc.

The plan for the zoo is organized into 6 Ethiopian landscapes, which are Simien Mountains, Blue Nile riverbank, Omo Valley, Ogaden Desert, and Awash Canyon.

When I found it, I thought it was very interesting, and I knew I had to share it on ZooChat, so here it is

Concept of New Addis Ababa ZOO
 
I can't help noticing that the timeline appears to be from 2008 or earlier and has not been up-dated. Also the pdf linked to at the bottom of the page no longer exists. The website that does open makes no mention of this project.

Perhaps our German speakers can learn something through Leipzig links

I have seen posts that say the city has committed the equivalent of USD1.5million to the new zoo on 26 hectares. Perhaps one's excitement should be tempered by this budget
 
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What a collection that would be....would love to see something like this come together, but obviously very unlikely the money would ever be there.

Was looking into this a bit more, and while not a particularly official source - this seems to indicate the USD $1.5M would be basically for the lion exhibit - with the total project being four phases totaling 475 million birr (about USD $24M). Not a ton of money for an entire zoo, but that sort of money goes a lot further there, of course.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201204180357.html
 
It is a project being planned in partnership with the good offices of Leipziger Zoo. It is definitely still in the planning stages ...
 
Did anyone else notice that they plan on mixing lions with hippos and cheetahs with patas monkeys and antelope. This just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. There are a lot of interesting species mentioned though.
 
arcticwolf said:
Did anyone else notice that they plan on mixing lions with hippos and cheetahs with patas monkeys and antelope. This just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. There are a lot of interesting species mentioned though.
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That really does sound like a recipie for disaster...

My advice: keep them in completely sepertate enclosures, or better yet, perhaps even bordering enclosures with invisible moats separating them eg. Nyala and African lion at Bronx Zoo

But if this were to be an actual mixed exhibit, it can be mentioned in this thread http://www.zoochat.com/2/any-weird-mixed-exhibits-268911/
 
arcticwolf said:
Did anyone else notice that they plan on mixing lions with hippos and cheetahs with patas monkeys and antelope. This just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. There are a lot of interesting species mentioned though.
Click to expand...

Hippo and Lion might work. Especially if there is some decent separation of area, and quite a big area that the hippos can't access. Would certainly be interesting.
 
the interesting quote in there says something like trees would need to be provided for the patas to get away from the cheetahs because mixing them carries a certain risk. Then why the flippin' heck would you do it when you know in advance it is a bad idea!!?

That is one of my (many) bug-bears about zoos, many of them put little thought into the needs of the actual animals (especially where mixed exhibits are concerned). Another good example is the ill-fated lion and meerkat mix at ?Colchester, or anything at South Lakes. Or Taronga's jackal and chimpanzee mix.
 
Does anyone have any further/newer details on this planned collection? I can't find anything recent at all.
 
devilfish said:
Does anyone have any further/newer details on this planned collection? I can't find anything recent at all.
Click to expand...

I have some new information about the zoo but most of my sources are translated from Amharic so you won’t find anything in English about the zoo.

From what I could gather, the zoo IS rebuilding thanks to some new leadership running the zoo. No accurate species list yet but they mentioned 12 species will be housed when rebuilding is done and the zoo will also include an aquarium and a playground. Lions and Geladas are the only ones actually confirmed but everything else mentioned generalized groups such as monkeys and birds (it’s in Amharic and we don’t have words for every single species so sometimes they are referred as just “bird” or “monkey”). The zoo still houses lesser kudu and common duiker so they will most likely stay at the zoo along with the African spurred tortoise and the eagle species that I can’t remeber from my last visit in 2012. Construction has already started.


Edit: it appears this plan was scrapped for reopening but they mighty turn it into a master plan.
 
To add on, the people working on the zoo are going by the old plans somewhat. Along with the lion exhibit they are also building/built a hippo and crocodile exhibit. It is 98% done and this will be the first phase of 5 exhibits. So the lion exhibit is apart of the blue mile exhibit. What will happen to the animals that aren’t apart of that region but are at the zoo is beyond me.
 
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