Artis Royal Zoo Artis News 2023

Yunha · 1 Jul 2023

Several Dutch newspapers are citing a press message sent out by Artis about their chimpansee group.

Artis is looking to move their chimpansee group to a different zoo. A definite decision has not been made yet. The zoo states the chimpansee group needs more space / quality of life than Artis can offer them: being a city zoo, they cannot easily expand the enclosure. Artis states they are taking this step to give the chimps the best quality of life.

A petition has been started by zoo visitors to keep the chimps in Amsterdam. Although Artis has not stated or confirmed which zoo(s) could be the new home for the group, there are speculations about a zoo in India.

I wonder what your opinion is in this debate. I will state my own opinion in my next message, to keep this post purely informative.

Source: Alle chimpansees mogelijk weg uit Artis, dierentuin in gesprek over overname - AT5

Yunha · 1 Jul 2023

My personal opinion: I think animal wellfare should be the number one concern in making a decision.
The petition mainly states chimps are very social animals, and they'd be disturbed by suddenly moving and their social contacts (with carers and other humans) being disturbed.

I think moving animals as a group shouldn't disturb their social relations so much, as they are all connected in the group, and are each others primary social contacts. It's sad to see a zoo favourite go, and I understand the emotions from the Artis vistitors here, but in my personal opinion: animal wellfare is #1.

Also I am not to worried the animals will end up in a zoo with lower wellfare standards as Artis is not pressured to move the animals by a third party, and cites animal wellbeing as their motivation. I would be surprised if they'd pick a zoo where the animals have a lower wellfare standard.

Dassie rat · 1 Jul 2023

Yunha said:
My personal opinion: I think animal wellfare should be the number one concern in making a decision.
The petition mainly states chimps are very social animals, and they'd be disturbed by suddenly moving and their social contacts (with carers and other humans) being disturbed.

I think moving animals as a group shouldn't disturb their social relations so much, as they are all connected in the group, and are each others primary social contacts. It's sad to see a zoo favourite go, and I understand the emotions from the Artis vistitors here, but in my personal opinion: animal wellfare is #1.

Also I am not to worried the animals will end up in a zoo with lower wellfare standards as Artis is not pressured to move the animals by a third party, and cites animal wellbeing as their motivation. I would be surprised if they'd pick a zoo where the animals have a lower wellfare standard.

There were many complaints when the Asian elephants left London Zoo. Hopefully, I helped persuade several visitors that the elephants were better off at Whipsnade.

JurassicMax · 1 Jul 2023

I have finally cleared my zoo news backlog, so I can now give some new (now bit older) news of Artis!

In May the new frog area finally opened!
This area is located in the upper part of the vlindertuin/ butterfly greenhouse opposite of the sea lion enclosure. This area is referred to as the "Stek", briefly housed an ice cream stand and now mostly sits empty (good area to work). You can easily go to the Stek if you take the stone staircase from the insectarium to the sea lions and go straight into the butterfly greenhouse

The frog area has 5 different terrariums, housing 5 frog species and 1 reptile species:

- Little rock frogs (Staurois parvus)*
- Red-eyed Tree Frogs (Agalychnis callidryas)
- Dyeing dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius var. regina)
- Golfodulcean poison dart frogs (Phyllobates vittatus) *
- Blue poison dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius var. azureus)
- William's electric blue gecko (Lygodactylus williamsi)

* New on show species, most of them have been kept behind the scenes for a few years.

Here are some pictures of the new area.