Belfast Zoo Belfast

I only saw 2 Bald Ibis but i know the bird keeper wants more,as for the old zoo its highly out dated what few bits are still in use are used for holding spare hoofstock/primates and small carnoviores,its just been left their as the local council doesnt know what to do with it after it built the new zoo a bit further up the hill in the 1980`s.
 
oh right, are the two sites split then? I guessed it would be council run for an entire new zoo to be built and the old one just left. Surely if they sold the old site they'd be able to improve the current one.
 
Don`t think the site could be used for much else as its not very flat and not that big of an area,i would say the site of the old zoo is small than Bristol so its not very big.Have started to post some pictures of the old zoo in the gallery,will put more as and when i get time to find them.
 
does anyone know about the situation at belfast at the moment regarding their Francois langurs, according to isis they have 5 females at the moment are they going to get a male in for this group?
 
Yassa said:
The parents are from Port Lympne.
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Yes, I think they may be littermates. They're certainly closely related.

It seems a rather pointless exercise now. DNA tests have proved at least some of the Rabat lions do not have the known haplotype possessed by Barbary lions, and are from Central and East African populations. A couple of previous cubs at Port Lympne were tested too- same result. Port Lympne's lions come from Rabat Zoo, both directly(breeding male Suliman), and indirectly( their original stock were bred in Washington, whose came from Rabat)
 
I agree with you all about not been sure how much Barbary is in them,but as the people i know at Belfast say its a nice story and it gets the locals visiting their zoo which very few of them used to do.
 
zoogiraffe said:
I agree with you all about not been sure how much Barbary is in them,
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Its more a case the science now indicates they are NOT Barbary at all!

Of course no zoos that have them want to accept this as it undermines the point of keeping them. Personally, I'm sorry about the results of the DNA tests too but they seem pretty definite. It doesn't mean there aren't pure or 'part' Barbaries out there somewhere, but nobody has found them yet.
 
It is interesting that much was made of these DNA tests before they were conducted, only for their significance to now be brushed under the carpet, as it were. Personally, if these animals phenotypically resemble barbaries and may posess some traits advantageous to their former wild range, if those North African countries ever want to re-establish some then that would make sense, otherwise you basically have zoo resources being focused on breeding some generic lions that look a bit bigger than most other (generic) lions, it's no different from culivating 'white' lions in that respect.
 
Hadley said:
It is interesting that much was made of these DNA tests before they were conducted, only for their significance to now be brushed under the carpet, as it were. Personally, if these animals phenotypically resemble barbaries and may posess some traits advantageous to their former wild range, if those North African countries ever want to re-establish some then that would make sense, otherwise you basically have zoo resources being focused on breeding some generic lions that look a bit bigger than most other (generic) lions, it's no different from culivating 'white' lions in that respect.
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How right you are about the first bit. The results of the DNA tests were quite conclusive but for the zoos keeping them, its almost as if they never happened....

Port Lympne(and now Belfast) are still producing more cubs, yet when I asked, a keeper there told me (on the side) that there is nowhere suitable for any reintroduction scheme and the gene pool is ridiculously small for a long term future for these lions anyway. That was just after telling a group of the public the usual accepted 'Barbary Lion' story!

It seems the zoos holding them are persevering with a myth, rather than a reality. That's unless they can find and identify some more genuine 'barbaries' in other collections. e.g. Madrid Zoo in Spain claim to have them but they haven't been tested. I believe there is currently no funding for further research by the Japanese scientist who has done the most work so far on the Barbary Lion and its genetics, so that's unlikely too.

Only a very small (3?) % of the Rabat lions were tested and I have an idea it was only cubs which were tested at both Rabat Zoo and Port Lympne, as it was possible to get blood samples from them easily. But if all the Rabat Lions are known to be closely-related(as are Port Lympne's) then the result for the cubs would indicate the provenance for all the adults too.
 
The old zoo at belfast is no longer in use, this s mainly due to the fact that Belfast zoo is the last council owned zoo and city council have other things that they could spend the tax payers money on. Not everyone is a zoo fan.
 
Tarkin said:
The old zoo at belfast is no longer in use, this s mainly due to the fact that Belfast zoo is the last council owned zoo and city council have other things that they could spend the tax payers money on. Not everyone is a zoo fan.
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Although I have never visited Belfast, I was under the impression that the old site of the zoo was largely an off-view area which they used to great affect in breeding some of the more nervous species, such as pied tamarin and clouded leopard. Is this correct?
 
The old Belfast Zoo

You are correct The old zoo was used for breeding, the more specialized species. But now only the old chimp house is used. The whole of the old zoo could be landscaped and reused but as i said before I think that the council have other ideas.
The New zoo as it is fondly called by the staff is being up dated and revamped all the time. Belfast zoo despite the fact it is built on the side of a mountain, is a outstanding zoo and the mountain only enhances the views. There has been a new reception built and will open in early in early September. The old tropical house is now the rain forest experience, and the elephant house has had a face lift. The old bull den is now opened up and now houses the protective contact barrier's for elephant training. The three elephant dens have been knocked into one larg area. And I beleive there is other changes in the pipeline.
 
Sorry Kiang
But I am not in the know on other changes and I dont like to speculate on things that I have no first hand knowlage about.If I find out any more I will pass it on.

Tarkin
 
about 2 weeks ago i was in Belfast zoo with a friend. (first time i visited this zoo). Although we diddn't have the best weather-conditions we enjoyed our visit. It's quite a special zoo because of the mountain its on. That was also a bit the downside for us. Our dutch legs are definately not made for that ;) But at the same time there were some superb enclosures because of that mountain. Like the spectacled bear enclosure, which was my favorit of the zoo. I don't think there were any animals that had to little space. Especially the antilopes had very big enlosures.

Does anyone know if there are planns to do something with the old "floral hall"? It's a very impressive building, but unfortunately, it looks very bad now and it's almost falling apart. Is the zoo allowed to destroy it or is it a "protected monument" or something?

They had one of the weirdest groups of gorillas i've ever seen. I think i saw 3,2. One animal was constantly throwing branches and dirt to the visitors.

Due to the weather we diddnt see all the special species like the sifaka, fossa, temmicks cat :( But still we've seen the nile lechwe, moloch gibbons (my fav gibbonspecies) and some birdspecies i had never seen before.

(a couple of pictures i made; Recent zoo pictures - a set on Flickr )
 
I am pleased that you enjoyed your visit, and yes the hill is a bite steep, but this only adds to the charm of the place. As for the the Floral Hall There has been talk of it being turned into a wedding center. Personally I think it would be better used as part of the zoo, maybe a bigger reptile house or a bigger education center. There is numerous alternatives for it. As for the gorillas I think the one you are referring to is Kakcoma(not sure of the spelling). He is a castrated male who does not appear to have past his adolescence,as anytime I have seen him he is interacting with the public, either banging the glass or throwing things.
 
Thanks for the info Tarkin. I do hope the do something nice with that floral hall. There aren't many big or impressive buildings in the zoo, so turning it into, for example a reptilehouse as you suggested, would be a wonderful addition.
 
I also hope something is done with the Floral hall. Like ya suggested, a bigger reptile house, perhaps with crocs or camians, would be great.
Also hoping something will be done with the area at the start, exhibits 1, 2 and 3 are, from a visitors point of view, barely visited. Me and my cousin ALWAYS go down there to get a glimpse of the tapirs and the large Bongo herd and it's completly empty apart from some teenagers hanging about in the bushes smoking on my last visit.:mad:
I was thinking of perhaps moving on of the speices of Antelope into on of the lower exhibits (near the road) and then using the empty exhibit for a new animal?
I have LOADs of ideas...:P
 
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