Best and worst lemur walk-through
- Thread starter lamna
- Start date
The one at Twycross is quite big, it's just frustrating how it's more of a walk by than a walkthrough. But it is well vegetated, and hopefully they put some more lemurs species in here. I thought a good development for the walkthrough at Twycross is to put tortoises in the empty bit to the left in the exhibit.
I haven't seen them all, but I think Cotswold's is the best that I have walked through. It has a large range of species - birds and tortoises as well as several types of lemurs. Moreover it's well run; limited opening, no food or pushchairs allowed and good supervision for the benefit of both the public and the animals.
I also liked the quiet and dense planting of the small one at Edinburgh which gave one of the best 'immersion' experiences (not an expression I would normally use, but the right term here). At one time it had blue-eyed lemurs, but there were white-faced sakis there when I visited 2 years ago.
Alan
I also liked the quiet and dense planting of the small one at Edinburgh which gave one of the best 'immersion' experiences (not an expression I would normally use, but the right term here). At one time it had blue-eyed lemurs, but there were white-faced sakis there when I visited 2 years ago.
Alan
Cotswold have made a real attempt to landscape/plant with a Malagasy feel, it has a good range of species and is nicely laid out. I feel that most of the others are really just places to allow visitors to get close to Lemurs in more basic surroundings.
I have emboldened part of your idea, leiclad, as I fear it wouldn't get off the starting pad.
Westminster City Council have seen Hanuman langur, Bolivian Squirrel Monkey and Eastern Colobus breakouts in recent years. No way are they going to countenance another walk-through primate facility by the banks of the canal. Hotwiring won't appease them either, they'd see it as a H&S risk.
Unless there's a big, easily secured area of woodland, lemur walk-throughs seem to end up as Ring-tailed Lemur exhibits. Ruffed Lemurs throw their weight around too much, Sifaka are too precious and nearly all the other available taxa are too retiring.
Each to his own, but to me lemur walk-throughs are evidence of zoo marketing departments refusing to engage the public with the concept that zoos hold wild animals, and are not exotic pets' corners.
Tbh Ian has hit the nail on the head there, walkthru's are probably more of a marketing/publicity thing than a necessity for the lemurs. Most species are retiring and screaming children nearby cant be great for them. I suspect lemur islands work better for the animals but visitors often struggle to see them.
zoogiraffe
Well-Known Member
Actually its not that big as the only 2 that are smaller than it are Bristol Zoo and Cotswold Wildlife Park,all the other walk throughs I would say are larger than the one at Twycross!
I haven't actually been in that many lemur walkthroughs somehow! But I did quite like the one at Wild Place-it's not huge, but for me was quite an improvement on the Bristol one in terms of size and layout and it will look even better as the vegetation beds in properly and the lemurs seemed fairly relaxed and were making use of the whole area while we were there.
Nobody has yet mentioned the walk-through lemur exhibit at Manor House Wildlife Park. I can't comment on it either, for the simple reason Manor House is one of the few animal collections in the UK I have yet to visit. All I do know of it is that at one stage (and perhaps still) it was - falsely - marketed by the Wildlife Park as being the largest such exhibit in Britain, which was demonstrably untrue.
I did see the one at Cricket St. Thomas firsthand, and thought it was very good and natural and may well have been the UK's largest lemur walk-through in its day, and it's a huge shame that Cricket St. Thomas Wildlife Park is no more.
I did see the one at Cricket St. Thomas firsthand, and thought it was very good and natural and may well have been the UK's largest lemur walk-through in its day, and it's a huge shame that Cricket St. Thomas Wildlife Park is no more.
On my second and final visit to Cricket some of the lemurs had decamped to the other side of the park.
I was not a fan of Cricket at all. It was a beautiful setting, but the wildlife park did nothing for me.
I do like the YWP's lemur walk-through and I think the one at the WMZ is excellent, although of course it is a walk-in rather than a walk-through as such.
I don't think it ever managed to realise its full potential. If it could have been developed more along the lines of the Cotswold Wildlife Park (in recent years that is) with their abundance of interesting species, things might have been different. But it went the other way, with a declining collection.
IanRRobinson
Well-Known Member
Cricket could have been wonderful; a large lake with associated paddocks, woodland, two walled gardens, a mild climate, and the proximity of the M5. I suppose it's another example, as was Belle Vue and so nearly Dudley, of how vulnerable a privately owned collection is when it falls into the hands of unsympathetic owners.