Rotterdam Zoo Blijdorp News 2022

Some recent updates:
-Breeding success with the marbled teals, yellow-necked spurfowls, Sclater's crowned pigeons, toco toucans and hyacinth macaws
-Eight marabous and two cotton-top tamarins have left the park
-The pied imperial pigeons have left the collection

And then some updates that were reported in Vriendennieuws, the june edition of which was just made available publicly online:
-New in the big swamp aviary: 2.4 Philippine duck (Anas luzonica)
-Earlier this year, during the 'storm season', the female hamerkop died after her nest fell down
-Death of two lion-tailed macaques. The last female has since been accompanied by a new male.
-Death of the male Vietnam pheasant, but a replacement has already been found.
-Death of the female red-crowned crane
-The young Komodo dragons are now on display in the Nature Conservation Center in the Oceanium

Sauce and seconds: Kort Nieuws #181
 
On a lighter note:
-The Rotterdam Zoo has decided that there is no future for walk-through exhibits, meaning they'll be phased out. They are currently in the proces of converting the vulture aviary by covering off the walkway.
-New in the publab in the Oceanium: Aeoliscus strigatus
-The last wild guinea pig has died, their enclosure has been merged with that of the domesticated ones, meaning one less species on display...
-Okapi Mhina is still scheduled to go to the UAE, while Ngwani is due to move to Frankfurt.
-Black rhino Mara will move to Krefeld
-The first field trials with the RoffaReef fish nurseries are currently taking place near Bonaire!
-Some breeding successes this year: 0.0.4 American cownose rays, 0.0.2 king pinguins (like vogelcommando said), 0.0.1 gentoo pinguin and some more blackbucks
-Death of 0.0.1 arowana
-The palawan peacock pheasants have been shuffled from Taman Indah to the Nature Conservation Center

Sauce and seconds:
Kort Nieuws #182
 
Blijdorpenaar said:
The Rotterdam Zoo has decided that there is no future for walk-through exhibits, meaning they'll be phased out.
Click to expand...

:eek: Why? Rotterdam had several very good walk-through exhibits - vultures, prairie dogs, okapi aviary / earlier European wetland aviary...

Prairie dog exhibit could be a model for zoos worldwide.
 
Jurek7 said:
:eek: Why? Rotterdam had several very good walk-through exhibits - vultures, prairie dogs, okapi aviary / earlier European wetland aviary...

Prairie dog exhibit could be a model for zoos worldwide.
Click to expand...

The linked article mentions - if Google Translate is accurate - that they believe the cases of avian flu have been too heavy in recent years, and there's no point in having a walkthrough exhibit if you have to close it nigh-constantly due to the risk of infection. Also there's some Dutch legislation that require them to protect birds as effectively as possible. They don't mention the prairie dog exhibit, though, and mention that the free-flying birds in the okapi exhibit and Victoria conservatory are excepted (probably because they're indoors).

But yeah, a bit of a shame (even though I've never been to Blijdorp), especially since walkthrough aviaries are one of a very few ways to actually make the average visitor interested in birds that are not penguins and ostriches.
 
Is the Wallaby-enclosure also on the plan to become a none-walk-through anymore ?
And the Prairie-dog-enclosure is ofcourse not a 'real' walk-through.
 
They're currently taking stock of what needs to change. From what I know, the wallabies are indeed on that list, just like the ringtailed lemurs (latter has rarely been opened since its inception tbh). With the mammals theyre of course not concerned with avian flu, but with feeding and other zoonotic diseases. I think the prairie dogs arent high priority for change, but I dont see them doing anything like that in the future again.
 
Blijdorpenaar said:
They're currently taking stock of what needs to change. From what I know, the wallabies are indeed on that list, just like the ringtailed lemurs (latter has rarely been opened since its inception tbh). With the mammals theyre of course not concerned with avian flu, but with feeding and other zoonotic diseases. I think the prairie dogs arent high priority for change, but I dont see them doing anything like that in the future again.
Click to expand...

Blijdorp and any form of long term planning really don't go together well it seems these days....
 
There is a little humorous book called 'The Undutchables' which describes quirks of the Dutch society. According to it, Dutch have a habit of regularly discussing and making improvements. These improvements, however, inevitably are reversed in the next round of improvements. The tendency of Blijdorp Zoo of tearing down good exhibits looks like this one. ;)
 
Blijdorpenaar said:
On a lighter note:
-The Rotterdam Zoo has decided that there is no future for walk-through exhibits, meaning they'll be phased out. They are currently in the proces of converting the vulture aviary by covering off the walkway.
Click to expand...

I know I'm late to this party, but this is a true shame. I've always praised Blijdorp as being the best Dutch zoo BECAUSE of its wonderful walkthrough aviaries! Especially the amazing Okapi Aviary and Vulture Rock.

With the Taiga aviary in GaiaZoo now also being rebuilt as a non-walkthrough, we are taking some serious blows in the Dutch zoo world because of bird flu...
 
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