Caiman and free flight birds

Zooplantman

Zooplantman

Well-Known Member
Can anyone think of an exhibit with caiman and free flight or free roaming birds? I have a bird curator who's nervous about the mix (understandably) and it would help him to know if such a mix exists.

Thanks
 
Stuttgart Zoo has caimans together with several free-flying birds in their Amazonian Rainforest House. However, they already lost a female Grey-winged Trumpeter to them...
Tierpark Friedrichsfelde had humming birds in their crocodile house. Nuremberg Zoo keeps caimans together with Bee-Eaters, Emmen crocodiles with weavers and Pierrelatte Crocodile Zoo various crocodiles & starlings/herons. And as far as I can remember, Budapest Zoo had some birds in the greenhouses together with the crocodiles/alligators...
 
@Zooplantman: My pleasure-just tell Your curator not to choose the most precious birds of the zoo collection...just to be safe ;).
 
They will have a very simple collection. Nothing rare. Education is the goal rather than breeding (although Curators always prefer breeding over anything!)
 
I seem to remember Burgers Zoo keeping yacare caimans with smaller free-flying birds. They recently switched to broad-nosed caimans but the concept is still the same. Perhaps one of the dutchies here can confirm this information?
 
Chester kept American alligators and then dwarf crocodiles with free-flying birds. I believe the alligators enriched their diet occasionally - I don't know about the crocs. The pools have now been rebuilt and will hold Philippine crocodiles in a few days, but I saw on Saturday that they have now been netted.

Alan
 
Dallas World Aquarium has Orinoco Crocodiles and Biodome de Montreal has Yacare Caimans both in free flight areas.
 
The Toronto Zoo has kept American Crocodiles, and Caimens with free flight birds in the Americas Pavillion for several years now!
 
Nürnberg Zoo keeps violet plantain-eaters and white-fronted bee-eaters with spectackled caimans in their old hippo house (now a small tropical house).
 
Emmen Zoo keeps it's slender snouted crocodiles (and therefore a fish eating species) with a lot of birds, among others glossy starlings, a group of weavers and a turaco species.

Burgers' has their caiman netted away of most of their larger (rarer!) birds, the only birds i've seen in the caiman part are white-eyes, snowy-headed robins, and a hummingbird species.
 
when Chester first opened their tropical house way back when, one of the alligators jumped to take a toucan from a branch overhanging the pool.
 
Zooplantman said:
Can anyone think of an exhibit with caiman and free flight or free roaming birds? I have a bird curator who's nervous about the mix (understandably) and it would help him to know if such a mix exists.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I would tell your curator, partly based on what has already been said, not to do it. That said I have seen exhibits that maintain crocodilians and birds under the same roof, but provides protection by a loose mesh roof over the crocodilians.
 
zooplantman:

You may recall that your former institution's sister zoo (Central Park) opened in 1988 with several caiman in an open exhibit within the Tropic Zone building, filled to the brim with free-flight birds. Well, (most of ) the birds are still there. The caimans are not.......
 
@ Sun Wukong: yes, Budapest Zoo kept their American alligators with birds species (f. e. Black-necked aracari), but this mixing don’t exist yet.

Oregon Zoo, Bamba du Jon Swamp Building: home of African slender-snouted crocodiles, African lungfish, frogs, and leeches and smaller free-flying birds will be overhead.

At an other zoo once a staff told me that a hornbill had been eaten by a caiman in a mixed exhibit.

And a photo from Al Ain Zoo:
http://www.alain.ae/portal/sitebuil...افق سياحية/حديقة الحيوانات/images/Full/06.jpg
 
@ Chlidonias: yes, they are occur at the UAE, but I don’t know the exact degree of that. I think that Al Ain Zoo has a free flight colony of Sacred ibises, so in this case they provide a 'legal' environmental enrichmment for their crocs. So they don’t keep a record of the number of these birds I think ... Probably this imagination is true, because we can see an outside enclosure in the photo … but I don't know really exactly ...
 
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