Zoo #33, Moscow Zoo, 7/7/2017
Moscow is, geographically and culturally, way out in Europe's deep space orbit. It's a long way from anywhere, as I can attest from the time I've spent hopscotching from Kraków to Moscow, via a lovely few days in Kyiv (I spent one day at some remote, trendy health spa called Chernobyl, and I'm feeling positively radiant). Moscow Zoo, for its part, loomed somewhere out of reach of my imaginary telescope. A Planet Nine of the zoo world, its presence detected only by its subtle gravitational pull, and never directly observed. So imagine my disappointment, then, when Planet Nine turns out to be Pluto after all.
I was battling yet another illness - this time the start of another, rather more severe cold than the previous two - and also had some terrible weather to contend with. Nothing that a Muscovite can't take in their stride, I'm sure, but I expect better than 13 degrees and steady rain at the height of summer. All the more reason, then, to want a satisfying zoo visit for my troubles. I didn't get it.
For the increasing number of us who have travelled to Japan, Ueno Zoo will serve as a useful reference point. Moscow looks similar, right down to being bisected by a road and having an enormous waterfowl lake, although Moscow has two big lakes, not one. There's a variety of Eurasian species but ruddy shelducks predominate: there must be hundreds of them.
Both zoos have generous lashings of concrete, and some exhibits with viewing impeded by domineering wire, though both are more pronounced at Moscow. I wasn't naive enough to expect a shimmering beauty of a zoo: I was braced for concrete. But I was expecting to be compensated by a big and varied collection of oddball species, like at Ueno, for which I've gleaned Moscow has a great reputation.
They must mostly be out the back, though, because apart from a medium-sized nocturnal house this is fairly stock standard collection, in conditions that are mostly ok, but never outstanding. The smattering of small mammals in the nocturnal house include eastern quolls (meh for me, but probably not for the rest of you), Eurasian flying squirrels and a couple of jerboa species. But the conditions are disappointing: the building serves as the foundations for the 'Russian fauna' exhibits above. These are a series of narrow aviaries and wire mammal cages arranged in an arc, and so the nocturnal house, too, consists of narrow enclosures arranged in an arc. Most animals couldn't get more than a metre and a half away from visitors, and though I didn't succeed in seeing everything I don't doubt they were all too aware of my presence.
There are two reptile houses, which could broadly speaking be said to specialise in big and small reptiles, respectively. The big reptile house has some old-fashioned concrete slab dorms for giant pythons, and for no less than eight crocodilian species: some have quite generous sized pools, whereas others couldn't possibly stretch out straight in the water.
The small reptile house is a separate ticketed-exhibit, costing 100 rubles: why this should be, exactly, is unclear. It looks like a fancy pet shop, with rainforest or desert-themed picture backgrounds that blend into the similarly-decorated walls: attractive, but of no good whatsoever to the animals.
There's a handful of cool species, especially rare viperids - Mangshan mountain viper, Persian horned viper, Turan blunt-nosed viper, red diamond rattlesnake, Great Basin rattlesnake - and there are also rufous beaked snakes, which I haven't seen before.
But aside from that, this is a pretty crappy reptile house. The rest of the collection is made up of standard pet shop exotics, including several morphs (egregiously, one is a scaleless corn snake). And the exhibits are mostly tiny. There's an adult Weber's sailfin dragon in a tank that's perhaps 80cm long, and about as high. There's a water bowl but not sufficient for it to submerge. A sub-adult pied ball python has a tank smaller than most of the terrible tubs that python puppy mill breeders keep them in. Two sub-adult boa constrictors share a 1.2m long tank. And many of the exhibits that are of an adequate (very rarely more than that) have nothing at all in the way of furnishings. It hurt to see two ridge-tailed monitors - one of the most active and intelligent lizards - in an 80cm long tank with neither digging nor climbing opportunities. Nothing to do.
For something that seems relatively new, it's a pretty dramatic misfire.
Similarly, there are two bird houses, both probably of a similar vintage (1970s-ish, I'd guess, if I were in a Western country). Both are disappointing, both for lack of the rare species I was anticipating and for the poor exhibit quality. Common bird species perched between glass in front of them and concrete behind, with not much in the way of furnishings to make a more complex environment. Some, not all had access to outdoor aviaries, although they were shut in for my visit. If that were due to the weather then they must spend a great deal of the year inside: this is not a friendly climate for a zoo, to be fair. But some parrots had only a couple of perches and a concrete floor: wholly inadequate. A walk-through aviary had - drumroll please - some Eurasian wading birds and waterfowl.
Mammal exhibits, judged by Western European standards, range from poor to fair. There are four bear species: sloth bears have a serviceable, but small enclosure while the rest have concrete car parks. Big cat exhibits aren't generous in size but are ok. So, mostly, are hoofstock yards but I mourn for a kiang and some alpacas who have nothing but concrete to stand on. Primates are probably where Moscow most closely matches Western standards: the primate house is of a piece with those I've seen in some of the best Western zoos. That shouldn't be mistaken for me saying the exhibits here are high quality: I've been underwhelmed with primate houses across Europe, for the most part.
A pretty disappointing day, then, and not, I think, because I went in with unrealistic expectations. I will say in partial mitigation that there is quite a lot of construction work going on. One of the more complete projects looks like it might be bird of prey aviaries, but if so they are quite big and it wouldn't shock me if they are new carnivore exhibits instead.
I'll have to continue the search for Planet Nine, alas.
given the fact that - give or take any taxa which ZTL has missed the arrival or loss of - the collection holds a total of 85 viper species alone!
