CGSwans flies north for the winter

107, then. For the record I can subtract just fine, I didn't bother to go back and check the date because frankly it wasn't the point.

I'm aware that it's no worse than most off-show holdings - in Europe or anywhere else. My point is that it's not an off-show holding (setting aside the apparent doubts about my permission to be there for a moment). It's an exhibit. My critique isn't that it's failing the pigs in any way. It's that it simply doesn't look the part.
 
Im sure the reaction of CGSwans to both Hamburg and Berlin has stunned many long-term observers of zoological gardens.Maybe its a generational thing and sometimes people who are basically on the same side have to agree to disagree;i like zoos that look like zoos for instance, and there can be little doubt that a great deal of so-called "immersive" exhibitry in zoos is for human consumption.Therefore the perspective of whether an enclosure is good or bad is often a human one,let alone the guess (and it often is a guess) whether an animal is "happy" or not.Sometimes these matters have to be judged by the record and i will take Hagenbecks record ,or experience if you like,with Polar Bears, over many opinions including,Im sorry to say, that of CGSwans.
The first "zoo" i ever visited was the indoor menagerie at Blackpool Tower and it was little changed from the way it was when built in the 1890s- folks would go apoplectic if it existed today, but a close examination of the facts reveal that many animals did very well in there....on one level at least they could be judged to be "happy."As for worrying about what PETA or Born Free have to say on the matter then if we have to factor that in all the time then they have won a battle for sure .Take the new gibbon islands at Twycross...very nice,a notable exhibit, but if the islands were cages then the outdoor areas could be twice the size with more opportunities to climb and brachiate...but would the zoo do that? No, because the great unqualified-to -judge have influenced mainstream zoo thinking.It will be sad day when Berlin`s Swine House is no more...yes,its a relic of a bygone age but pigs and peccaries thrive in it......and so do I !
 
I have a feeling we are seeing a clash between two different generations ;)

Tim Brown said:
Sometimes these matters have to be judged by the record and i will take Hagenbecks record ,or experience if you like,with Polar Bears, over many opinions including,Im sorry to say, that of CGSwans.
Click to expand...

What records do you refer to and what do they say.

Tim Brown said:
but a close examination of the facts reveal that many animals did very well in there....on one level at least they could be judged to be "happy."
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Same as previous. I assume you mean longevity and breeding as indicators for the animals to be happy? Or did they already test cortisol levels in hairs... As has been discussed to great extent in other places on Zoochat you are indeed right in saying that it is hard to tell whether animals are "happy" and it is impossible to say for sure. But recreating an "umwelt" that stimulates the animal just as it would in nature would be the best bet and the polar bear enclosure in Hamburg is not an example of that, neither the swine house in Berlin. This does not mean that "natural" enclosures are better. Take for examples Basel's chimpanzee enclosure which is not looking natural at all and not even that big, but it creates a complex "umwelt" that fits what we know about the social lives and other behavior of chimps and it does a better job than other new and "natural" enclosures.

Tim Brown said:
Take the new gibbon islands at Twycross...very nice,a notable exhibit, but if the islands were cages then the outdoor areas could be twice the size with more opportunities to climb and brachiate...but would the zoo do that? No, because the great unqualified-to -judge have influenced mainstream zoo thinking.
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This has more to do with the fact that exhibit design is not only influenced by animal welfare and a zoo is a place for people and they prefer not to see cages and normally like illusions... This is something different than the "unqualified have influenced mainstream zoo thinking". Zoos are businesses that have to think about their customers, nothing wrong with that, as long as it doesn't significantly compromise animal welfare.

Tim Brown said:
It will be sad day when Berlin`s Swine House is no more...yes,its a relic of a bygone age but pigs and peccaries thrive in it......and so do I !
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As a piece of zoo history it is very important, unfortunately the indoor enclosures do not really fit with what we know of pig behavior and to be honest, visiting in winter shows just how little space the animals have and the number of species kept in the house has grown by 2 in the past years instead of gone down... Conditions are not much better than in a conventional pig farm.... Pigs also thrive there....

Don't get me wrong, I also love zoos that look like zoos. I very much enjoyed most parts of the old Paris Jardin des Plantes, but there they managed to give most species adequate space and structure in a historic setting (exceptions are the orang utans, birds of prey and some of the carnivores) unlike parts of both Berlin zoos....
 
lintworm said:
Conditions are not much better than in a conventional pig farm.... Pigs also thrive there....
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They don't. That's why pigs are displaying various forms of what is called technopathies in veterinary medicine there. Unlike the Berlin Pig House, where most specimens are much healthier (and live a way longer life). Although I agree that less species / specimens kept there wouldn't be wrong.
 
Batto said:
They don't. That's why pigs are displaying various forms of what is called technopathies in veterinary medicine there. Unlike the Berlin Pig House, where most specimens are much healthier (and live a way longer life). Although I agree that less species / specimens kept there wouldn't be wrong.
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You are off course right, this was a hyperbole, but it missed the target.... I just think that saying that pigs are thriving in the swine house is a bit of an exaggeration as well...
 
CGSwans said:
However, the zoo’s more recent work – the bird house, the blob bears, at least some elements of the aquarium – are up there with the best I’ve seen in the world.
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Your positive conclusion on the bird house really surprised me. I found it extremely disappointing upon my visit a couple of years back - essentially a continuation of the mid-20th Century zoo house concept as present in Berlin's cat- and ape-houses. Endless rows of largely barren cages. Your verdict would make it seem that the renovation of the house - only a few years after it was inaugurated - has led to substantial improvements. Do you - or anyone else - have pictures of the bird-house in its present state?

I am also surprised by your overall negative verdict on indoor holdings in Europe. In fact I would have stated quite the opposite: in Europe (Western Europe where there is regular snow in winter, to be more precise) one can likely find the highest density/frequency of high-quality indoor holdings anywhere in the world. Of the European zoos I've visited, I think Basel, Zurich, and Vienna show the way, of the ones I haven't, I would guess that many Dutch and German zoos would follow in kind. There is a long list of relatively recent European indoor exhibits that are imo well executed from both a visitor and animal wellfare pov and/or have set standards in one way or another, e.g. Burger's (Desert, Bush, Mangrove), Vienna (successful renovation, repurposing of historic buildings, e.g. bird-house, monkey-house), Zurich (Masoala, Kaeng Krachan, but also e.g. the lion house - which used to be a Berlin-style stamp collection of cats), Leipzig (Gondwanaland), Basel (Etosha), and countless more. The US and Australia seem to focus much more on outdoor exhibits with indoor holdings frequently being off-show. Asia - including Japan - from what I have seen still lags far behind Europe in exhibit quality generally (with certain exceptions) - but especially indoor holdings.
 
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Tim Brown said:
Im sure the reaction of CGSwans to both Hamburg and Berlin has stunned many long-term observers of zoological gardens.Maybe its a generational thing and sometimes people who are basically on the same side have to agree to disagree;i like zoos that look like zoos for instance, and there can be little doubt that a great deal of so-called "immersive" exhibitry in zoos is for human consumption.Therefore the perspective of whether an enclosure is good or bad is often a human one,let alone the guess (and it often is a guess) whether an animal is "happy" or not.Sometimes these matters have to be judged by the record and i will take Hagenbecks record ,or experience if you like,with Polar Bears, over many opinions including,Im sorry to say, that of CGSwans.
The first "zoo" i ever visited was the indoor menagerie at Blackpool Tower and it was little changed from the way it was when built in the 1890s- folks would go apoplectic if it existed today, but a close examination of the facts reveal that many animals did very well in there....on one level at least they could be judged to be "happy."As for worrying about what PETA or Born Free have to say on the matter then if we have to factor that in all the time then they have won a battle for sure .Take the new gibbon islands at Twycross...very nice,a notable exhibit, but if the islands were cages then the outdoor areas could be twice the size with more opportunities to climb and brachiate...but would the zoo do that? No, because the great unqualified-to -judge have influenced mainstream zoo thinking.It will be sad day when Berlin`s Swine House is no more...yes,its a relic of a bygone age but pigs and peccaries thrive in it......and so do I !
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I'm going to have to give you the benefit of the doubt that this sounds more condescending than it's intended to be.

What disappoints me is that you clearly haven't read much of what I've written. You can't have, or you would not assume I prefer gibbon islands to cages. You can't have, or you wouldn't imply that I might claim greater knowledge of polar bear husbandry than Hagenbeck. You can't have, or you wouldn't believe that I value immersion as a metric for animal 'happiness'.
 
antonmuster said:
Your positive conclusion on the bird house really surprised me. I found it extremely disappointing upon my visit a couple of years back - essentially a continuation of the mid-20th Century zoo house concept as present in Berlin's cat- and ape-houses. Endless rows of largely barren cages. Your verdict would make it seem that the renovation of the house - only a few years after it was inaugurated - has led to substantial improvements. Do you - or anyone else - have pictures of the bird-house in its present state?

I am also surprised by your overall negative verdict on indoor holdings in Europe. In fact I would have stated quite the opposite: in Europe (Western Europe where there is regular snow in winter, to be more precise) one can likely find the highest density/frequency of high-quality indoor holdings anywhere in the world. Of the European zoos I've visited, I think Basel, Zurich, and Vienna show the way, of the ones I haven't, I would guess that many Dutch and German zoos would follow in kind. There is a long list of relatively recent European indoor exhibits that are imo well executed from both a visitor and animal wellfare pov and/or have set standards in one way or another, e.g. Burger's (Desert, Bush, Mangrove), Vienna (successful renovation, repurposing of historic buildings, e.g. bird-house, monkey-house), Zurich (Masoala, Kaeng Krachan, but also e.g. the lion house - which used to be a Berlin-style stamp collection of cats), Leipzig (Gondwanaland), Basel (Etosha), and countless more. The US and Australia seem to focus much more on outdoor exhibits with indoor holdings frequently being off-show. Asia - including Japan - from what I have seen still lags far behind Europe in exhibit quality generally (with certain exceptions) - but especially indoor holdings.
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You've misunderstood. I'm referring to indoor facilities for medium and large mammals, which are open to the public primarily because their outdoor exhibits aren't fully usable during winter. Features that are back-of-house in Australia.

I have been greatly impressed by many indoor exhibit complexes such as Masaola. They are a completely different thing.

I loved Berlin's bird house, in large part because it's *not* only a bird house but that each exhibit is made up of both indoor and (usually larger and often better planted) outdoor sections.
 
Tim Brown said:
Im sure the reaction of CGSwans to both Hamburg and Berlin has stunned many long-term observers of zoological gardens.Maybe its a generational thing and sometimes people who are basically on the same side have to agree to disagree;i like zoos that look like zoos for instance, and there can be little doubt that a great deal of so-called "immersive" exhibitry in zoos is for human consumption.Therefore the perspective of whether an enclosure is good or bad is often a human one,let alone the guess (and it often is a guess) whether an animal is "happy" or not.Sometimes these matters have to be judged by the record and i will take Hagenbecks record ,or experience if you like,with Polar Bears, over many opinions including,Im sorry to say, that of CGSwans.
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Just to add to lintworm's comment, there are three generally recognised components of animal welfare: physical health, mental state, and naturalness. Your belief that the first either encapsulates or nullifies the other two is a crude form of behaviourism, which dominated the academic zeitgeist for much of the 20th century. However, even a cursory review of the animal welfare literature would reveal that this stance has been repeatedly debunked over the last 30 years. Dismissing any understanding of animal emotions as "subjective" does not reflect the state of the field.

This is particularly true as the patchy empirical record in fact suggests that polar bears adapt poorly to small exhibit sizes. For instance, since someone mentioned cortisol, a recent large-scale study identified a negative correlation between land area and the concentration of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites in this species. In other words, the vague appeal to tradition says very little about polar bears, and quite a lot about your frustrating inability to see beyond an outmoded worldview.
 
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antonmuster said:
Your positive conclusion on the bird house really surprised me. I found it extremely disappointing upon my visit a couple of years back - essentially a continuation of the mid-20th Century zoo house concept as present in Berlin's cat- and ape-houses. Endless rows of largely barren cages. Your verdict would make it seem that the renovation of the house - only a few years after it was inaugurated - has led to substantial improvements. Do you - or anyone else - have pictures of the bird-house in its present state?
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The difference between the Bird House of 2015 and of 2017 is startling. I felt very similar to you two years ago and very similar to CGSwans this summer.

I'll see if I can upload a few shots.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
The difference between the Bird House of 2015 and of 2017 is startling. I felt very similar to you two years ago and very similar to CGSwans this summer.

I'll see if I can upload a few shots.
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What changed? Is it just a matter of the vegetation having matured in that time?
 
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CGSwans said:
What changed? Is it just a matter of the vegetation having matured in that time?
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The vegetation is not just matured, but vastly increased in quantity. The colour scheme inside is much more natural as well. Externally I'm not so sure, as it was under renovation on my first visit.
 
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Well that stirred up a hornets nest didnt it? Then again i almost knew it would...hence my statement that we would have to agree to disagree.Of course everyone here is entitled to their opinion,and for ME Its difficult to have any discussion, let alone an argument, with anonymous people( as is the nature of the internet sadly....how many people criticizing [or stronger] Hamerton for instance, via social media, had the decency ,or courage,to say who they are/were?...not too many).
BUT...my point is that Berlin and Hamburg have contributed a great deal to the world of zoos..and i deeply respect that.Times change ,i recognise that fact..and Berlin`s Swine House certainly doesnt represent the apogee of animal keeping today,but that doesnt mean it shouldnt be there,that its not good enough,or does not have enormous qualities worth preserving(on the other hand if someone doesnt like the way it looks then who is anyone to argue?). Are we headed for a regulated world where scientific criteria automatically trumps experience,history and the romance simply of "being"?And if we are to apply strict scientific criteria then there are many so-called arguments that can quickly be used against the captive process - its thin ice that can be interpreted both ways,in which case many zoos and aquariums could exit stage left fairly promptly quite honestly.As i said re.CG ..Hamburg,a "bad zoo" - well zoochat is indeed a broad church of opinion! Finally however,i would like to say that this has also been a very interesting thread that would have been far less so without contentious viewpoints.
 
Oh...and by the way CG ,the point i made about the Twycross gibbon islands wasnt actually made with reference to your viewpoints..it was made to illustrate how popular perceptions influence zoos for worse sometimes,even without zoos necessarily realizing it.Thats why i appreciate Hagenbecks building an Arctic Panorama that in effect says "we know best".
 
FunkyGibbon said:
The vegetation is not just matured, but vastly increased in quantity. The colour scheme inside is much more natural as well. Externally I'm not so sure, as it was under renovation on my first visit.
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Looking at your pictures (thanks) it really does look a lot better, looking at
Bird House Interior | ZooChat
it seems that furthermore the number of aviaries was reduced considerably in favor of larger ones - the way I recall the building, every black vertical beam separated another aviary.
 
antonmuster said:
Looking at your pictures (thanks) it really does look a lot better, looking at
Bird House Interior | ZooChat
it seems that furthermore the number of aviaries was reduced considerably in favor of larger ones - the way I recall the building, every black vertical beam separated another aviary.
Click to expand...

I think there's been a certain amount of combining, but there's still A LOT in there. And there are definitely a number of the 'single width' aviaries still extant.

Another change is that, IIRC, before it was Africa, South America, Asia and Parrots, whereas how the later has been replaced with Australia, although it still features many parrots, some of which are not from Australia.
 
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