Chessington Zoo Chessington Zoo News 2012

Pertinax said:
...but I can't see another enclosure on the cards as they built a 2nd one only recently- still its enough room if one group was able to access the whole area.
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Of course there were plans to have a new exhibit for all gorillas and big cats over in the 22 arches field called Safari Trail. Chessington management decided to build the hotel instead and only uses a small section of the 22 ache field. This also caused the monkey area to be demolished and animals from this area either leaving or being slotted in the bird garden in remodelled cages.
 
John Dineley said:
Of course there were plans to have a new exhibit for all gorillas and big cats over in the 22 arches field called Safari Trail. Chessington management decided to build the hotel instead and only uses a small section of the 22 ache field. This also caused the monkey area to be demolished and animals from this area either leaving or being slotted in the bird garden in remodelled cages.
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Well its Monkey and Bird Garden so its a mix of both, I'm sure there are more monkey species than bird species in that area. Plus they also used to keep gibbons near the gorillas, not sure if they are still there?
 
Gorillas

For those who are interested, I've updated my "family trees" for the Chessington gorillas. To me, this way it's more easy to see the family structure and to follow the blood lines. That's why I made them. Please pay attention to the colour code as explained in the description.
All trees can be downloaded.

Both groups: Gorilla Family - Chessington | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Damisi's group: Gorilla Family - Chessington - Damisi's Group (Version 1) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Damisi's group (extended): Gorilla Family - Chessington - Damisi's Group (Version 2) | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
 
JamesB said:
Well its Monkey and Bird Garden so its a mix of both, I'm sure there are more monkey species than bird species in that area.
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It was originally built purely as a Bird Garden, and was quite a good one too. The Monkeys were housed in 'Monkey Row' which was demolished when the Hotel was built. They had Lion-tailed Macaque, Diana Monkeys, Capuchins, Colobus and a few other species too. Most of these left, leaving just things like Squirrel Monkey and I'm not sure what else.
 
Pertinax said:
It was originally built purely as a Bird Garden, and was quite a good one too. The Monkeys were housed in 'Monkey Row' which was demolished when the Hotel was built. They had Lion-tailed Macaque, Diana Monkeys, Capuchins, Colobus and a few other species too. Most of these left, leaving just things like Squirrel Monkey and I'm not sure what else.
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Their website says they hold 5 monkey species in that area, it no longer lists capuchins which they also used to keep there and I recall seeing Ring tailed lemurs there too.
 
The old monkey walk did hold some interesting species, however I think the more delicate ones either left or died out, and there haven't really been many additions since the closure of gatwick zoo, when Chessington recieved their breeding group of spider monkeys, and possibly also their white-throated capuchins and squirrel monkeys.
 
I doubt there is anything there now except South Americans (and maybe Gibbons) The Lion tailed Macaques were sent to South Africa. Not sure what happened to the Dianas or Colobus- redistributed somewhere at a guess.
 
The Barbary macaques also moved here for a number of years before they left the collection, I also feel like they had Crab-eating macaques and possibly de brazza monkeys, but I've nothing to back that memory up.
 
I think over the years they have had all those species, and possibly others too. Rather a shame they have now retracted to just a few of the South Americans.
 
Sorry but i think its disgraceful that they leave a successful group of gorillas in their current cages, and so many other monkeys and birds in small cages across the zoo, and instead invest in a rhino safari.

That 22 acre reserve should have been developed properly to continue the afriacan theme, with gorillas in new open topped exhibits, african primates, walk through african bird avairies, giraffes and other small savannah animals/carnivores. A walk through flamingo aviary (like Bristol's) with other african waders would have been good too.

This may then have enabled the outdated monkey and bird garden to have been vacated, and a much bigger sealife centre could have been constructed there with integrated with penguin, sea lion and otter exhibits (with underwater viewing).

The old sea lion cove/creepy caves and trail of the kings could then have been conservatively given over to asian animals, (as it largely is now), with a more consistent themeing throughout.
 
leiclad20 said:
Sorry but i think its disgraceful that they leave a successful group of gorillas in their current cages, and so many other monkeys and birds in small cages across the zoo, and instead invest in a rhino safari.

That 22 acre reserve should have been developed properly to continue the afriacan theme, with gorillas in new open topped exhibits, african primates, walk through african bird avairies, giraffes and other small savannah animals/carnivores. A walk through flamingo aviary (like Bristol's) with other african waders would have been good too.

This may then have enabled the outdated monkey and bird garden to have been vacated, and a much bigger sealife centre could have been constructed there with integrated with penguin, sea lion and otter exhibits (with underwater viewing).

The old sea lion cove/creepy caves and trail of the kings could then have been conservatively given over to asian animals, (as it largely is now), with a more consistent themeing throughout.
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Might be wishful thinking, but prehaps if Zufari has the desired effect (as in more visitors) then Merlin might just plough the resulting profits back into the zoo and give the Gorillas a home to be proud of... along with some serious upgrades and rebuilds elsewhere in the zoo. We can hope!
 
It sounds very Disneyesque, but exactly what you would expect from Chessington.

I still don't know why they left the Gorillas where they are and didn't do a new enclosure for them in this new african area, as was planned originally. Too costly?:confused:
 
@nisha/pertinax:

Even if what you say is true and Zufari is a financial success, they have built on the area originally planned for the gorillas, so a serious rebuild for them at a later date would not occur without some serious (and costly) internal re-organisation of the zoo! Stupid, short sighted theme park management. And I doubt a new gorilla gaff would be anymore costly than a rhino safari and giraffe enclosure!
 
leiclad20 said:
And I doubt a new gorilla gaff would be anymore costly than a rhino safari and giraffe enclosure!
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No, but being a theme park basically they just want to add as many new 'big' animals as they can- so expenditure on new enclosures for Rhinos and giraffes presumably won out over anything new accommodation-wise for a species they already have.

While I think the Howletts-style covered outdoor cages are actually probably more suitable for the Gorilla group than a large 'fancy' open enclosure which they might be reluctant to use, I agree the current housing is still borderline substandard-it looks scruffy and includes the old chimpanzee quarters(now offshow) and other sleeping/indoor quarters some of which have been 'tacked' on to the original design. Originally it was just the original Gorilla and smaller Chimpanzee outsides, with a small row of brick-built sleeping dens behind them- I seem to remember that when it first opened, the public could walk along the back to see into these sleeping dens before it later became closed off.

I think the newest 'indoor' quarters they built, may still have only temporary planning permission? If they never move them now, I would at least like to see a proper large 'single unit' indoor house built to modern specifications- perhaps allowing visitor access again also.

And the whole display tidied up.;)
 
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Nisha said:
Latest news is that the upcoming 2013 development will be named "Zufari"
and is expected to open in March. White Rhino pictured on the promotion material so I assume that's confirmation on when they will be receiving
ZUFARI - Ride into Africa! A brand new safari adventure opening in 2013
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I've seen the plans for the ride, I think the area will also include flamingos in a seperate enclosure. I can't find the plans anymore. But I'm pretty sure Giraffes and Rhinos have their own paddocks too. New housing it being built as well.
 
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