Werribee Open Range Zoo Chimps and Gorillas for Werribee

snowleopard

snowleopard

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Plan for gorillas at Werribee zoo | Herald Sun

Werribee Open Range Zoo (after failing to become a Disney-like amusement park/zoo) will spend $70 million and triple its animal numbers in the next few years. No wonder no one ever goes to the park (276,000 a year attendance) because there is only a few hundred animals there. There is now talk of boosting that number from 500 to 1500, and that includes an African jungle with chimps and gorillas. Exciting times down in Melbourne!
 
Glad to here they've rejected that ridiculous idea and are doing something much more productive with the money :)
 
Not just gorillas and chimps but a whole new set of exhibits, including babboons, wild dogs, fennec fox's, porcupines and viewing into most of the savannah exhibits. We have a map in our paper (the Herald Sun.)
 
Just saw the article in a Google search. Excellent, this is what should always have happened. BTW I wouldn't say that no one gos there. A figure equivilant to 10 per cent of the population is not bad. Have you ever been there Pat?
 
Hi jay,

Can you provide us a link to the article?
Be nice to know!

Hope, council and federal state will now wake up to the fact that the millions they talked about with this commercial lot be unceremoniously given over to Zoo Victoria Board and have invested into all their extension plans. Problem solved and everyone can enjoy Werribee Zoo even more and happily live ever after, ay! :D

Jelle
 
I have been there Jay...a lot because I live near Bendigo and we can take a sort of detour thing and don't actually need to go into Melbourne to get there. I've been three times in the last four years and many times before that so I have got to see the changes that have been made so far and by the looks of it I willbe going again soon considering work has already begun on the Wild dog exhibit.
From the map it looks like you will be able to hop on and off the bus at stations because it is quite spread out and some exhibits are seperated from the rest (unless it is a drive through wild dog exhibit.)
 
Perhaps Werribee is attempting to catch up to both Dubbo and Monarto in terms of animal numbers and expansion attempts. Monarto's new chimpanzee exhibit should be opening soon, and there is talk of some kind of African safari in 2010. Werribee definitely has the least amount of animals out of the 3 open range zoos, and only a few hundred in the collection is shockingly small considering the amount of land that is available to the establishment.
 
Werribee Zoo has acres of space up for development into great wildlife adventure trails. The planned new wild dog exhibit is a good start and by the looks of it major re-investment into the rhino/giraffe+savannah.

The real crowd puller is ofcourse the chimp+gorilla exhibit. I do hope this will be developed in train with other exhibits to house bongos (I know a difficult one in the Aussie zoo world, but dream I may ... ;), mandrills, colobus monkeys and bush pigs (no Biosecurity restrictions???). Along with songbirds, turacos, rollers and small hornbills would make an excellent rainforest theme.

The new director seems to have a views firms on the futures! :cool:
 
What Werribee lacks in collection size, it more than makes up for intheming and a better overall feel to it.
 
Don't forget that Werribee has had at least 4 directors in the span of the last 5 years or so--Zoos Victoria is an extremely volatile and erratic institution (as evidenced by the "Village Roadshow" fiasco), where drastic changes of direction can be instigated on a whim by a very small and powerful Board.

The latest rumor has it that the new Zoos Vic CEO wants to move Melbourne's Asian elephants to Werribee, despite the huge investment of money and political capital required to get them to Melbourne and create the Trail of the Elephants.

But I agree African Great Apes (done well--not crappily like the Orangutan "Sanctuary" at Melbourne) could be marvelous at Werribee.
 
The Village Roadshow wasn't done at the Zoos Vic instigation. It was a political/big business thing
 
But one of the 8 Zoos Vic Board members was a senior executive at Roadshow before he resigned from the Board due to the blatant conflict of interest (after gathering the "ammo" to base the takeover proposal upon)--pointing out the danger of such power being concentrated in the hands of so few individuals.
 
Do you think Melbournes orang-utan cages were done badly. I really liked them especially the open top enclosure because there are many viewing oppurtunities and I can honestley say that I haven't seen an orang-utan on the ground (which is what Melbourne were aiming to do.)
 
I'm basing my perhaps too harsh criticism on the photos I've seen--I've never actually visited. My objection is that they have taken what seems to be a common "easy route" by theming the exhibit as an "Orang rehab center," complete with the usual wooden platforms and buildings. The open-topped area I guess is supposed to represent "wild orang" habitat, but the fake sway poles and general lack of mature forest are not very convincing. If the orangs are in fact using the climbing structures, that's a great improvement over most exhibits, but I'd still like to see zoos try harder to create a naturalistic environment for these amazing animals, complete with huge forest trees, vines etc. The closest I've seen is in Leipzig, where a large group live in a multi-acre mature forest with one gibbon. Watching a mature male brachiating through the trees there was amazing. Unfortunately, many of the trees were showing signs of stress and damage, and probably won't last too many more years.
 
reduakari said:
but the fake sway poles and general lack of mature forest are not very convincing. If the orangs are in fact using the climbing structures, that's a great improvement over most exhibits, but I'd still like to see zoos try harder to create a naturalistic environment for these amazing animals, complete with huge forest trees, vines etc.
Click to expand...

I think they are one of the MOST difficult animals to accomodate properly in a zoo situation. Few people realise how almost exclusively arboreal they are in nature- because zoo enclosures always result in them using the ground far more than they do in the wild. As you recognise, they often cease to exhibit climbing behaviour in zoos and become grounddwelling, an easier option for a lazy or obese animal. When this happens, they become a very poor zoo exhibit indeed.

Also it wasn't that long ago that Orangs were being displayed in similar surroundings to other apes- in fact in many zoos of course they still are. Its a real problem to provide enough 'off the ground' space and stimulation to prevent them coming down onto the ground, while they are of course very 'hard' on the vegetation in a controlled space.
 
In this respect the new orang exhibit at Zoo Frankfurt is a turn key development. A high rise enclosure instead over rectangular. The great apes obviously appreciate the exhibit and no longer use the ground level much. I am sure this exhibit will set in motion of new development thinking in arboreal orang enclosure design across Europe! :D
 
About the weribbe theme park like idea, I remember early on in the year Fotz sent me a letter about how they were against it mainly because of that the zoo might not be able to breed as well,
 
jelle said:
In this respect the new orang exhibit at Zoo Frankfurt is a turn key developmen. I am sure this exhibit will set in motion of new development thinking in arboreal orang enclosure design across Europe! :D
Click to expand...

Frankfurt have always been in the forefront of management & enclosure design for Great Apes, so I imagine this new building is one of the very best around. The pictures in the gallery of the Orangutan areas certainly give the impression it is superb.:)
 
I certainly hope that Werribee follows through on these plans, especially after visiting Monarto Zoo on the weekend. They've got the space but it needs more variety and interactivity. I think the great ape additions would be awesome!
 
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