Desert Houses in Zoos

Batto

Batto

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
While "tropical rainforest" houses (usually with a focus on South America, SE Asia or a mix of everything "rainforesty") are a common feature in many non-tropical zoos and exhibit complexes on Artic/Antarctic habitats or the African savanna grassland aren't unheard of (usually centered around popular species, like giraffes, polar bears etc. ), houses dedicated to other habitats are much rarer. In particular, I find the general lack of desert houses in zoos [zoos in deserts is another topic on its own] quite baffling, given that there are already a number of common, popular and, in the case of the USA, even native desert species in zoos. I somehow doubt that building and maintaining a desert house is more expensive than a rainforest house, and as previously mentioned, there are enough species popular even among "normal" visitors to populate them with and keep them interesting.
Anyway, here's a list of zoos that I know to have desert houses or at least larger desert exhibit complexes. Feel free to add others and comment which you like or not.

Europe:
- ARTIS Amsterdam
- Burger's Zoo
- Helsinki Zoo ("Africasia" is actually more savanna - themed, but let's add it here)
- Landau Reptile Zoo
- Tierpark Nuremberg
- Paignton Zoo
- Parken Zoo
- Zoo Plzen
- Desert House Vienna (as an external part of Zoo Vienna)

North America:
- Brookfield Zoo
- Henry Doorly Zoo
- Indianapolis Zoo
- North Carolina Zoo

Rest of the world -?

[Desert Zoos:
- Alice Springs Desert Park
- Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
- The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens
- Several zoos in North Africa, the Middle East, Australia and SW USA]
 
I don't know any desert house currently in France.
In the 1970-80-90's there was a Saharan house in the Zoo de Vincennes in Paris, but it was only a row of 4 inner enclosures for Fennec Foxes, Jerboas and Lizards. It was often closed for obscure reasons (I could only visit it one time in 9-10 visits). Interestingly it was localized near sandy plains for desert animals like Addax, Scimitar-horned Oryx and Ostriches.
 
I feel that Artis is not really worthy of a mention, at least not as a full on Desert house.
From what I remember all it has is a short segment of walk-through in the birdhouse that is themed after Deserts.

I am personally very fond of Burgers' Desert, in my opinion their finest complex and absolutely wish to see more Desert houses in the future!
Both zoological as botanically they can be incredibly diverse in collection.
I think that it's 100% possible to dedicate Desert complexes to North-American, African and also Australian species from these arid regions on their own.
 
Marwell Zoo has one but I don't know what it houses currently.
It did have Fennec Foxes, Sand Cats and Desert Tortoise at one time.
Part of their Arid Zone area.
 
It's never something I've seen in a zoo, but it's not a bad idea. Deserts have an interesting range of wildlife, and desert themed enclosures don't seem all that difficult to do, so it is something I wouldn't mind seeing more of.
 
Tropical world in Leeds has a desert themed zone, but it’s main focus is meerkats.
 
The only desert exhibit I've ever seen is the one at ZooAmerica. It has burrowing owls, gambel's quails, desert tortoises, greater roadrunner, nine-banded armadillos, a few reptiles, and a nocturnal section. It's a really cool exhibit, albeit not very large, and something I wish more zoos would replicate. Deserts is a theme that I think a lot of small zoos could do well with, as most of the charismatic desert animals aren't very big. Think ocelots, meerkats, aardvark, wallabies, burrowing owls, sand cats, even koalas may be a possibility. It's an area that could seem complete even without any large megafauna.
 
Neil chace said:
Deserts is a theme that I think a lot of small zoos could do well with, as most of the charismatic desert animals aren't very big. Think ocelots, meerkats, aardvark, wallabies, burrowing owls, sand cats, even koalas may be a possibility. It's an area that could seem complete even without any large megafauna.
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Given the dietary needs of koalas, they might not be the best option for most small zoos. But you're correct - a desert house would be a good option for a small zoo. Other than mammals and birds, there are quite a bunch of reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates as well as a few fish species that would fit into the narrative. And even larger hardy desert species like camels, desert antelopes, kangaroos etc. could be included, like in the Wroclaw example.
Therefore, I do not understand why the concept isn't more popular.
 
I think the reason we don’t see as many is because many small animals and birds that are found in North Africa, Gobi, Sonora/Mojave, and Australian deserts aren’t in common circulation. In North Africa there are very few non bird eating small animals, Gobi animals are hard to find either way, North America animals are somewhat found out here but not much in Europe, Australia might have the best chances but still not many birds in America or Europe. Now this might not stop zoos considering most of Burgers animals were imported but it’s still hard. Compare Omaha’s Lied Jungle and the Desert Dome, Lied Jungle has far more species and has a better looking future. Desert houses just don’t have the necessary popular species in circulation.
Batto said:
And even larger hardy desert species like camels,
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Maybe some of the smaller gazelle would work but Camels?
 
Westcoastperson said:
many small animals and birds that are found in North Africa, Gobi, Sonora/Mojave, and Australian deserts aren’t in common circulation.
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Plenty of those in the exptic pet trade and thus in "circulation", including popular species.
Westcoastperson said:
Maybe some of the smaller gazelle would work but Camels?
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Surrounding outdoor exhibits, mate, and if required, with insight into the indoor holdings, like in Wroclaw. Nobody keeps camels permanently indoors.
 
The 7500 m² Burgers' Desert (an imitation of a Mojave / Sonora desert ecosystem) is simply brilliant. It's large with extremely detailed landscaping. It's built on a slope so it has lots of depth perception. It's attractive to visitors with its winding paths through grottoes and along mammals exhibits. It has a great botanical collection. But above all, it's animal collection is very diverse, with many, for Europeans, rarities.

Coming from the rain forest (Burgers' Bush) through that long narrow mining tunnel (with owls, rodents, insects and rattlesnakes) suddenly impressive rock and boulder formations come to sight. Then a rather steep hillside desert landscape opens in front of you, filled with free ranging birds (vultures, quails, doves and passerines birds), large cactus and mammals (red lynx, desert sheep and peccary) kept in naturalistic enclosures.

It's a complete enigma to me why no other European zoo have done this too.
 
In the USA the Tulsa Zoo also has a desert house. Condor Ridge at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park was an outdoor desert complex, but it sounds like they've abandoned the theme recently by adding some tropical species.

As for the question of why desert houses are so much less common than tropical houses, I wonder if part of it comes down to primates being really popular so that they typically serve as anchor species in tropical houses, while in contrast desert halls have fewer obvious choices for anchor species except for maybe Meerkats. Zoos also seem to ignore natural habitat conditions to fit desert species into the typical themes that pop up across multitudes of zoos but appear unwilling to do the same for popular rainforest species. So you get Scimitar-horned Oryx and Meerkats in African savanna exhibits, or Red Kangaroos in generic Australian outback exhibits, but not sloths in South American pampas exhibits or gibbons in Asian highlands exhibits.
 
Gondwana said:
I wonder if part of it comes down to primates being really popular so that they typically serve as anchor species in tropical houses
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Off the top of my hat, I can think of several tropical rainforest houses without nonhuman primates, including one of the best examples, The Bush at Burger's Zoo. So while I understand your point in regard to the popularity of tropical rainforest houses, I don't see that as a reason for the lack of desert houses, in particular in regard to major zoos that have the budget to do both.
 
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Gondwana said:
while in contrast desert halls have fewer obvious choices for anchor species except for maybe Meerkats
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Fennec, Bat-eared, or Swift Foxes would be a good popular choice for desert houses. People also tend to like owls, so burrowing owls would be another good option. Sand cats and black-footed cats would also be options.

They may not be obvious choices, but there are plenty of popular choices out there if zoos wanted them. I'd also think koalas could theoretically work in a desert house.
 
As stated everywhere else in this thread, there aren’t many options for small diurnal desert mammals, but why not have a desert-themed nocturnal house?
There would be many more options for mammals, reptiles and invertebrates and a few bird candidates.
 
Strix said:
As stated everywhere else in this thread, there aren’t many options for small diurnal desert mammals, but why not have a desert-themed nocturnal house?
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There are actually quite a bunch of options, including the ever-popular meerkat and other mongoose species (if you include semi-deserts), gundi, fat sand rat or rock hyrax as well as species that can be active during the day, like fennec / kit fox or sand cat. Not to mention larger "small" mammals like the caracal.
 
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