I have been redesigning my fantasy zoo. Disregard my previous entries. This is the first of my new complexes.
PLEISTOCENE PREDATORS
The Pleistocene Predators complex is made up of three different enclosure elements and houses over twenty species. The majority are predatory species but the one thing they all have in common is that they all do, or did, live in Europe during the Pleistocene era.
Prehistoric Plain
This is the simplest of the enclosures and is the only one to house exclusively vegetarian animals. It establishes the setting through signage - the continent of Europe was once a patchwork of open grasslands and forests home to an array of herbivores that helped support the large number of predators. The three species that live here are all threatened worldwide and were once very important keystone species in the European ecosystem. A herd of seven
European bison dominate the scene, while six
Persian onager add to the prehistoric vista. Both species maintained grassland and encouraged a diverse habitat through their grazing and trampling. Scurrying about the feet of these giants is a colony of thirty
European souslik. The enclosure can be viewed from the main pathway behind a ha-ha, while the entry to the complex goes up onto a realistic granite plateau where visitors spy the herbivores over parapets of stone or from between blackthorn shrubs. The enclosure itself is mostly flat and grassy, with a couple of fallen trees for the animals to investigate, rub against or rest in the shade of, a pool for drinking and wallowing in and several hawthorn shrubs that can be replaced as they are browsed. All three of these species are being bred for reintroduction across Europe. A large sign board features pictures of the different Pleistocene herbivores and how they fed - from browsing species such as moose, roe deer and narrow-nosed rhinoceros through intermediate feeders such as wisent, red deer, ibex, mouflon and straight-tusked elephant to grazers such as water buffalo, saiga, wild horses and woolly mammoth and rhinoceros (
1). The recreated skull of a straight-tusked elephant lodged in the rocks allows visitors to interact with the fossil of one of Europe's most impressive mammals. They are then led up the smooth, rock-hewn path towards the next section...
Forest Edge
Forest Edge is a very different habitat. It is dominated by trees such as birch, hazel, Scots pine and some ancient oaks that were incorporated into the exhibit. The first two netted-over enclosures are viewed through an elevated glass window and house a breeding pair of
North Persian leopards. As with all carnivores shown here, their ecology in the European ice age is shown through signage. A viewing area covered by fake granite, mimicking a shallow cave (these viewing areas are dotted throughout the exhibit), features the information about these cats. A restoration of the Chauvet Cave painting of a leopard is on the wall of this cave and signage indicates how the European leopard once prowled the mountains and alpine forests and hunted ibex, red deer and wild boar.
Visitors then have the option to head down into a deeper cave, following a flowing stream that falls through a pothole into the darkness beyond. Down here, faint orange lighting illuminates cave paintings of mammoths, aurochs, horses and woolly rhinoceros. The stream ends in a cave pool where, perched on rocks and swimming through the frigid waters, are a colony of
olm. Although they are now only found by the Adriatic, there was at least one other species of European cave salamander that occupied caves in Germany. There is also a one-way viewing window into a narrow, netted-over outdoor enclosure housing a pair of
Scottish wildcats. The enclosure features loose boulders as a substrate with holly, birch and hazel saplings and fallen pine trunks acting as bridges across the gully the animals are exhibited in. There are three hidden off-show dens where the cats can retreat to if they desire. These cats are part of the programme that intends to reintroduce the offspring of these animals to Britain, including not only Scotland but also possibly restored habitats in Wales (
2). Just before the exit to the cave is a small interior cave with a glass viewing window. Nothing appears to be in there, so the visitors now head out of the indoor cave.
Immediately to the left of the cave exit is a large aviary housing two familiar British scavenging birds - the
common raven and the
European magpie. The ravens are a breeding captive-bred flock while the magpies are all unreleasable rescue birds. Signage shows how both species have a vital role as scavengers and how the magpie is being unfairly demonised as a killer of songbirds - the damage is mostly being done by human activity. The small outdoor enclosure is linked to the small indoor viewing cave and houses a pair of
European marbled polecats. These small carnivores are fairly recent arrivals to Europe - the modern species was only found in Russia during the Pleistocene although an earlier species got as far as Poland and Hungary. The enclosure has several boulders for climbing on, a couple of birch saplings, a hollow oak branch to sleep in and a sand bath made to mimic a wild horse rolling spot. Regular natural enrichments are given to the polecats to make them more active during visitor hours.
The next exhibit is by far the largest in Forest Edge. It features a large, clear pool of water with another stone-lined stream, several ancient live oaks along with birch, hazel, holly and crab apple trees as well as shrubs such as brambles, redcurrants, bluebells, wild daffodils and wild strawberries, several granite cliffs and large boulders and even piles of dead pine needles to recreate wood ant nests - all creating a lush and diverse habitat for two species. One, the
European red fox, is a familiar animal with the zoo's pair of males being unreleasable rescues. As they snooze and play in this large enclosure they are overshadowed, literally, by a far larger predator. The pair of
Asiatic black bears come from a rescue centre in Vietnam and now have a full one and a half acre enclosure to use. It is the zoo's aim to breed these bears. Signage in the indoor cave shows how the Asiatic black bear was once a fairly common European species, with a unique subspecies occurring in the Mediterranean. The signage indicates how they probably fed on many familiar European plants such as blackberries, acorns, crab apples and redcurrants along with wood ants, mice and sometimes even large herbivores. The bear's indoor area is lined with fine sand, is dimly lit with orange light and has floor-to-ceiling glass windows that are well hidden so it appears, at first, that you are sharing a space with the bears. The main viewing window to the outdoor area overlooks the pool where the bears can swim and receive enrichment feeding.
Upon leaving the bear's cave, visitors are now on the final three enclosures for Forest Edge, all housing smaller predators. The first enclosure is an open-topped, glass-fronted exhibit housing a small breeding group of
four-lined snakes. These are the largest nonvenomous snake in Europe and easily capable of living outdoors during the spring and summer. Off season, they are taken into an off-show area to spend the winter and their enclosure is then netted over to provide a exhibit for a pair of
least weasels. They are the smallest true carnivores in the world and here at the zoo they are normally used in the 'Predators of Europe' show. The enclosure in question is furnished with gorse bushes, dead birch and pine trunks, loose rocks and boulders for climbing on and a small pool for drinking and bathing. The next exhibit is a large aviary, roughly equal in size to the raven/magpie aviary. This one houses three bird species that are now all found in Europe. A pair of
common kestrels and
long-eared owls perch in live trees and on a scraggly looking dead pine with lots of branches for perching on. Pecking around in the pond, preening on the cliff face and flying around the aviary are a flock of four
Northern bald ibis - these birds once lived as far north as Germany and migrated across continental Europe. The zoo keeps the bald ibises as part of a breeding programme, while the kestrels and owls are both ambassadors for the zoo's native conservation programmes aiming to find the causes for the declines of both species. The final enclosure in Forest Edge is a small netted enclosure with elder, redcurrant and wild strawberry plants as well as hazel branches spanning the exhibit. There is also an indoor viewing window into a small cave crevice. This is an enclosure for the
garden dormouse. They are one of the largest European dormouse species and the most predatory, capable of killing wood mice, birds up to the size of an adult starling and even young rabbits. Above the indoor area, invisible to visitors, is a solar panel that stores energy over the spring and summer. Come winter, when the dormice go into hibernation, this energy is used to refrigerate the indoor area to ensure the dormice hibernate for an appropriate length of time. This cave, with the dormouse nest chamber, is the introductory area to...
Vallescure Carnivores
Named after the Vallescure Cave in Provence, this is the realm of the truly massive carnivores of the late Pleistocene. All the enclosures are viewed from indoors and behind floor-to-ceiling glass. This series of dark, winding caverns also have mock cave art and fake fossils dotted around to add interest for visitors. Immediately after entering the Vallescure Carnivores cave, there are visitor toilets and baby changing facilities. The first exhibit houses a pair of
European wolverines, the only one of the four large predators here to have survived in Europe. In the Pleistocene, wolverines were much more widespread and preyed upon reindeer, hares and foxes as well as scavenging the remains left behind by other large predators. Their enclosure features a relatively shallow pool, several live holly, hazel and birch trees and a series of hillocks and gullies for the wolverines to climb on and explore, hopefully satisfying the curiosity of these boundlessly energetic animals. After passing the fossil remains of an arctic fox, a leopard, a cave bear and a brown bear, visitors reach the next live animal exhibit. This one houses another large scavenger, the
Arabian striped hyena. They mostly fed on carrion and lived in the gullies and open woodlands south of the mammoth steppe, although they were probably capable of killing live prey such as onager, tortoises and crested porcupines that also lived in this region. In the atrium where the hyena viewing window is, there are also skeletons of striped and cave hyenas as well as mock cave paintings of cave hyenas and a snowy owl. The hyena enclosure is flatter than most of the others but still includes a waterhole, two underground dens, several birch trees, gorse and bramble bushes and rocks where food can be hidden for enrichment purposes. Visitors then leave the hyena area, passing through another narrow cave corridor covered with pictures of mammoth, Irish elk, reindeer and bison before entering the viewing atrium for the penultimate exhibit. This houses a breeding pack of
Chinese dhole, the subspecies closest in resemblance to the extinct European form. The dhole were able to live on both grassland and forest habitats, and hunted fallow deer, red deer and saiga. The enclosure has a large pool, several redcurrant, bramble and hawthorn bushes, live oak, Scots pine and birch trees, three off-show underground dens that will encourage successful breeding and patches of tall grass where the dhole can sunbathe on warm days. On the wall of the atrium here is a mock-up of the cave painting of a wolf, the other large canid that inhabited Europe in the Pleistocene. Upon leaving this area, the visitors enter a long corridor towards the final main enclosure. This overlooks the Prehistoric Plain, and houses a small breeding pride of
Asiatic lions. The atrium is filled with overlapping cave paintings of cave lions and has an alcove with the fake fossil remains of cave lions that died in caves throughout Europe thousands of years ago. The signage shows how European lions looked, how they thrived on the mammoth steppe and hunted bison, reindeer and wild horse. The enclosure has a pool they can drink from, a granite outcrop they can climb and bask on in order to overlook the Pleistocene Plain and several blackthorn, hawthorn and hazel shrubs - there are no large trees as these could potentially blow down in a storm and make the lions difficult to contain. After leaving the lion cave, there is a final chamber, about the conservation of these carnivores. Human hunting has pushed many of the animals in this complex to the brink of extinction and this room details the zoo's mission to protect these last bastions for the Pleistocene predators and, maybe, help them reclaim lost ground. As part of this, visitors are encouraged to leave a 'handprint for predators' using a red dye to make a hand stencil, similar to those left by cave-dwelling humans thousands of years ago (
3). Upon leaving the cave altogether, visitors get the opportunity to see the lions and dhole from open-air viewing areas, as well as get a second view of the Prehistoric Plain exhibit.
Overlooking the lion enclosure is a small, wooden seated amphitheatre where some smaller ambassador species and free-flying birds can be displayed. Animals included here will be
red kites,
European griffon vultures,
snowy owl,
European golden eagle,
saker falcon,
Aesculapian snake, least weasel,
edible dormouse and
Western polecat. Visitors then head down the path and end up at the exit to the complex.
Exhibit, Species and Conservation details
Signage - All signage shows the species former Pleistocene range (in blue) and their modern range (in red); there is a detailed black and white drawing of each species, with small boxes showing what habitats they occupied in the past and where they live now. For the larger predators there are also silhouettes of their three most important food items. All species will have information on their habits posted around their exhibit.
The species were all chosen very carefully. Some are EEP or ESB species while others are chosen for local or wider European conservation purposes. A few are chosen purely for educational reasons:
EEP - European bison, Persian onager, Persian leopard, Northern bald ibis, wolverine, Chinese dhole, Asiatic lion
ESB - European marbled polecat, Asiatic black bear, Arabian striped hyena, European griffon vulture
Local conservation - Scottish wildcat, common raven, common kestrel, long-eared owl, European golden eagle
European conservation - European souslik, olm, four-lined snake, garden dormouse, saker falcon
Educational - European magpie, European red fox, least weasel, red kite, snowy owl, Aesculapian snake, edible dormouse, Western polecat
According to the IUCN Red List, the number of threatened species are as follows: Critically Endangered (1), Endangered (5), Vulnerable (5), Near Threatened (4) and Least Concern (14).
The zoo runs or supports several conservation projects linked to this project, including:
1. Reintroduction of European bison, Persian onager and souslik to the wild (with support from Rewilding Europe)
2. Native Raptor Project - Looking to research and conserve hen harrier, kestrel and long-eared owl in Britain
3. Potential for reintroducing captive-bred Scottish wildcats, Northern bald ibis, marbled polecats and olm to new sites
4. Pleistocene Predators Fund - Supports and collects money for worldwide conservation projects including wolverine conservation (Sweden), investigating potential and readying new habitat for Asiatic lions (India), striped hyena research (Kenya), dhole conservation and research (Cambodia), supporting Free the Bears orphanages (Vietnam) and community conservation work for Persian leopards and Asiatic black bears (Southern Iran).
Notes
1 - Board will be similar to the table in this leaflet with some animals added (such as elephants, rhinos, hippos and possibly rodents/lagomorphs):
http://www.freenature.nl/free/download/documenten/natuurlijke-begrazing_uk.pdf
2 - This project aims to reintroduce wildcats, among other animals, to a restored forest in Wales:
Cambrian Wildwood - Rewilding
3 - Imagine something similar to this picture:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b.jpg
Hope you enjoyed reading!