Visited Amersfoort today and nearly screamed in joy when I found out someone finally did something about bird flu.
Well, not bird flu of course, but Amersfoort has finally re-opened parts of Snavelrijk. A small part in the beginning aviary and a large path area (reaching all the way to the spot where you can see into the Savanna enclosure) have re-opened with netting over it. This means we can finally see the Snavelrijk birds properly.
A small viewing hut was already open, but it was in an unfortunate place where the birds were barely visible.
(This is a WAY better solution than what GaiaZOO or Blijdorp are doing in my opinion)
Other news:
- The Standing's day gecko wasn't in the Chameleon enclosure where it was signed, but in the Fiji iguana enclosure.
- Also in the 100.000 animal house, I only managed to see the Collared lizards and Chuckwallas in the larger desert terrarium. There is always the chance that you won't see an animal when going to the zoo, but Desert iguanas are usually very hard to miss, and I managed to see just about every other animal in the terrarium building
- The Azara's agouti's have moved from the second hall to the third hall of De Nacht.
- Also in De Nacht: I saw a single sloth in every hall, but no baby sloth in any of them. I could have simply missed them, of course
- A sign has been added to the former Nutria enclosure explaining that the Nutrias are no longer on show because they are an invasive species and no longer allowed to be displayed
- I may have simply missed this on my last visit, so apologies if this is old news. But the Red-crowned cranes have gained a sort of aviary construction. It's a bit odd as it's only the roof of an aviary, the front and sides are still completely open.
- The Japanese/Barbary macaque island was empty. According to messages on another zoo forum website, the new Barbary macaques managed to jump off the island and into the trees. The Macaques were sent back to Apenheul. Amersfoort is currently looking into a different monkey species to display here (I personally vote for the Pig-tailed macaques, whose enclosure is absolutely abysmal).
- A sign has appeared in Het Woud; Amersfoort's European region. The sign displays the European grass snake, and about how the large pile of leaves behind the sign is actually a hill used by grass snakes where they can lay their eggs.
- The dinosaur forest has been completely revised and shrunk. A small extinction display was added near the exit of the Tortoise greenhouse. It consists of a path between piles of volcanic stones. Some orange, see-through stones that I wasn't sure were plastic or not were placed with lights to simulate lava. Other than that there were a lot of move-arounds and removals. I'm glad Amersfoort decided to get rid of all the old and broken-down animatronics, leaving the static and still mostly inaccurate dinosaur statues. Some of them were crammed together in illogical positions and all the signage for the dinosaurs has been removed. A few new signs with a more modern design were added, but not a lot. You can now no longer see the separation cage in the former cassowary exhibit, which used to be visible from the forest.
- The forest was shrunk, of course, because of the new Chimpanzee enclosure being built. Some trees had been cut down and some marking tape has been placed, but nothing that might give away what the future enclosure might look like. A Chimp-based photo booth was also placed near the end of the Dinosaur forest.
- One of the windows into the Lion enclosure was boarded up, a sign explained that the window was cracked and the glass had some exposed sharp edges on the visitor side, so it was boarded up out of safety.
- Throughout the zoo there were a lot of bird houses decorated by school children. I say this not because of the childlike and colourful designs, but because they were actually signed by the kids who made them, which was quite nice to see!
In general:
I managed to see just about every animal in the zoo, which you certainly can't say about most zoo visits. The only animals I missed were:
- Yellow-headed day gecko
- Desert iguana, Desert spiny lizard and Giant horned lizard in the desert terrarium
- Glossy ibis, Green-winged teal and Marabou stork in Snavelrijk
- The Eurasian grey wolves in Het Woud (somehow)
- The European white storks that are still behind the scenes as far as I'm aware
- The free-roaming Leiothrix's, Munias and Fodies in the tortoise greenhouse.
- The Bug-eyed frogs, Blue-tongued skinks, Corn snakes, Peafowl, Golden orfes, Fire-bellied newts and West African mud turtles that Amersfoort has according to ZTL, but no evidence can actually be found about in the zoo itself.
I was lucky enough to get a good view of the Garden dormouse in the nesting box, these are a lot larger than I had envisioned. I also managed to see the Badgers eating in their den, which was a first for me.
Also got some great photos, especially of the tigers and crocodile lizards. Pictures to follow in the gallery
I'm still incredibly disappointed in Amersfoort's lack of educational signage. I spent half of my time telling people about the animals they were looking at, as a lot of people didn't know anything about the animals and Amersfoort is severely failing at any type of education. Hell, I even had to tell some people what they were looking at as some enclosures in Amersfoort didn't have signage at all. I especially spent some time around the ancient city and the night telling people that the animals aren't scary at all.
I especially noticed that around the vultures in the Ancient city, a few kids were talking about how they were scared of the vultures. I talked to them about how vultures are actually scavengers, not hunters, and they clean up dead animals which means diseases spread less quickly. Very disappointed that Amersfoort isn't doing its duty when it comes to destigmatizing the bad statuses of some animals, which is often crucial to their conservation.
Well, not bird flu of course, but Amersfoort has finally re-opened parts of Snavelrijk. A small part in the beginning aviary and a large path area (reaching all the way to the spot where you can see into the Savanna enclosure) have re-opened with netting over it. This means we can finally see the Snavelrijk birds properly.
A small viewing hut was already open, but it was in an unfortunate place where the birds were barely visible.
(This is a WAY better solution than what GaiaZOO or Blijdorp are doing in my opinion)
Other news:
- The Standing's day gecko wasn't in the Chameleon enclosure where it was signed, but in the Fiji iguana enclosure.
- Also in the 100.000 animal house, I only managed to see the Collared lizards and Chuckwallas in the larger desert terrarium. There is always the chance that you won't see an animal when going to the zoo, but Desert iguanas are usually very hard to miss, and I managed to see just about every other animal in the terrarium building
- The Azara's agouti's have moved from the second hall to the third hall of De Nacht.
- Also in De Nacht: I saw a single sloth in every hall, but no baby sloth in any of them. I could have simply missed them, of course
- A sign has been added to the former Nutria enclosure explaining that the Nutrias are no longer on show because they are an invasive species and no longer allowed to be displayed
- I may have simply missed this on my last visit, so apologies if this is old news. But the Red-crowned cranes have gained a sort of aviary construction. It's a bit odd as it's only the roof of an aviary, the front and sides are still completely open.
- The Japanese/Barbary macaque island was empty. According to messages on another zoo forum website, the new Barbary macaques managed to jump off the island and into the trees. The Macaques were sent back to Apenheul. Amersfoort is currently looking into a different monkey species to display here (I personally vote for the Pig-tailed macaques, whose enclosure is absolutely abysmal).
- A sign has appeared in Het Woud; Amersfoort's European region. The sign displays the European grass snake, and about how the large pile of leaves behind the sign is actually a hill used by grass snakes where they can lay their eggs.
- The dinosaur forest has been completely revised and shrunk. A small extinction display was added near the exit of the Tortoise greenhouse. It consists of a path between piles of volcanic stones. Some orange, see-through stones that I wasn't sure were plastic or not were placed with lights to simulate lava. Other than that there were a lot of move-arounds and removals. I'm glad Amersfoort decided to get rid of all the old and broken-down animatronics, leaving the static and still mostly inaccurate dinosaur statues. Some of them were crammed together in illogical positions and all the signage for the dinosaurs has been removed. A few new signs with a more modern design were added, but not a lot. You can now no longer see the separation cage in the former cassowary exhibit, which used to be visible from the forest.
- The forest was shrunk, of course, because of the new Chimpanzee enclosure being built. Some trees had been cut down and some marking tape has been placed, but nothing that might give away what the future enclosure might look like. A Chimp-based photo booth was also placed near the end of the Dinosaur forest.
- One of the windows into the Lion enclosure was boarded up, a sign explained that the window was cracked and the glass had some exposed sharp edges on the visitor side, so it was boarded up out of safety.
- Throughout the zoo there were a lot of bird houses decorated by school children. I say this not because of the childlike and colourful designs, but because they were actually signed by the kids who made them, which was quite nice to see!
In general:
I managed to see just about every animal in the zoo, which you certainly can't say about most zoo visits. The only animals I missed were:
- Yellow-headed day gecko
- Desert iguana, Desert spiny lizard and Giant horned lizard in the desert terrarium
- Glossy ibis, Green-winged teal and Marabou stork in Snavelrijk
- The Eurasian grey wolves in Het Woud (somehow)
- The European white storks that are still behind the scenes as far as I'm aware
- The free-roaming Leiothrix's, Munias and Fodies in the tortoise greenhouse.
- The Bug-eyed frogs, Blue-tongued skinks, Corn snakes, Peafowl, Golden orfes, Fire-bellied newts and West African mud turtles that Amersfoort has according to ZTL, but no evidence can actually be found about in the zoo itself.
I was lucky enough to get a good view of the Garden dormouse in the nesting box, these are a lot larger than I had envisioned. I also managed to see the Badgers eating in their den, which was a first for me.
Also got some great photos, especially of the tigers and crocodile lizards. Pictures to follow in the gallery
I'm still incredibly disappointed in Amersfoort's lack of educational signage. I spent half of my time telling people about the animals they were looking at, as a lot of people didn't know anything about the animals and Amersfoort is severely failing at any type of education. Hell, I even had to tell some people what they were looking at as some enclosures in Amersfoort didn't have signage at all. I especially spent some time around the ancient city and the night telling people that the animals aren't scary at all.
I especially noticed that around the vultures in the Ancient city, a few kids were talking about how they were scared of the vultures. I talked to them about how vultures are actually scavengers, not hunters, and they clean up dead animals which means diseases spread less quickly. Very disappointed that Amersfoort isn't doing its duty when it comes to destigmatizing the bad statuses of some animals, which is often crucial to their conservation.
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), as they do not recognise their own young. 
It's the first flamingo hatched in Amersfoort since five years. Lets hope for more youngsters hatching! 
On a few different places in the zoo these signs appeared, describing the relation of the exhibited animal in relation to their living circumstances in the wild. At least the ring tailed lemurs and tigers have these signs.
) were closed today. Construction was going on. 
