Dierenpark Emmen (Closed) Emmen Zoo news

I would agree with sooty mangabey that Emmen zoo is stagnating. Most exhibits and almost all species were there 20 years ago and similar things are now in zoos everywhere. Penguins are a taste that the zoo could regain its fame, but Emmen needs 3 more new exhibtis like this.

Good that the zoo is not closing. Maybe the way to bring visitors is to introduce several new, charismatic species in innovative exhibits (lions? polar bears? apes?) and petting zoo and animal feeding sessions.
 
Emmen has stagnated, that's correct, but certainly not easily overtaken. There's no zoo in germany or holland that meets the level of the complete zoo of emmen. @ sooty mangabey, the new area should have consisted out of the penguin exhibit, a large enclosure for spectacled bears, a flamengo lagoon and a patagonian plains-exhibit by now. But the mismanagement mentioned before has caused also stagnation of this area, which eventually caused a drop in attendance and income.

@jwer, don't forget that the manager already said that next year lions will arrive, as part of a plan to draw more people to the zoo. And in a few days a complete plan about such a complex matter would be a little bit too much to ask, don't you think?

@ jurek, they are planning to move the entire zoo, and there are some innovative new exhibits planned. They are also trying to house new animals here. Orang utans, lions, manatee's have been announced already, and they are trying to get giant panda's. Perhaps this will succeed, perhaps not, but they are working on serious ways to make the new zoo attractive.
 
I slightly disagree here. I do think that Emmen Zoo has been lagging behind by not taking heed that once it had completely overhauled the old zoo site ... it should have invested small time in new attractions every 3-4 years. It has not done that under the new management when Messrs. Rensen et al left.

I do feel that most of all there has been mismanagement of the zoo from the top level. A zoo is not a trad business/commercial venture , but once you run it without proper investmest and heavily leaning to one-off events like Festival of Lights ... you are really losing it.

At present the zoo is operating at a loss of 3 mio per year, which is really disconcerting. Now, that is not staff overturn as has been suggested - the staff have already been hard hit over the last 2 years (with a considerable reduction in staff on the ground).

At the same time the zoo is looking to invest 200 mio. in a new site that has been partially run already, yet has never received the focus that it would deserve. How the zoo can make ends meet I am yet to see.

What also displeases me is that an outside commercial audit recommended further staff reductions and closing the zoo in winter-time. That is what you get when you get KMPG or McKinsey type audit report on zoo organisations (admittedly recommended by City Council).

I remain hopeful, but ... really a lotta water need to pass this Rubicon yet!
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
What also displeases me is that an outside commercial audit recommended further staff reductions and closing the zoo in winter-time. That is what you get when you get KMPG or McKinsey type audit report on zoo organisations (admittedly recommended by City Council).
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Closing a park if it's not financially viable isn't what "KMPG (presumably KPMG) or McKinsey type audit report" would recommend, it's what common sense when you're losing money would recommend.

I don't know much about De Efteling, but i presume it's very well run and guess what, it closes down during winter. Why? because they loose money when they open!

I've also seen the financial report of Emmen, and they seem to have a hell of a lot of people for a company it's size. I understand they are in a labour-intense industry, but as far as i can estimate from the numbers, they have too many people and on average, they are too well paid (or, presumably, too highly educated).

Kifaru Bwana said:
the staff have already been hard hit over the last 2 years (with a considerable reduction in staff on the ground).
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Do you have a source for that, because the financial report says personnel has increased over the last 2 years with 15%. I know many people have been hired for the development of the new park, but still...

I also wonder if it was common sense to let "Emmen Zoo" create the new park. I think it might have been better if a seperate corporate entity was set up. But perhaps someone smarter then me thought about it and disagreed...
 
My criticism goes down to the very fact that the new park has taken precedence over the old and management is seriously *** (e.g. staff reductions have been made at the old ...).

I would not recommend closing down Emmen Zoo as I do see a viable future for it ..., just not with current management.
 
Since, you seem to have access to the Annual Report which I cannot find under Noorder Dierenpark Emmen, perhaps you could share it here for us to partake.
 
Johnny said:
they are planning to move the entire zoo
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I understand it. But from the visitors' point of view, moving exhibit means no added value - the same animal in a different place.

I would add some new species to the new zoo grounds, and move bears, gibbons and perhaps elephants and tigers (all have too little space). I know that the new zoo plan is organized so that exhibits form chains, so perhaps it is difficult to build a "middle" first, but I am sure it can be done.

Anyway, I hope for the best for the zoo. Also, the new playground (although not my kind of thing) is very popular.
 
Jurek7 said:
I understand it. But from the visitors' point of view, moving exhibit means no added value - the same animal in a different place.

I would add some new species to the new zoo grounds, and move bears, gibbons and perhaps elephants and tigers (all have too little space). I know that the new zoo plan is organized so that exhibits form chains, so perhaps it is difficult to build a "middle" first, but I am sure it can be done.

Anyway, I hope for the best for the zoo. Also, the new playground (although not my kind of thing) is very popular.
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It is what they have been doing before. A new exhibit for a familiar animal will do gooed from the visitors point of view. They already have a sealion enclosure, don't you think attendance will go up when they moved to a new, larger, more natural exhibit, with underwater viewing, or perhaps even an underwatertunnel? Of course it would! Playa pengnuinos is also very popular with the visitors, while the penguins already were in the collection before.

And bears, tigers and elephants have too little space? For zoo standards these animals have very large enclosures in fact. I have been to a number of german zoo's, where they seem to believe that only tigers and lions need large enclosures, and for everything the size of a leopard ( or smaller), a small cage seems to be enough.
 
Johnny said:
They already have a sealion enclosure, don't you think attendance will go up when they moved to a new, larger, more natural exhibit, with underwater viewing, or perhaps even an underwatertunnel?
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For some yes, for many visitors not.

But who I am, a zoo design consultant? ;)
 
I think that the best thing the city can decide is to cut all their financial support.. the small community Emmen cannot affort to take the millions of losses due to the mismanagement. It is technical bankcurpt ofcourse and the best is to make that official and make a restart in a verry humble way. No great new things in the hope to be an great zoo gain. There are several investors that has shown interest to take over the park.. Libema, CDAparks and Aspo, so the city and Emmen Zoo should take every opportunity and talk with this partners. They have made some verry unresponsible descisions in history and must face the fact that they are not capable to run a healty organisation.. So please let someone else do that. Emmen Zoo should be considderd 'brain-dead'' ..and hopefully someone gets the chance to make it alive again.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Since, you seem to have access to the Annual Report which I cannot find under Noorder Dierenpark Emmen, perhaps you could share it here for us to partake.
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I got it with the remark not to spread it around, a bit weird since anyone can buy it at the Dutch registration office (KvK) for about 7 euro's... But i'll try to adhere to the request.

btw your private message box is overflowing, apparantly

@ Safariman,

That sounds a bit rash. It's not going very well at the moment, but the park is still sitting on a very expensive plot of land which if handled correctly will bring in a lot of money. I think it CAN be turned around, without any intervention from another company when handled fast, and rationally.

The only majorly worrying thing is, that the management over the last few years have shown nothing that could be qualified as fast, rational or business-economically sane. I just hope someone there will show some hidden talents, or the the people trusted with corporate governance will replace them...
 
@Jwer: I hope the city council makes the descision not to support the zoo anymore.. sorry, but in my view, a completele new construction with a completely new staff is the only way to keep this park on his feet.. in a humble way. Emmen should face the fact that they belong to the middle-class zoos and cannot have the arrogance to be one off the number-one zoos at the cost of community money... there are some examples of Dutch zoos that can.. face it: Ouwehands and Burger's ( even Amersfoort ) are good examples of verry succesfull zoos that are not arrogant, are not using community money, and are not pretending anything more than being a good place to be... th yare not shouting to the press that they want to be the best zoo in the Netherlands.. but in fact are better bussineses than Emmen..
 
Ouwehands and amersfoort are succesful indeed, but on zooological grounds emmen is still far superior. And Burgers not arrogant? Ever read their leaflets, anniversary book, and anniversary newspaper? If you think emmen is arrogant, then burgers must even be snobbish.

Emmen has made some financial mistakes, but it doesn't automatically mean the zoo itself has become lesser in quality. When I walk around in emmen, I can still agree on the fact that this is one of the best zoo's there is.

And the zoo is very important for the community, so why shouldn't the community be supportive for a change? They need to reorganize, so they will. The new director has plans to turn the tide ( and give him some credit, he just started in june), so let's see what comes out, shal we?
 
I know Johnny, you are one of the handfull Emmen fanatics. It's just a matter of taste for the zoo amature to say Emmen is still far superior.. a professional will make another statement.

But I agree when you say: let's see what comes out, and we shall indeed.
 
I would have one question to all Emmen experts. What species of sloth is kept in Dierenpark? A couple years ago they were labelled as Linnaeus two-toed sloths, later renamed as Hoffmann's two-toed sloths and in this time according to the zootierliste they are labelled as Linnaeus again..So I am really interested in what species they really are.
Thanks
 
They keep Linnaeus two-toed sloths. There was/is some confusing about it but I think they are sure it are Linnaeus two-toed sloths.
 
Jakub said:
I would have one question to all Emmen experts. What species of sloth is kept in Dierenpark? A couple years ago they were labelled as Linnaeus two-toed sloths, later renamed as Hoffmann's two-toed sloths and in this time according to the zootierliste they are labelled as Linnaeus again..So I am really interested in what species they really are.
Thanks
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I've seen both species, and i'm 99% sure they are Linnaeus. I never understood why they got labeled as Hoffmans in zootierliste, but i believe the zoo named them that for some reason. For me, theres no reason to believe they are Hoffmanns.
 
Thanks a lot for your answer Jwer, I really doubt they are really Hoffmans,there are a lot of unreliable determinations, I do suppose only few animals in Europe belong to Hoffmans, some people say that the animals in Frankfurt are Hoffmans (regarding to the tiergarten.com and especially some comments of Zebraduiker (Charly=Michael Amend), but I really infirm this statement, some genetics tests might reveal the truth of the genus. But it would be appreciated to know more about Hoffmans in european collection.
 
Jakub said:
Thanks a lot for your answer Jwer, I really doubt they are really Hoffmans,there are a lot of unreliable determinations, I do suppose only few animals in Europe belong to Hoffmans, some people say that the animals in Frankfurt are Hoffmans (regarding to the tiergarten.com and especially some comments of Zebraduiker (Charly=Michael Amend), but I really infirm this statement, some genetics tests might reveal the truth of the genus. But it would be appreciated to know more about Hoffmans in european collection.
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I`m sure Tasirus/Zebraduiker will be really pleased to be outed on here but then many of us enjoyed watching his slide show of photos,of Japanese Zoo`s at the zoo collectors fair at Landau this year,that we had already seen posted on here.
 
jwer said:
I've seen both species, and i'm 99% sure they are Linnaeus. I never understood why they got labeled as Hoffmans in zootierliste, but i believe the zoo named them that for some reason. For me, theres no reason to believe they are Hoffmanns.
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That happened after examining the neckbones of a dead youngster. After these findings there was reason to believe that the most likely explanation was that there were more zoo's in europe with 'mistaken identity' concerning their sloths. But perhaps there has been DNA comparison, or there have been other findings, and they changed the determination of the displayed species. It was 2001 when they came up with this idea, and a lot can happen in 9 years.
 
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