Czech Part 5 - Usti
I spent two nights at Dvur Kralove, arriving late on Thursday evening and leaving early Saturday morning. Because I was staying two nights I received free entry to the zoo. Good value. Due to the hot weather and my own stupidity I managed to catch what I think was heatstroke on Friday afternoon. I retired to bed earlier than I would have with plenty of fluids and slept it off, but it did alter my Saturday plans.
My Saturday plans were that special kind of madness that overtakes you in the midst of trying to put together an itinerary that fits in as much as possible. Unless you are SnowLeopard such plans never survive contact with reality. The fourth zoo I had chosen to visit was Chomutov, somewhat on Sooty Mangabey's reccomendation. Now the easiest way to get there from Dvur would be to get the train back to Prague and then another one out again. But I noticed that I could actually take a much slower combination of trains that skirted the edge of the country and passed through several other zoo towns on the way. So my Saturday plan was as follows:
Leave DK before 7, walk 5 km to station. Catch two hour train to Liberec, walk 4 km to zoo. Rush round zoo in three hours, walk back to station. Catch two hour train to Usti, check into hotel, rush round zoo before closing time. All of this with a bag full of books and clothes for the next year in China (most Czech people outside of Prague have no English and a little German. The concept of leaving my bag at the station has proved beyond communicable). In my addled and demotivated state the previous night I reexamined the itinerary and decided it was completely bonkers. I didnt want to leave that early and sacrifice a morning walk in Dvur and I didn't want to have to rush through two zoos. So I adapted. I caught a train two hours later, with a flexible approach. If I could dump my bag at Liberec station I'd visit the zoo there (the collection looked the better of the two). Otherwise I'd proceed straight on to Usti and zoo it up in the afternoon.
Fate took things out of my hands. For no apparent reason my tablet dumped all of its battery life, taking with it my map and any reasonable chance of finding the zoo in Liberec. So Usti it was to be. Actually, the Liberec-Usti train passes through another zoo town, Decin, and from the train it looked to be absolutely beautiful. They had Mountain Anoas there too not so long ago. Sigh.
I arrived in Usti and got sorted at my hotel. (The only one of the trip, Usti not being the kind of place that attracts enough backpackers to support a hostel). There was a music festival going on in the square outside my hotel, a good sign! Still lacking my map, but armed with a compass and the knowledge that the zoo was in the east I headed out. I always carry my compass, it's saved me from getting lost in unknown cities on countless occasions and once in Vietnam it was probably the only reason I found my way out of the jungle. Of course, I wouldn't have wandered off the path in the first place if I hadn't had it
Once through the gate at Usti you are greeted by a couple of glass fronted boxes. "Aha, this looks like an above average Tamarin exhibit" I hear you cry. No ladies and gentlemen, this is a new contender for world's worst Orangutan enclosure. Not much to say here, except it was really bad but they had obviously bred in the last couple of years. One enclosure is signed as hybrid and the other as Bornean so unless the youngster is a hybrid they must have at least three adults. The male I saw was most handsome. Not exactly a great first impression.
The path then rises steeply up a slope, passing paddocks for Tapir, Muntjac and Musk Deer, before approaching the monkey cages. These are well documented in the ZooChat gallery and have been much pilloried but in fact they are a little better in the flesh. Not much better, but crucially they are very well maintained. This was really the saving grace of Usti; despite many poor enclosures it's clear they are making the best of what they have and making improvements where they can. In many ways it is a zoo reminiscent of Dudley, but they still have more of their ABCs.
Some new species for me were Blue Monkey and Bonnet Macaque. Most groups seem to have young members so again they are breeding. Now the path passes by an excellent Red Panda enclosure and then under a very long wire tunnel linking the Coatis to their outdoor exhibit. I'll upload photos of this in due course but its quite cool. The Coati indoor area is the first part of the Exotarium, which has several exhibits set into its outer wall. Pleasingly, given their small size, these were given to a variety of South American tree dwellers: various Marmosets and Tamarins, Two-toed Sloths, White-faced Saki and Common Squirrel Monkeys. I've become convinced that Squirrel Monkeys make a bad walkthrough exhibit; give them their own space and they will be much more showy and provide a great display of interaction between themselves and with visitors.
A wonderful surprise greeted me in the last but one exhibit: a Night Monkey and a Prehensile-tailed Porcupine! Having missed the porcupine at Plzen I had resigned myself to a long wait before I had another opportunity. I first encountered this species in one of Gerald Durrell's books and somewhat fell in love with it. Unbelievably, it exceeded all my expectations. It was so charismatic in appearance, and unlike anything I've seen before. Truly, I wonder why every zoo isn't trying to acquire and breed this species. They really could be the next Red Pandas. An absolute delight and worth the entrance fee by itself.
Following on from the Exotarium, on the same level of hillside is the Carnivore House. This old fashioned building houses Sun Bear, Amur Leopard, Clouded Leopard, Malayan Tiger, Angolan Lion, Meerkat and Snow Leopard. The bears and lions enjoy relatively large (emphasis on relatively) moated exhibits while the rest have walled, glass fronted, wire roofed runs. Although these aren't great, I've definitely seen worse and they are again well maintained and attractively decorated with murals depicting the species appropriate landscape. Inside however, the holding quarters are very cramped and with several animals to each exhibit, none whom were sharing access, there were an awful lot of stereotyping big cats. I'm always loathe to criticise a situation like this. I only see a five minute snap shot, so I don't necessarily understand why they are behaving like this. I'm also aware that most British zoos have moved these areas off-show and I'm sure I could see similar there, in those zoos where they have to rotate outdoor access. Nevertheless, it cannot be left unsaid that these are not appropriate conditions for keeping animals by modern standards.
The rest of the zoo is an unremarkable array of paddocks. Serow are still on the map, but not in reality (it was never put into an Usti thread as news, but I saw elsewhere that they'd died/gone. Again, there are some nice species like Somali Wild Ass, Vietnam Sika Deer and White Lipped Deer. It might surprise the reader to learn that the elephant paddock is actually quite spacious, and the house modern. The zoo has two female Asian Elephants and I think they could do a lot worse than be here.
Usti made me think a lot. It made me think about the challenge faced by small zoos with low annual attendance that desperately want and need to improve but just dont have the funds. Dudley being the obvious UK example here. Low cost and innovative solutions do provide real benefits but at some point these places need real investment to shake off their tired, poor image and actually start to grow. Either that or accept a smaller role in the world and downscale away from large mammals. Specifically with regards to Dudley, which I still regard as my local zoo, the catchment area is so large it could easily pull in a million visitors year. I hope to see that one day.
The other thing that I realised in Usti is that I actually didn't really want to be there. I'd spent three of the last six days in some of the best zoos Europe has to offer, and now I was in this thoroughly sub-par establishment that didn't need more than two hours to see in its entirety. Were it not for the porcupine I would have felt like I had thoroughly wasted my time. As it turned out Usti was a pleasant enough town, with pleasant enough train journeys to and from it. But I could equally have chosen other, more obviously picturesque places to visit and enjoy. I think this may have been my 'peak zoo' moment. I'm going to try and be more discerning in the future, and only go out of my way to visit those zoos with good reputations. I know many readers will find this an alien and even alarming concept! Of course I run the risk of missing out on some great moments like the porcupine yesterday, but it still feels like a good decision.
To celebrate this epiphany I spent today visiting a small zoo in the middle of nowhere and had a great time. Tomorrow I will fly to another country purely to visit a zoo before I leave for China on Tuesday. Like a small zoo with little money, I find that change comes slowly...
