Zoo Frankfurt Grzimek House/Frankfurt Zoo

Swedish Zoo Fan

Swedish Zoo Fan

Well-Known Member
Hello,

Next summer i'm planning to visit the zoos in the Cologne area, and Frankfurt Zoo will also be included. I just wanna hear some more about this cool-looking zoo. Can someone just write a complete tour around Frankfurt Zoo and the Grzimek House, which looks really cool. Thanks.:)
 
I think it is too much to write here a complete tour through the Frankfurt Zoo, so I do a short trip.

If you start at the main entrance, you will see first the old bear exhibit, opened in 1958, it houses now sloth and sun bears. In the next years, they will build a new exhibit for one of these species.

It follows the new lion house, called Cat Jungle South east asia, with asian lions, sumatran tigers, rusty spotted cats and fossas, they replace the clouded leopards.

The next building is the Grizmekhouse, the largest nocturnal house in europe, full of interesting and rare species, so the Pair of Aye-Aye's, Coendus, Tamandua, Hoffmans Sloth,kiwis( hard to see ! ),echidnas,fenenc foxes, bushbabies and much more.

It follows the Aquarium, called Exotarium, which is a great place, too.

The newest building is the new Apehouse Borgori-Wald, opened in June. I've posted a lot of pics in the Frankfurt Gallery.It's home for gorillas,orangs,bonobos,drills and guerezas.

The big Birdhouse was opend in 1961 and is one of the best birdhouses in europe. Its home for one of the last shoebills in europe and much more rare species.

The old monkey house, opend in 1962, is now almost empty, becuase it will be destroyed in the next two years. The rares speices here are the yellow crested capuchins.

The elephant house is home for a pair of southern black rhinos, the only ones in europes, all other zoos are keeping the eastern black rhino, and a pair of Hippos ina very small enclosure.

It follows the new okpapiexhibit and the giraffe house, with a big breeding group of reticulated giraffes and and two klippspringres. In the next time, the zoo will get natal red duikers.

Bongos and Mhorr gazelles, vicunias and maned wolves, south african fur seals and sable antelope are a few more rare and nice animals.
 
Now its official, the Grizmek-House is torn off during the next years and is substituted against a smaller new building at other place in the zoo.A renovation of the 30 years old Grizmek-House would be more expensive than a new building.
 
Because it is the motto of the new zoo director:More
space for less animals,so a lot of species of the Grizmekhouse have to go....
 
Unless there is some fundamental structural problem with the house, this has to be one of the stupidest zoo moves ever. The Grzimek House is one of the best individual houses in the world, with a stunning array of animals within it. To tear it down would be daftness beyond belief; the zoo Taliban should not be permitted to rip up that with which they do not agree. It's happened too often! I could grumpily rant on and on and on. Any idea when the house will go? And is this a definite, or a plan (which with the world financial situation being what it is might never come to pass)?
 
I disagree that the Grzimek House is "one of the best individual houses in the world". It`s totally outdated and most enclsoures are way too small. Just the zoo freaks who love to collect rare animals like stamps like houses like this one. I don`t know enough about the off-exhibit area to know if it would be an option to renovate the house and improve the animal housing, but the zoo has clearly stated that the old building wastes tons of engery and that it`s cheaper to build a new one then to renovate the existing one. Which I personally find a good solution.
 
I am also against destroying Grzimek house. Unless there is some structural problem threatening the collapse. This is one of the finest small mammal collections worldwide and most cleverly naturalistic enclosures! And small mammals are one of few creatures which can have enough space in small Frankfurt zoo. Most younger houses in German zoos don't match the Grzimek house.

Why not rebuild the shameful pachyderm house with blue tiles, or barely adequate monkey house?
 
Yassa said:
Just the zoo freaks who love to collect rare animals like stamps like houses like this one.
Click to expand...

Well, I respect your opinion - of course - but I wholly disagree with you. Yes, I suppose I am a zoo freak, but I don't want to see loads of unusual animals if those animals are living in bad conditions. Otherwise, somewhere like the Isle of Wight Amazon World would ring my bell, which it doesn't. And I'm not sure whether it is just the 'freaks' who appreciate a broad collection. I think the 'ordinary' visitor, even if he or she cannot tell an aye aye from a water rat, apprecaiates seeing lots of different things. look at the problems London had when it started cutting its collection. There's been plenty of discussion here about the issue of enclosure size, and the extent to which it matters: again, different people have different opinions. Could the animals in the Grzimek House do with more room? Quite possibly. Does this make it a bad house? Absolutely not. I could do with more room in my house, but that's not to say that I'm living in unacceptable conditions...
 
It doesnt quite sound like the animals of the future Grzimek House will have more room if they are building a smaller building to replace it. Usually the practice is less animals with more space, not less animals and less space.
 
Besides, the Grzimek house is one of the most famous (if not THE most famous) zoo building in the world :( I don't really care if it's cheaper to rebuild, it's problably a helluva lot cheaper to rebuild the empire state then to maintain it, but for some reason they don't tear that down neither...
 
I always see Nocturnal houses with two eyes, a laughing one ( because to see nocturnal animals active during the day ) and a crying one ( because a lot of the exhibits are to small,and what's more important, the animals get never the chance to breathe fresh air, to enjoy a sun bath( yes, many nocturnal animals enjoying sunbathes, aardvarks for example ) or playing in the rain ( slothes loves the rain ! ) So I agree with Yassa, its correct, that many exihibts in the Grizmekhouse are defenitely to small for a lot of species, so for the aardvarks, bushbabies the slothes and Night monkeys.

On other side, the exhibits are full of structure, hiding places and what the animals need for their own comfort behaviour, so they have what they need. A lot of animals get very old in that house, so the two kinkajous are living in the house since its opening ins eptember 1978 , or the red howler monkey ha slived in it since 1976 until they died two years ago ! Almost every species which has been kept ever in that building has bred sucessfully, a lot of them are breeding regulary since many years. The famous Kiwi breeding started in here. So the Grizmekhouse can't be that bad. Of course I would change some things in it, and If I would get the chance to design a nocturnal house today, I would do it totally diffrent, but I say, for its age of 30 years, the Grizmekhoues is still the best small mammal house in germany and one of the best nocturnal houses in the world. I've seen a few nocturnal houses in the USA, so I wa shocked to see the Noturnal house in Cincinnati how small the cages were in it, and the Nocturnal house at Cleveland was not better. I've never seen CLouded leopards in a nocturnal house,until I've seen them in Cleveland and I hope, I will see them never again in a nocturnal house.
 
Yes, some exhibits are too small. But this can be easily corected by knocking down walls between adjoining enclosures, or by changing the bigger species (say aardvark, fossa) to smaller one (say, lori or tamarin).

Last time I was there it was sad to see masterful artifical rockwork, which replicated actual details of rock formation in Africa. It was half buried in peat and together with some ropes and hammocks was tamandua exhibit.
 
yes, next year it will still be open. They first want to rebuild the new one and if you see how long they need to build a gibbon house, you can think how long they would need for such a complex new house.... BTW why has somebody mentioned that the new house will be smaller? This was never told by the zoo and has not been published in Frankfurt media... It seems this is the way rumours are created. Nevertheless a pity the old one will be destroyed, one of the best nocturnal houses - but who wnats to have a nocturnal house with outside enclosures? Never heard such nonsense before, how can the animals get into a normal diurnal rhythm if part of their territory is in daylight, part in the dark?
 
Maybe the Grzimek House has changed since I was there in 1984, but back then only a part of it was nocturnal. The first (which was laso the last) exhibit was a well lit representation of the S.American rainforest with Acoushi and Goeldi Monkeys. Other daylight exhibits I remember included Bushdogs and S.African Cape Clawless Otter. The middle of the house was nocturnal exhibits (kiwi, galago, springhares etc.) but certainly not all.

As I said, maybe it has changed since then.

:)

Hix
 
@Gibbon. The new house will be smaller just for a few species,w hich be are hold now in the Grizmekhouse. The Gibbonhous ehas nothing to do with that, the zoo ha sno fault with the problems of the construction of this tiny glasshouse.

The Grizmekhouse will be teher for the next couple of years....Next big projekts, which will be started hopefully in 2010, are the new entrance and new exhibits for the bears.

The old monkeyhouse will be desroyed in maybe two or three years, and maybe then the constrution of the new nocturnalhouse will start. But it is not sure at this time, the new house will be build at this place, but I think, it is the only place, or maybe they destroy the Exotarium also....
 
Zebraduiker said:
maybe they destroy the Exotarium also....
Click to expand...

I'm trusting that this is a joke! The Grzimek House, the Exotarium, the Bird House...

Incidentally, what is the story with the gibbon house, aluded to above? Is the zoo going downhill under its newish director? It is such a wonderful place (or at least it was); it would be a huge loss to the zoo world if it was just reduced to being just another European zoo.
 
@sooty mangabey. I wish, it would be a joke, but it is reality, but don't worry, the Exotarium and the Birdhouse will not be destroyed, that was really a Joke.
 
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