How do animals cope with the cold?

[nanoboy]

Fairly simplistic question here folks. I have never visited a zoo in a country/city where it gets very cold or snows in winter.

I was just wondering, how do the tropical animals (let's say macaws, Asian elephants, orangutans etc) cope in winter? Are they kept indoors during winter? Or maybe they are pretty adaptable and cope well?

 

[Hvedekorn]

A few tropical animals like lions can actually stay out all year except for in very extreme weather. But in the case of most tropical animals - like the one you mentioned - they need an indoor exhibit. In my home country of Denmark, it may vary from a few weeks to several months like in the freezing cold and snowy winters we had the last two years. Our weather in summer and most of spring and fall is usually mild enough for them to stay outside all time if they want.
Funny enough, I have the impression that the zoo animals are quite more tolerant of low temperatures than the visitors. I actually remember reading that in Aalborg Zoo in Denmark, the elephants prefer to stay outside all year, but as they cannot judge when they are freezing, they could easily get frostbites if not the keepers help them inside.

So in terms of exhibit building, I suppose you are easier off down under, at least in most areas. In most of Europa, for example, we also need to build comprehensive indoor exhibits for the animals as a nice outdoor exhibit simply isn't enough.
I don't know that much about Australia's climate but as far as I know, it's tropical in the north and somewhat temperate in the south. And seeing Melbourne is a southern city, doesn't it sometimes get chilly in the winter?

 

[nanoboy]

A few tropical animals like lions can actually stay out all year except for in very extreme weather. But in the case of most tropical animals - like the one you mentioned - they need an indoor exhibit. In my home country of Denmark, it may vary from a few weeks to several months like in the freezing cold and snowy winters we had the last two years. Our weather in summer and most of spring and fall is usually mild enough for them to stay outside all time if they want.
Funny enough, I have the impression that the zoo animals are quite more tolerant of low temperatures than the visitors. I actually remember reading that in Aalborg Zoo in Denmark, the elephants prefer to stay outside all year, but as they cannot judge when they are freezing, they could easily get frostbites if not the keepers help them inside.

So in terms of exhibit building, I suppose you are easier off down under, at least in most areas. In most of Europa, for example, we also need to build comprehensive indoor exhibits for the animals as a nice outdoor exhibit simply isn't enough.
I don't know that much about Australia's climate but as far as I know, it's tropical in the north and somewhat temperate in the south. And seeing Melbourne is a southern city, doesn't it sometimes get chilly in the winter?

Cheers for the comprehensive answer.

Melbourne does indeed get relatively chilly. This morning it dropped to about 2C in the suburbs. Melbourne itself very rarely if ever drops to 0C. The maximum daytime temperature in Melbourne on a 'very' cold winter day is about 10 or 11C. I suppose, as you said, that the animals are far more tolerant of the cold than we are.

 

[Arizona Docent]

Cold climate zoos have to have indoor exhibits for their tropical animals. These exhibits vary from decent to awful - there are very few (if any) that are truly great. My personal opinion is that zoos should specialize in their climate. Have polar bears, snow leopards, etc in cold climate zoos and gorillas, macaws, etc in warmer climate zoos.

This is being done a bit more these days, but will never be fully implemented because people in Canada or Russia want to see gorillas (or whatever warm climate animal) without having to leave their country. It is too bad, because I think there are so many interesting animals from any particular climate that zoos could easily cater to this.

 

[Hvedekorn]

My personal opinion is that zoos should specialize in their climate. Have polar bears, snow leopards, etc in cold climate zoos and gorillas, macaws, etc in warmer climate zoos.

To some degree, I agree with this point of view. At least in the way the small city zoos might want to specialize in animals that only require an outdoor exhibit - or smaller animals that live inside in tropical houses all year round. Macaws do not need more space than a small city zoo probably could keep them, but otherwise I think you should move larger exotic animals to open range zoos that have the space to build both good indoor and outdoor exhibits.

I don't think you should remove exotic animals completely from zoos. And if you only keep animals of your climate, you should keep ones from both North America, Europe and Asia.
The reason is that I don't dig zoos with only native animals that much. They can be nice, but I actually prefer building information centres where you can see the respective animals in nature itself.
Some European countries don't really have the animals to make a spectacular native species zoo. In my home country Denmark, we don't really have the charismatic mammals to make a zoo. We have quite a lot of interesting birds for such a small country, though, but the average visitor here doesn't care about birds unless they're flamingos, parrots or ostriches.

 

[Sun Wukong]

Historically speaking, this is actually a very old topic [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acclimatisation_society]Acclimatisation society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
"Acclimatisation and Breeding" by Carl Hagenbeck
etc. etc.

In general, the ability to adapt to weather different to that of the original habitat is defined by the metabolism of the animals, its anatomy, behaviour and the climate of the original habitat. A bigger mammal from a native climate with hot days and cold nights (f.e. Addax) or one that might even venture into colder areas (f.e. Common Eland) is more likely to adapt to cold weather than, say, a naked mole rat. Large, cold-sensitive acra (like the ears of Bongos, Okapis or Elephants) can easily sustain frost damage and thus limit the outdoor husbandry of such species, while freezing surfaces can lead to downfalls and traumatic laesions. Frozen water mounds can lead to animals escaping, cutting themselves on the ice, and even drowning.
Cheetah drowns after falling through ice - Panorama News - Austrian Times Online News - English Newspaper

I do support your point of view, @Arizona Docent, but I have to agree with @Hvedekorn
that the average zoo visitor expects to see exotic animals in a typical zoo. Wildparks with mostly native (and some cold tolerant exotic) species are pretty popular in Europe, but hardly ever (with some exceptions) reach the visitor numbers observed in typical zoos. Additionally, quite a bunch of native European species are actually a lot harder to keep and maintain in captivity than the "average exotic", such as lion, blackbuck or flamingo. Similar things can be said about some native American species, such as pronghorns.

In return, animals from a cold native climate are less likely to adapt well to hot tropical weather. Think of muskoxen, gyrfalcons, snow hares etc. etc. not really "blossoming" in (sub)tropical zoos...

 

[Arizona Docent]

I don't think you should remove exotic animals completely from zoos. And if you only keep animals of your climate, you should keep ones from both North America, Europe and Asia.

I agree. I was NOT saying it should be only NATIVE animals. I was saying it should be animals from a similar temperature climate, but from all over the world. Minnesota Zoo is a great example of this, with their massive northern trail featuring animals from the northern latitudes. Huge open exhibits for musk ox, american bison, siberian tiger, mexican wolf, etc.

 

[Dibatag]

Here in calgary, most of the tropical animals are displayed in the African area. And of those species the only ones that are confined in all winter are the giraffes and hippos. The lions and Grévy's Zebra just grow longer coats and are out in temperatures down to around -15˚c. The Elephants and RRH allowed outif it is above -10, but they always have access to the indoors. The ostriches do just fine and primates are allowed out if it above -5 ish but they usually chose to remain inside. I find that on the colder days, most of the animals are more active, it is better for photography and the zoo is less busy. -5 is about perfect.

On a side note, I work with emus on a farm and they are outdoors with no additional heat all winter, and it gets down to -30 during the night. No issues with frostbite or anything. They actually seem to enjoy the snow.

 

[nanoboy]

Cheers for the absolutely fascinating responses.

I may never see an emu in its native habitat running through snow, but I aim to snap pics of kangaroos and wombats in the High Country. It's surprising that emus can withstand such cold temperatures, but I suppose that they have quite a lot of feathers on them and are designed for freezing night-time temperatures for 3 months of the year.