Kristiansand Zoo and Amusement Park Kristiansand zoo

M

monkeyworld

Well-Known Member
A long time ago a female orangutan was sent to the zoo from Chester zoo , his name was matu

Has anyone know any information on him ?

how he is ?

who he is with ?

offspring ?

many thanks
 
Last edited:
A Matu is still living in Kristiansand. But Matu is a male, not a female.
He lives together with the female Sol. She is born in Boras/Sweden and one year younger than Matu. I think they have never breed, but they are not old, now. Matu is 14 years old.
 
Zoo Review

I really enjoyed this zoo. Even though it's more than a zoo with elements such as swimming pools, pirate ships and the little village based on a children's book series, they are well integrated and don't feel out of place.
Most of the exhibits are very large, especially the section with the Norwegian native species. This area is accessed by a looping raised boardwalk. As a matter of fact, the wolf woods are so large that I wasn't able to spot a single wolf, since I missed the wolf feeding time by a few minutes.
My favorite thing is the opportunity to interact. Both the lemur and squirrel monkey areas are walk-through and have an attendant keeping an eye on things. One of the squirrel monkeys made off with the pen I had in my shirt pocket, and later attempted to remove my passport from the same pocket. They had no problem unzipping backpacks to see what they could find. I probably spent an hour in with the sloths. I suppose technically this would be considered an aviary with sloths in it, but to me it was a sloth exhibit with birds in it! One of the sloths slept the entire time and I didn't even notice that one for maybe a half hour. The other one was extremely active - going back and forth across the top of the exhibit, laying in the food box (and then knocking it to the ground), eating, climbing the ropes, and even down to the ground. I posted many photos of this sloth, since sloths are a favorite for me, and most of the time I'm lucky if I even catch a glimpse of one. If you're not that fond of sloths - too bad! I loved that they had built little nests for the lorikeets in the walls. I assume there were boxes accessible on the other side of the wall. The exhibit also had an outdoor screened area that the birds could fly to.
The African exhibit was being developed, but there were still several animals to see such as giraffes and meerkats.
I even enjoyed riding the pirate ship, although the only animals on board are human.
They also have several restaurants and a large gift shop. They had pins with the letters in the zoo's name (DYREPARKEN) in the animal shapes like on the entrance sign and I really wanted to get a set. Unfortunately, they were out of one letter, so I settled for just a D.
My one bad note of the day came at the end. My hotel had given me a bus schedule - and there's a bus stop just outside the zoo. I went out to catch the last bus of the day, but it didn't come. Another man and his child joined me. We together puzzled out the posted schedule and realized there were no more buses coming. It turned out that the hotel had given me the schedule for the next week, which would have more bus times. Luckily, since the other man was there, he was able to speak to someone picking up a zoo staff person who was nice enough to give us all a ride into the city. The zoo is several miles out.
 
I was at this zoo last year, only zoo in Europe I've been to.
It is not only a zoo, but also an amusement park with rides, a swimming pool, haunted house etc. However, there are no animal exhibits in this area except for a parrot cage, so if you don't want to see all that you can skip it.

As for the orangutans, when I was there there was only 1 out. I don't know if there was another hiding or off exhibit. The exhibit is shared by a pair of Lar Gibbons, with a tiger exhibit nearby which I believe was opened recently. Strangely, there was only ever 1 gibbon out, and the only way I knew there were 2 was because I heard 2 gibbons calling.

There is a tropical house here too. The main room has exhibits for most of the primates: Golden Lion, Emperor and Cotton-top Tamarins, Chimpanzees, and Ring-tailed Lemurs. There is a small side-room which houses the squirrel monkeys. The chimps and squirrel monkeys have access to outdoor exhibits, and I think the lemurs do as well but I don't remember. There were no walk-through primate exhibits though.

Also in the main room are some finches, and after passing this you enter the main bird room. This zoo has a tiny bird collection. Just a few Goldie's Lorikeets, a SouthernCcrowned Pigeon, a family of Crested Partridges, Superb Starlings, 2 or 3 Laughing Kookaburras and a toucan. All the birds here are free-flying. There's also another enclosure in here for Cotton-top Tamarins with twins. The tamarins and birds also have access to separate outdoor areas, like the larger primates in the main room.

There is a side-room in the bird house as well, and this one is the indoor quarters for Greater Flamingos though they were always outside when I was there.

The last room in the tropical house is home to reptiles, fish, etc. I don't remember any of the species in here.

Around the tropical house are some more exhibits. An outdoor exhibit for Black Spider Monkeys, another for macaws, as well as the outdoor Flamingo exhibit. They also have Black-and-white Ruffed Lemurs here, and while I must've been right in front of the cage, they didn't show themselves. They were certainly there though, if you've heard ruffed lemurs in a zoo before you can't mistake them for anything else. I think they used to be inside the tropical house and were recently moved to an outdoor exhibit. There are also free-ranging peafowl which hang around this area.

The area with native wildlife contains wolves, moose, owls, capercaillie, otters and a few others. The exhibits are seen from a boardwalk and are usually very large. I think they had lynx too. This is also a much quieter area than the rest of the zoo and only some people go to it.

The last area is the African section. The lion exhibit is the first thing people see when they enter the zoo. The zoo has either 7 or 9 lions, can't remember how many now including cubs and 2 males. The enclosure is surrounded by a mote and is large. This area used to be a pool for 2 seals but this is gone and I have no clue where the seals went.

There are also exhibits for various hoofstock and meerkats in this section. These have been here for a few years but aren't bad. Don't remember what species though...probably common ones. I know there weren't any unusual species.

For what it is it's a good zoo but the price is expensive for what it has to offer if you're only going to see the animals.

Hope that helps, as there isn't much information on the internet about this zoo...
 
Too bad you didn't get to walk through the monkeys and lemurs - hope they haven't closed those parts, they were two of the most fun for me. Did you look at the pictures I posted?
 
Not yet, will have to check.
I also didn't see any sloths. Were they in the bird room? Maybe they are where the tamarins are now.
There was no sign of any walk-through monkey/lemur exhibit. Do you know which lemurs were in it? The Ring-tailed Lemurs are inside the tropical house now...
The squirrel monkeys have outdoor access, so maybe that's the enclosure where it is and it just wasn't open that day...
 
The sloths were in with several birds - lorikeets, kookaburas, some others.
The lemurs were ring-tailed and they had a huge outdoor area and there were a ton of them.
 
That's where the tamarins are now then as those are the same birds that were in there.
They did have lots of lemurs. I'm hoping it was just temporary and they didn't close that down because not many zoos have walk-through primate enclosures, or at least not in the US. The only lemurs that I knew were outside were the Ruffed Lemurs and the only reason I knew that was because I heard them. There wasn't a sign for them, and the keeper there didn't know what a lemur was. I guess they were hiding.
 
So you can walk in with the tamarins? That's pretty unusual, although there's a zoo in New Zealand where you can walk in with cotton tops.
 
No, the tamarins are in a separate exhibit inside the bird room, with an outdoor part, but it isn't walk-through. I heard that a few years ago there was a tamarin walk-through in a separate room and also that the bird room used to contain only parrots. They're all moved to other parts of the zoo now or gone altogether.
 
It might be a different area after all. From what I've heard they move stuff around a lot in that building. I bet if I went back this year the primates would be in a different order or some would be in a different room. But the sloths are gone now, or at least they weren't out when I was there anywhere.
 
Can any-one provide me with an up-date on Orang Matu and Sol? Any babies produced from this pair yet?

Many thanks
 
When I was there last year I only ever saw 1 orang in the exhibit. They may still have both orangs, but if they have had any young then it would be pretty recent.
 
1.0 Bornean orangutan born to former Cologne female Nonya and father Matu, from Chester.
This is the first orangutan born in Norway.
 
I was in Kristiansand Zoo for a couple weeks ago. Judging from what you are wondering, I have several things to report:

1) Matu have now, together with his mate Nonya, got a little boy named Louie (after the orangutan in "The Jungle Book"). Louie was born 30 May 2011.

2) There is still walk-through enclosures for both Ring-tailed lemur and Common Squirrel monkeys, but both species have also indoor enclosures.

If you have any other questions, just ask and I'll answer as best I can ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top