Man I've really let this thread fall by the way side. But here's my review so far!
Stichting AAP
A really interesting place to work. The site is split into five main animal sections; primate islands and mammals on one end of the site, and the quarantine, primate rehabilitation building and chimpanzee complex at the other end. I'm working on the North Wing of the PRB, with a range of monkey species (barbary, rhesus, Japanese and southern pig-tailed macaques, hamadryas and guinea baboons, brown capuchins and tantalus monkeys). The primate islands belong to the same section as the PRB, but have their residents' feeds prepared separately and therefore most treat the two as different sections. The centre is open daily for tours, which to my knowledge includes an in depth look at the islands, a walk past the front of the PRB, a view from a secluded forest path of the chimp complex and then a walk past the quarantine facility. You also get to see the central kitchen where all the food is made from the outside. I would highly recommend it, though not if you're aiming to treat it as a zoo day and see as many animals as you can, the tour actually doesn't take you past most of the animals. AAP is in the middle of sending a bunch of their monkeys to Primadomus at the moment so it's a busy time, hence me not posting sooner!
Apenheul
Visited two weekends ago. Nice to finally return after nearly two years without a visit. No sign of the crowned lemurs in the walkthrough, but did see the collared mangabeys and heard from a volunteer about an interesting new species arriving, though I don't think I'm allowed to say what it is. It's due to be revealed in the coming weeks I believe.
The apes were all on good form. Jambo has been struggling to lead his group of gorillas until recently, but it seems Kisiwa's departure has made a change. He didn't discipline anyone as he should have but he was in the centre of the action of the feed and he led the group away after. Finally saw the three new bonobos as well, Bonnie, Kindu and Pangi. These were living with Bolombo, Kumbuka and Ayebi at the time of my visit. They all seemed quite quiet, Kindu avoided Kumbuka and Ayebi, Bonnie hid from view a lot of the time, and Pangi stayed up high and out of the way. The other half of the group were in the semi offshow indoor area as their main indoors was being refurbished.
Finally, the squirrel monkey group has halved in size at least. There were far less than 100, probably more like 50 odd.
Overall, a great return visit
Dierenrijk
Now for the other side of the coin. I didn't really have any huge plans for revisiting Dierenrijk; it's a children's zoo and doesn't hold too many rarities. However, I wanted to see the chimps and crab-eating macaques that they have recently received from Beekse Bergen and AAP, so I visited.
And it was quite underwhelming. A lot had of course changed in the eight or so years since I visited last, but nothing of too much interest. Lions, cheetahs and chimps are the only large animals recently added, so there really isn't much to see. It was nice to see the chimps finally, but I don't have much else to say about the zoo and won't be returning anytime soon haha. One thing I will say is they have a large touch tank filled with those fish that eat your dead skin now, and they also have a mix of owl species (eagle and snowy) something I've never seen before.
Burgers' and an impromptu mystery visit to a German zoo tomorrow and the day after! Will update
