Twycross Zoo Molly's Zoo

I worked at Twycross for a year a while back, I've been quite passionate about the place ever since. I thought I'd throw my hat in with a few observations from my time there.

Molly Badham may have been a pioneer of her time but she never changed and my opinion is that her approach, in the end, resulted in the zoo virtually stagnating. There seemed to be political instability back then, conflicts between people who wanted to modernise and those that still held archaic viewpoints and were focused on maintaining reserves of cash. The result was that a small amount of progress was made because there always had to be huge compromise.

That said, I hugely enjoyed my time there. I did used to wonder around thinking about what they needed to do to push forward. I always thought of Twycross as a rough diamond, I felt that they needed to focus on showcasing their primate collection with better exhibits and begin to engage in in situe conservation projects if they were to raise their profile as a serious primate conservation entity.

I have to say that I am extremely baffled at the approach that the new management has taken so far, I hope they come good. The first thing they did was look at the zoos strengths and re-branded as the world primate centre. Subsequently, they have announced plans to massively enhance the facilities for animals and human beings but so far, the primates have been exluded. Strange!!
 
Thanks for your 'insider' comments rubymurray . As an 'outsider' looking in it explains what happened in the past .
It really is sad that , with the new management , nothing much seems to have changed for the better yet .
For years the zoo has sat on vast cash reserves , yet there would be a Wishing Well in the 'Pets Corner' to raise funds for a new enclosure . The small amounts spent on insitu conservation projects have come from similar funds raised .
 
From this it would seem theyhave been reluctant to plough any profits back into making improvements to the Zoo. It certainly shows....
I think perhaps they should pull it all down and start again- or maybe not bother....:(
 
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The 2006 Twycross annual report shows reserves of £13.1 million ( £9.5m in investments , £3.6 in cash/bank ) up over £1 million on 2005 . The 2007 report is not yet available . I hope they have good financial advisers as a lot of investments have fallen considerably recently .
That money would pay for a lot of improved primate accommodation .
 
Money obviously has to be put away for a "rainy day", also maybe Twycross are putting money aside for their share of the new entrance complex.
I would also like to believe they are putting money by for a multi million pound set of primate enclosures, but then again............................
 
I'd really like to know a bit more about the new visitor centre. I appreciate that there's outside investment involved in it, conditional on certain criteria being met I would guess. I can't imagine that the any of those conditions involved the words 'You must have snow leopards in one of the exhibits' though and I don't understand the logic in putting yourself forward as the World Primate Centre' and then not creating an amazing Primate exhibit as a focal point of your flagship development. I'd love to see a World class Snow Leopard exhibit, don't get me wrong on that, but surely when you visit the 'World Primate Centre' and see very average Primate exhibits and a massive Snow Leopard exhibit it's incredibly discrediting. Anyone know anything more about this development that might solve the mystery?

If anybody knows of any plans for the Primates then please stick a post up as well. I'm really hoping that something is afoot that we don't yet know about.
 
Sounds like Twycross is losing the plot. In an ideal world Twycross would have a kick-arse collection and housing of primates. You would expect a good breeding program of related species (say 2-3 species of each group, including at least one focal species) with links to in-situ conservation. The rest of the collection would be made up of a selection of other species to complement. You want to enter the gates and go wow. That is what one would expect of World Primate Centre. You don't want to be thinking hmmmm I could see a better primate collection at Port Lymne or Edinburgh.

Contrary to previous comments I don't hate Twycross. I just don't think they are trying very hard. They have a good base collection and good finances (compared to alot of other UK zoos), and seem to be ignorant of the facts. Just changing the name to some fancy 'world centre' of excellence doesn't cut it for me.
 
tetrapod said:
You don't want to be thinking hmmmm I could see a better primate collection at Port Lymne or Edinburgh.

Contrary to previous comments I don't hate Twycross. I just don't think they are trying very hard.
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1. In terms of variety of species of Primates they still undeniably have the best selection in the UK, greater than Port Lympne or Edinburgh or Paignton (another good primate collection) But in terms of enclosures, management and breeding record(for some species) they are way behind any of these others.
So to call themselves ' The World Primate Centre' or whatever is just ridiculous under these circumstances.

2. I've been visiting Twycross for many years now and even in the earlier years I used to come away with a mounting feeling of dissatisfaction at what I saw there- chiefly in terms of the old style housing, old style management and breeding record with certain important species. That feeling 'of not trying very hard' has been highlighted on my most recent visits as more time passes with seemingly very little change.
 
In fairness, the new directors have been left with some difficult conundrums to solve as well. Many people have commented on the quality of the Chimp enclosures, particularly those down by the house. Unfortunately, I think they're on a hiding to nothing with the Chimps. There are so many of them that, I believe, can't be mixed, that it wouldn't be viable to spend significant amounts of money on new exhibits for them. All they can really do is make the best of what they've got and wait.
 
rubymurray said:
, I think they're on a hiding to nothing with the Chimps. There are so many of them that, I believe, can't be mixed,
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Have they ever seriously tried? I realise they are basically stuck with this display but its a real eyesore.

On the gorilla front, breeding has been very sporadic over the forty or more years of keeping them and 'Asante' in particular still remains unbred at 23 years old, despite being a genetically important female. Have the EEP ever asked them to try to remedy this situation at all?
 
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They are best-known for their chimpanzees, if they created a world-class complex of open enclosures, really focused on study and in situ chimpanzee conservation, even as basic as those at monkeyworld, I'm sure they would have the funds for it and it would really start to alter the way the public percieve the lives of their primates.
 
rubymurray said:
In fairness, the new directors have been left with some difficult conundrums to solve as well.
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What Mrs Boardman new director!!!!!!!!!!???? shes been there over 3 years now and not much has happened apart from the Bornean Longhouse Aviary and thats not a particularly good exhibit,too much money been spent on consultants for the new enclosures and the re-branding to the World Primate Centre.When it should be going on doing improvements on the primate exhibits,which are rapidly showing their age now.
 
zoogiraffe said:
apart from the Bornean Longhouse Aviary and thats not a particularly good exhibit.
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I was a bit perplexed by this exhibit- it seemed to me to be more suited to a 'Museum of Mankind' rather than a Zoo. It would be a very different matter if say, two flagship native species like Orangutan and a.n.other(Gibbons?) were exhibited in state- of-the -art enclosures connected to it.
 
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rubymurray said:
In fairness, the new directors have been left with some difficult conundrums to solve as well. Many people have commented on the quality of the Chimp enclosures, particularly those down by the house. Unfortunately, I think they're on a hiding to nothing with the Chimps. There are so many of them that, I believe, can't be mixed, that it wouldn't be viable to spend significant amounts of money on new exhibits for them. All they can really do is make the best of what they've got and wait.
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I think the particular problem regarding the chimps is that Twycross don't seem to have attempted to sort out the problem with the chimps. As has already been mentioned other collections, such as Monkey World, display chimps in quite suitable but not over-the-top designed enclosures.
 
Monkeyworld have managed to make up good socially balanced chimp groups from a lot of 'oddball' and desocialised animals. I think that has been their most outstanding success.

I'd really like to see Twycross follow suit somehow. One big group with ALL their chimps in it- but they would have to redesign the housing- even if a large rough area of grassland could be set aside as the outdoor area- perhaps a simple hotwired enclosure like the Monkeyworld ones? I'm sure they'd be terrified of running a lot of the oldest adult chimpanzees together though- simply because they've never(?) tried to do this before but there is really no reason why with some patience most of them at least couldn't settle into a harmonious group. It would also signal the end of all those different groups and pairs in the current poor housing, the worst of which could be demolished, the rest renovated for e.g.overcrowded Bonobos & orangutans. I'm afraid though this is all rather in the realm of a 'virtual' Twycross though.:rolleyes:
 
Pertinax said:
Monkeyworld have managed to make up good socially balanced chimp groups from a lot of 'oddball' and desocialised animals. I think that has been their most outstanding success.

I'd really like to see Twycross follow suit somehow. One big group with ALL their chimps in it- but they would have to redesign the housing- even if a large rough area of grassland could be set aside as the outdoor area- perhaps a simple hotwired enclosure like the Monkeyworld ones? I'm sure they'd be terrified of running a lot of the oldest adult chimpanzees together though- simply because they've never(?) tried to do this before but there is really no reason why with some patience most of them at least couldn't settle into a harmonious group. It would also signal the end of all those different groups and pairs in the current poor housing, the worst of which could be demolished, the rest renovated for e.g.overcrowded Bonobos & orangutans. I'm afraid though this is all rather in the realm of a 'virtual' Twycross though.:rolleyes:
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If management had some balls this would happen. Unfortunately they still seem to be happy carrying on with the 1960's script...
 
tetrapod said:
If management had some balls this would happen. Unfortunately they still seem to be happy carrying on with the 1960's script...
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Absolutely. Arnhem Zoo did it in the 1970/80's(?) getting adult chimpanzees from several European zoos and mixing them into a successful colony, Chester did it with several subgroups to make up their colony too. At Twycross I think its basically fear of what is for them unknown territory. - " Put them all together? Oh no, we can't do that, they're all used to living as they are etc " No vision...
 
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I remember reading an interesting article in IZN about 10 or 15 years back about the introduction of a number of adult chimpanzees into a new exhibit at either Madrid or Barcelona zoo.....they experimented with mild sedatives (the zoo, not the chimps) to introduce the animals, and gradually lowered the dosage with no serious aggression between the animals. While I don't think drugging an animal should be an easy decision, if other zoos were already using innovative methods to create large social groups of disparate apes back in the early 90s, the 'World Primate Centre' seems to be stuck in the 1970s....
 
Yes, I've read that too. Giving a mild sedative to keep excitable animals like chimps calmer during initial introductions seems to work fine.

Forming a big group can be a long & complicated process I know. At Arnhem the 3 original adult males they introduced there had a hard time overcoming the dominance of the established group of females (the males were added last) They only succeeded because the keepers temporarily removed the topranking female and her chief cohort, to give the males a chance to impose their dominance over the rest. When the two top females were reintroduced some weeks later, the ringleader again tried to attack the males, but this time she failed to whip up any support as by then all the other females had become friendly with the males. That was the end of her reign.
 
Chimp Tea Parties

Getting back to the chimp tea parties... I am trying to find information about the chimp tea parties held in Auckland, Wellington (New Zealand) and London. Do any of you know where I could find information about it from books/journals/archives?
I want to write a children's picture book about the parties.
Thank you!
 
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