Tiergarten Schönbrunn News from Schonbrunn

Jola said:
Giant panda cub Fu Hu, born at Zoo Vienna, moved to China last November, was sent with female cub Cai Yun to Jinan City Zoo today. It's that zoo, that gas poisoned its 21 year-old female panda #20 aka Quan Quan by an "accident" in 2010. I'm pretty worried about Fu Hu being moved to that zoo. He has just settled in at BFX a bit. By the way, the zoo will rename Fu Hu and Cai Yun ...
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BFX as in Bifengxia Giant Panda Conservation Center.
 
I visited Schönbrunn again today and it remains one of the prettiest zoos in Europe, especially with fantastic weather and light crowds of a random September weekday. Unfortunately a number of houses (including the bird house and rat house) were closed because of COVID19, but at least the birds can still be seen from outside. I noticed a Bananaquit and a Grey-headed Oliveback here. Both were new since my 2018 visit and Schönbrunn is the second public holding in Europe for each species. In the Regenwaldhaus the White-breasted Woodswallows and Blue-winged Pittas (only other place to see those is Walsrode) have gone on-show now. Unfortunately there don't appear to be any Sunbirds anymore in the bird house, but it is great to see a major zoo still putting effort in displaying an interesting collection of birds, not big in size, but with a lot of rarely seen species.

The Common Hippo outdoor enclosure renovation was also new and with the pool enlarged this is another fine large mammal enclosure. The land part is not very big, given the constraints of the site, but certainly not the smallest around. They have even managed to design the enclosure in such a way, it can easily be split in two if necessary. Currently there is work going on next to the Wolf enclosure, where it looks 1-2 new aviaries will be constructed, and the former Japanese Serow enclosure is being remade for Barbary Sheep and Barbary Macaque.

The zoo got a new director recently (a Hagenbeck) and it will be interesting to see how the zoo will develop. Until now they have done a good job in keeping all the big ABC species in a city zoo and there are no real eyesores. But in the future new accomodation for the African Elephants, S-American Sea Lions and possibly some of the big cats and Polar Bears will be necessary. Some parts of the zoo still feel underdeveloped, but it will be interesting to see how and if all these species can be maintained long-term.
 
lintworm said:
I visited Schönbrunn again today and it remains one of the prettiest zoos in Europe, especially with fantastic weather and light crowds of a random September weekday. Unfortunately a number of houses (including the bird house and rat house) were closed because of COVID19, but at least the birds can still be seen from outside. I noticed a Bananaquit and a Grey-headed Oliveback here. Both were new since my 2018 visit and Schönbrunn is the second public holding in Europe for each species. In the Regenwaldhaus the White-breasted Woodswallows and Blue-winged Pittas (only other place to see those is Walsrode) have gone on-show now. Unfortunately there don't appear to be any Sunbirds anymore in the bird house, but it is great to see a major zoo still putting effort in displaying an interesting collection of birds, not big in size, but with a lot of rarely seen species.

The Common Hippo outdoor enclosure renovation was also new and with the pool enlarged this is another fine large mammal enclosure. The land part is not very big, given the constraints of the site, but certainly not the smallest around. They have even managed to design the enclosure in such a way, it can easily be split in two if necessary. Currently there is work going on next to the Wolf enclosure, where it looks 1-2 new aviaries will be constructed, and the former Japanese Serow enclosure is being remade for Barbary Sheep and Barbary Macaque.

The zoo got a new director recently (a Hagenbeck) and it will be interesting to see how the zoo will develop. Until now they have done a good job in keeping all the big ABC species in a city zoo and there are no real eyesores. But in the future new accomodation for the African Elephants, S-American Sea Lions and possibly some of the big cats and Polar Bears will be necessary. Some parts of the zoo still feel underdeveloped, but it will be interesting to see how and if all these species can be maintained long-term.
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I wanted to visit Vienna in October but unfortunately it will miss due to very "reasonable" Hungarian pandemic measures(close borders, etc.) :(.
Yeah, based on pics I've seen African elephant enclosure is very bleak and full concrete, reconstruction is necessary. I surprised in moving of Polar bears.Their very good enclosure, the Franz Josef Land is only 6 years old.
 
lintworm said:
The zoo got a new director recently (a Hagenbeck) and it will be interesting to see how the zoo will develop. Until now they have done a good job in keeping all the big ABC species in a city zoo and there are no real eyesores. But in the future new accomodation for the African Elephants, S-American Sea Lions and possibly some of the big cats and Polar Bears will be necessary. Some parts of the zoo still feel underdeveloped, but it will be interesting to see how and if all these species can be maintained long-term.
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I see that I have made some good predictions recently...

The zoo has just gotten the permission and 24 million euros in federal funding to expand the zoo by over 4 hectares (towards the area above the Tiroler farm house). They will create a novel state-of-the-art African Elephant complex there (mixed with other species). There is no timeline for this project yet. Another megaproject (30 million euros) is the new aquarium building (5 floors!) to be built between the rhinos and the rainforest house. Originally envisaged for 2023, but it seems rather unlikely they will keep to the original planning... The aquarium will feature a 2 million liter shark tank, which is easily the largest in a German-speaking main zoo (only Ozeaneum Stralsund currently has a larger tank) and a living coral reef. The building is designed to be integrated in the present slope in a way it doesn't interrupt any sightlines (the whole zoo is part of the UNESCO world heritage site of Schoenbrunn castle)....

Tiergarten Schönbrunn bekommt neue Elefantenanlage
 
Thanks @lintworm for those infos.

I don't know if it make sense to built a big aquaria house in Tiergarten Schönbrunn, regarding the fact that Vienna already has the "Haus des Meeres". So why compete with it?

Although I know that it is not an important thing, it will be interesting to see how the responsible persons of the Tiergarten will solve the situation "themeing" wise. "Africa" exhibits form at the moment more or less a connected area, but will be divided thru the "Eurasian Alpine region" after the construction of the new elephant exhibit in the new area. Or should the elephants move somewhere within the "old" Tiergarten grounds? (and if so: where?)
 
zoomaniac said:
I don't know if it make sense to built a big aquaria house in Tiergarten Schönbrunn, regarding the fact that Vienna already has the "Haus des Meeres". So why compete with it?
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It is a replacement of the current aquarium in the zoo and this building is past the time that renovation makes sense, so would need a complete replacement... Indirectly they would indeed compete with the HdM, but there should be space for both in such a large and tourist-friendly city...

zoomaniac said:
Although I know that it is not an important thing, it will be interesting to see how the responsible persons of the Tiergarten will solve the situation "themeing" wise. "Africa" exhibits form at the moment more or less a connected area, but will be divided thru the "Eurasian Alpine region" after the construction of the new elephant exhibit in the new area. Or should the elephants move somewhere within the "old" Tiergarten grounds? (and if so: where?)
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There isn't really any comprehensive theming in the zoo anyway, just some clusters, so I don't think they are bothered about that at all. The African Elephants would move to the new area.
 
Are there already plans what will happen with the current aquarium after that? Maybe a Reptile House/Herpetarium only? And is it a protected building or can it be bulldozed?

True about the zoogeographical clusters. However, I'm curious how they embed a modern elephant exhibit into that area.
 
zoomaniac said:
I don't know if it make sense to built a big aquaria house in Tiergarten Schönbrunn, regarding the fact that Vienna already has the "Haus des Meeres". So why compete with it?
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The Haus des Meeres aquarium likely won't be that affected by the addition of a shiny new aquarium at the zoo. Apparently, Haus des Meeres has broken its attendance record for 13 consecutive years, an amazing feat of popularity. A decade ago the aquarium had 352, 877 visitors and by 2019 that number had almost doubled to 650,148. The astonishing increase in attendance will mean that the aquarium will likely continue to do well far into the future (post-Covid).

(Those numbers were obtained from the Summer 2020 issue of Zoo Grapevine & International Zoo News)
 
Well, maybe it's like gazing into the crystal ball. We had examples where these developments had influence (afaik old Berlin aquarium of Alfred Brehm had to close because Zoo Berlin built an aquarium and I presume that the closing of the aquarium at Zoo London was not only owed because of run down building fabric but also because of London Aquarium (now Sea Life) at County Hall). Normaly, as @snowleopard wrote, "shiny new" institutions draw people from "old established" institutions. We will see.
 
zoomaniac said:
Well, maybe it's like gazing into the crystal ball. We had examples where these developments had influence (afaik old Berlin aquarium of Alfred Brehm had to close because Zoo Berlin built an aquarium and I presume that the closing of the aquarium at Zoo London was not only owed because of run down building fabric but also because of London Aquarium (now Sea Life) at County Hall). Normaly, as @snowleopard wrote, "shiny new" institutions draw people from "old established" institutions. We will see.
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Small correction: The Berlin Aquarium Unter den Linden was closed in 1910 for financial reasons, and because the property was to be sold. The Zoo-Aquarium, which was opened only three years later, had nothing to do with its closure. Otto Hermes, the director of the old aquarium, planned a new aquarium as early as 1907, but died in 1910, and Ludwig Heck simply seized the opportunity to build his own aquarium. If you are interested in aquariums, I recommend the book "Picasso Fisch and Kompass Qualle", which was published in 2013 to mark the 100th anniversary of Zoo-Aquarium. Unfortunately, it is only in german available.

I hope, the Tiergarten will build his new Aquarium, the plans looks phantastic. But also like the old one.
 
Thanks for the correction. I did not have my books available (among them "Picassofisch und Kompassqualle") when writing the post and so I get obviously confused with the years. Luckily I wrote "afaik" because I was unsure.
 
Over 70 chameleons have been handed to the zoo after they were confiscated by the customs at Vienna Schwechat Airport! The chameleons belong to 10 different species from the Usambara Mountains, a very rainy and cool region in Tanzania. The ages vary between juveniles (few weeks old) to adults, sadly 3 chameleons were already dead on arrival, the rest are in relatively good condition.

Geschmuggelte Chamäleons an Tiergarten übergeben – Tiergarten Schönbrunn
 
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