Got some various status of construction updates from my visit today, following up on some of the items I posted earlier in construction.
Outside the Lied Jungle lower entry, it seems they did leave the stairs in place and made a bunch of drainage improvements along the slope and at the bottom of the stairs. The bottom of the stairs was prone to standing water in heavy rain events, so this is a welcome addition.
Finally was able to get a picture without people in it of the new play area/statue by the Giraffe Feeding platform that was put in place in early summer, not a huge play area, but a nice little statue of Eugenia and Sonny, the first two elephants born at the zoo.
It seems that the lemur walkthrough by Madagascar has seen its last days as a walkthrough. One entrance got the Disney-shrub treatment and the other has been boarded over. You can still see into this exhibits on the south side of the exhibit by the two outdoor lemur exhibits. The walkthrough held some Red Ruffed Lemurs today. It will be interesting to see what happens with this space. As it stands, the viewing into this exhibit is extremely awkward to say the least.
Here is the view of the exhibit itself:
Here are some pictures of some of the work going on around the new Orangutan exhibit upgrades.
Some architectural steelwork being put together for one of the new roofs:
The elevator building is beginning to take shape:
And there is a new boardwalk outside of the orangutan upper exhibits:
As
@DesertTortoise noted in the updated species list, I just wanted to post in here a couple of the more interesting adds that were very noticeable in the Lied Jungle recently. First, there is a South American Lungfish added to the river stingray pool as you first enter the floor portion. Makes for some interesting reactions from guests as they see it near the guest edge of the pool!
Second, there are a couple Giant Gourami and a Clown Knifefish in the Philippine Crocodile exhibit. This adds some larger, interesting looking, and very active fish in this pool to help add some energy to this exhibit.
In the Desert Dome, small change in that the Arizona Black Rattlesnake and the Beaded Lizards have switched exhibits. I will note the Beaded Lizards were very active in this much larger space and was a treat to see.
Today's bonus picture, on the Sichuan Takin taking in the lower canyon of the exhibit near the rushing rapids and scaling the cliff faces down here. Pretty awesome to see this larger animal walk on very narrow ledges!
