Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia Zoo News 2022

Persephone said:
Henry Vilas has them with hornbills. It, uh, didn’t go great but they’re still doing it. I’ve heard of an attempt to put them with aardvarks that didn’t go well because the meerkats got territorial. Don’t know which zoo that was off the top of my head. I can’t remember another mixed exhibit with them. Even Indy keeps a net over the exhibit so the quails in the desert dome can’t get in. I think they’re a touch too aggressive to be with anything small and wouldn’t be readily visible if sharing an exhibit with something too big.
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Philadelphia mixed them with Aardvark in the recent past.

~Thylo
 
From the AZA care manual for meerkats, mongoose, and Fossa:

Meerkat: One facility housed meerkats and rock hyrax together for several years. While there was some aggression at first (biting on the part of both species) it eventually calmed down. Important to the success of this combination was: 1) making sure that both species had their own nest boxes, 2) making the door of the meerkat box too small for the hyraxes to get in, because they would fight over the box, and 3) hanging the hyraxes' diet in areas that were too steep for the meerkats to climb to prevent them from eating the food (J. Greathouse, personal communication, 2003).
Meerkats and dik dik have been housed together with no challenges reported. Aardvark and meerkats have been exhibited together; however, meerkat aggression towards the aardvark was reported over food and space. With time, these conflicts resolved themselves when the aardvark learned to avoid the meerkats. Meerkats have also been exhibited successfully with African crested porcupines (pregnant porcupines should be removed prior to giving birth as meerkats will kill offspring) (K. Kimble, personal communication, 2004 & 2005).
Other combinations reported include: guenons and banded mongoose; meerkat, yellow mongoose, fennec fox, and Cape ground squirrel; meerkat, zebra, lechwe, and porcupine; meerkat and yellow mongoose; meerkat and giraffe (one meerkat was lost to trampling by a giraffe); and narrow striped mongoose with jumping rats (Muir, 2003; C. Brown, personal communication, 2006).



Apparently mixing of banded mongoose and primates has been done before. Not with meerkats. The manual doesn’t note the hornbill mixed exhibits.
 
Persephone said:
Henry Vilas has them with hornbills. It, uh, didn’t go great but they’re still doing it. I’ve heard of an attempt to put them with aardvarks that didn’t go well because the meerkats got territorial. Don’t know which zoo that was off the top of my head. I can’t remember another mixed exhibit with them. Even Indy keeps a net over the exhibit so the quails in the desert dome can’t get in. I think they’re a touch too aggressive to be with anything small and wouldn’t be readily visible if sharing an exhibit with something too big.
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Philly had them with aardvarks, not sure if that's what you're thinking of! Completely forgot about it. It seemed to work well, they had them like that for years. Do you remember what species Henry Vilas has them with? Smithsonian has Von der Decken's, usually just one animal and a couple of meerkats.
 
Different mongoose species are going to have significantly different attitudes. I have seen Banded Mongoose mixed with warthogs and even with titi monkeys once. I've even heard would of Marsh Mongoose being able to be successfully mixed with bachelor gorillas if done carefully.

~Thylo
 
Persephone said:
From the AZA care manual for meerkats, mongoose, and Fossa:

Meerkat: One facility housed meerkats and rock hyrax together for several years. While there was some aggression at first (biting on the part of both species) it eventually calmed down. Important to the success of this combination was: 1) making sure that both species had their own nest boxes, 2) making the door of the meerkat box too small for the hyraxes to get in, because they would fight over the box, and 3) hanging the hyraxes' diet in areas that were too steep for the meerkats to climb to prevent them from eating the food (J. Greathouse, personal communication, 2003).
Meerkats and dik dik have been housed together with no challenges reported. Aardvark and meerkats have been exhibited together; however, meerkat aggression towards the aardvark was reported over food and space. With time, these conflicts resolved themselves when the aardvark learned to avoid the meerkats. Meerkats have also been exhibited successfully with African crested porcupines (pregnant porcupines should be removed prior to giving birth as meerkats will kill offspring) (K. Kimble, personal communication, 2004 & 2005).
Other combinations reported include: guenons and banded mongoose; meerkat, yellow mongoose, fennec fox, and Cape ground squirrel; meerkat, zebra, lechwe, and porcupine; meerkat and yellow mongoose; meerkat and giraffe (one meerkat was lost to trampling by a giraffe); and narrow striped mongoose with jumping rats (Muir, 2003; C. Brown, personal communication, 2006).



Apparently mixing of banded mongoose and primates has been done before. Not with meerkats. The manual doesn’t note the hornbill mixed exhibits.
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The meerkat and ground squirrel combo went badly. I'd imagine the same for mongoose and rats.
 
Sarus Crane said:
I think Eland, Kudu, or perhaps even Roan could have been a much more unique option than Watusi.
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See below:

Kudu21 said:
Knowing the condition of the holding areas of the African hoofstock enclosures at the zoo, I would not want them to bring in any valuable and/or endangered species until they are able to construct new housing for them — the current barns are by no means up to modern standards for these species, and the zoo knows this. Filling the space with a large, attractive, low-maintenance, domestic species until they can move forward with any plans for new giraffe and hoofstock enclosures and holding, which are of high priority for the zoo, is an appropriate and responsible solution in the meantime. As has been discussed previously, the zoo is hard pressed for funding compared to most other zoos of its stature, so progress is going to take time. I don’t think anyone would rather the space sit empty.
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TinoPup said:
The watusi are easy to rehome and replace, at least. Hopefully it's just a temporary measure until they are able to make the habitat better suited for other species.
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TinoPup said:
The zoo also isn't in a great area, and isn't really walking distance to any of those touristy destinations. It's more "in the city" than most city zoos (especially given it's not even in a park or anything), but it's not the right part of the city. You don't accidentally end up there by foot or car, or spend a day at the park and decide to pop in the zoo while you're there because the kids saw the sign for the giraffes.
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Well, technically speaking, the zoo is in Fairmount Park. But, I get your point of not being at the right location for impulse visits.
 
I just saw the Mhorr’s Gazelle today. It was all the way in the back so no pics. Same happened with the gibbons.
 
kitnkat58 said:
Well, technically speaking, the zoo is in Fairmount Park. But, I get your point of not being at the right location for impulse visits.
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It is, but Fairmount is huge and it's all the way in the bottom corner, not near any of the major sites for tourists. The closest thing on that side is some sports fields.
 
If the zoo is outside of West Philadelphia, does that mean Google earth is wrong??!!?!499F08AB-3DD5-4430-A44A-BCA3D296FD30.jpeg
 

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Animallover360 said:
Why do they advertise it as being there then
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Because most people don't know "west Philadelphia" is a specific area - most cities have tons of neighborhoods. The zoo isn't quite in any neighborhood, it's just above west Philly.

Fairmount Park.jpg

The zoo is the bottom left green area. West Philly is below those highways.
 

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