I visited today, and had a lovely tour from the bird curator (and I mean lovely 2.5 hour drive to the undeveloped parts of the zoo tour). A lot of animals have been moving around.
A kinkajou now lives in the first exhibit of the cat grottos.
The ring-tailed cat (cacomistle, whatever you want to call it) that used to live in this exhibit has moved to the nocturnal house's first exhibit- but the nocturnal house was changed so that this exhibit is no longer inside it, but just outside the entrance. It's still pretty dark.
The fishing cat is back on exhibit in cat grottos.
The caracal and clouded leopard switched their exhibits.
The six banded armadillos moved from the saki monkey exhibit to the new ring tailed cat exhibit.
The coati, which lived in what is now the ring tailed cat and six banded armadillo exhibit, has moved to the former tayra exhibit in Tiny Tots Nature Spot.
The tayra has been moved to the former agouti exhibit in the Amazonian cages.
The agouti moved in with the nearby cotton top tamarins.
The tamandua anteater moved from the nocturnal house to the squirrel monkey exhibit in TTNS.
The concrete in the jaguar exhibit has been covered with dirt. The exhibit is now a lot better, but still far too small.
There is now a pair of northern helmeted curassows in Bird Alley. The female came from the private sector, while the male (after recovering from a surgery in which three coins were removed) moved from the Amazonia walk-thru aviary to be paired with her.
The manchurian cranes moved off exhibit so they could have more privacy. Filling their exhibit is a pair of blue cranes. The exhibit next door still has 1 blue crane, but now also has wattled crane.
Don't trust any benches near the hooded crane exhibit. They have grackle nests above them and I got pooped on.
A secretary bird that had been at the zoo since the late 1980's passed away yesterday
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1.0 Speke's gazelle is on exhibit in an exhibit that was empty, near the warthogs.
One of the cassowaries is gone. A female will soon be arriving from SNZ.
The male red bird of paradise came from the Bronx Zoo. He is four years old.
0.1 great blue turaco died after swallowing a stick
The zoo is having breeding success with Laysan ducks and another species that sounds like a wily wood duck (googling that gave me nothing, however)
There are currently two baby southern ground hornbills. One is 85 days old, the other is 14.
The zoo imported 3.9.1 wild caught turquoise tanager and will soon be importing 3 or 4 Brazilian cardinals to begin phasing in the species.
The zoo is trying to acquire a male Malay peacock pheasant from the private sector, as well as natural-coloration guineafowl.
The African lungfish moved from the Africa Live! building to the African exhibit in the aquarium. The elephantnose fish are nowhere to be found.
Lots of movements occurred with the monkeys. The wolf's guenon troop had been split into two. A pair lives in the normal Africa Live! phase II exhibit with their offspring, while the other pair has moved to one of the horrid cages near the monkey house. Furthermore, the entire troop of Angolan colobus has moved out of the Africa Live! exhibit and into one of the other monkey house cages. Additionally, there are now both a red and a black-and-white ruffed lemur that have moved into a third cage at the monkey house. Two black mangabeys moved from the monkey house to live in the Africa Live! phase II monkey exhibit with the three wolf's guenons.
Everything in between the African wild dogs and the savanna was closed. This means a few small aviaries, rock hyrax, and Lucky were off exhibit.
The three hoofstock grottos in the back of the zoo have all been revamped. Not a speck of concrete may be found in them, it has all been covered with dirt and planted. The giant anteater moved from the Amazonia aviary to one of these, which was empty, while the other two hold addax and addra gazelle.
All of the small exhibits near the Tree Top lookout were empty.
The crested porcupines (which moved from tree top) now rotate during the day with the bat-eared foxes.
Signage in the Australian aviary has been updated.
The pair of gharials where separated and now one lives in a different part of the waterfowl/croc exhibit chain.
Toadally has had some stuff moved around but the only new things were young African clawed frogs and Panamanian golden frogs.
A green moray eel is on exhibit in the former bonnethead shark exhibit in the aquarium.
The young ground hornbills I mentioned- one will be on tv soon (don't know what show or when). Also, the older of the two is being introduced to its parents. After a while, it will be moved in with the giraffes.
The undeveloped half of the zoo (across the road) will eventually become an Asian section, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. One of the things this (particularly ambitious) director wants is Asian elephants- while, as mentioned before, African elephants will eventually become part of Africa Live!
Well, I hope you all just enjoyed that tedious report. I'll be summarizing up my tour and posting in in the replies of my review for this zoo, as it doesn't really belong on the news thread.
