Wildlands Emmen The city counsil of Emmen has agreed with building the new zoo!

I am very sure you went to the same snack bar, since it is the onliest one in emmen with flemish fries;P

The onliest community money for the new park is 70 million euro's, which the council pays to the park, for the grounds in the cioty centre. The council will sell these grounds to estate developers. So the community should be beneficial on this.

The rest of the money should be coming from private investors. There are talks at this moment, but the council was already very certain about the year 2016, zo I suspect the negotiations with these investors have been a succes.
 
No, there's a pressconference tomorrow, where the council will explain about the support they will give the zoo until it's move to the new location. An external buro has done a revieww of the businessplan, and will reveal it's conclusions during this pressconference. Details are not known, but there are rumours the plan will have to be adapted. It's not sure if this concerns the businessplan, or the plan for the new park. The 120 million euro gap seems to be closed, so tomorrow we will see if this is enough....
 
The last audit has been positive about the plans for the new zoo. There will be a final council meeting at december 16th. So all looks good, I don't think they wil manage to open the new zoo in 2015, but 2016 does not look unrealistic at the moment.
 
It's done. The financial picture is complete. They have been creative with the plans, moved a bit around, and they managed to make the new zoo 50 million euro's cheaper. For instance, they will not build a new hippo exhibit, but house them in the current penguinexhibit. This way they will not have to build two new exhibits, but only one.
 
Johnny said:
It's done. The financial picture is complete. They have been creative with the plans, moved a bit around, and they managed to make the new zoo 50 million euro's cheaper. For instance, they will not build a new hippo exhibit, but house them in the current penguinexhibit. This way they will not have to build two new exhibits, but only one.
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That's great. Are there any links to the revised plans?
Not real sure how one would transform the penguin pool into a hippo habitat. I hope the new penguin exhibit is a good as the current one, which in my opinion is the best penguin exhibit on the planet.
 
reduakari said:
in my opinion is the best penguin exhibit on the planet.
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I totally agree!
When I think of the Emmen Zoo redoing itself, the phrase, "If it's not broke, don't fix it" keeps coming to my mind. I personally thought Emmen was one of the best zoos I've ever seen, so I keep wondering why they're doing such a major overhaul. There are a lot of other zoos that should be overhauled before Emmen.
 
The zoo is beeing moved because at the current location there is no more room to expand. The revised plans will be presented to the city council on 8th of june. Their case for a public loan is stronger now they are getting some corporate loans.
 
Sneeuwpanter said:
The zoo is beeing moved because at the current location there is no more room to expand. The revised plans will be presented to the city council on 8th of june. Their case for a public loan is stronger now they are getting some corporate loans.
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Yeah, I guess I understand. But what is already there is excellent. Is that walk between the Old and New sections of the Zoo really that long? Is it significantly longer than the tunnels (under the street) connecting the Zoos in Copenhagen, Moscow, or even Dallas? I personally enjoyed the walk between the two sections of Emmen's current Zoo.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical. It just bugs me to see excellence torn down. Over here in America, we see it when they tear down a perfectly good sports stadium because the sports team is demanding an even better one. This happened in recent years here in my city of Indianapolis. They tore down a perfectly good (American) football stadium that wasn't even paid for yet! Now the city is even deeper in debt, but hey, we have an even better stadium! But is it that much better? I don't see it. (Sorry to diverge, but I'm an anti-waste person.)
 
As i just read they are going to move atlanta thrashers to winipeg. But on topic again. The reality is that not opening a new exhibit every now and than causes less and less visitors. Espacially in such a compatative market as the dutch "zoo comunity" is. That's why the are doing this. Last yaer emmen had 750.000 visitors the aim with the new park is 1.3 milion
 
ANyhuis said:
I totally agree!
When I think of the Emmen Zoo redoing itself, the phrase, "If it's not broke, don't fix it" keeps coming to my mind. I personally thought Emmen was one of the best zoos I've ever seen, so I keep wondering why they're doing such a major overhaul. There are a lot of other zoos that should be overhauled before Emmen.
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I agree that what the public see's of Emmen is excellent and looks great,but if you ever saw the space the animals are kept when the zoo is closed to the public,I think you would change your views of a fair number of the exhibits at the current Emmen Zoo!!
 
Johnny said:
For instance, they will not build a new hippo exhibit, but house them in the current penguinexhibit. This way they will not have to build two new exhibits, but only one.
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Seriously? That sounds like nothing short of a catastrophe if that is true. They currently have the best penguin exhibit in Europe (maybe the world?) and they are going to tear it down?
 
zoogiraffe said:
I agree that what the public see's of Emmen is excellent and looks great,but if you ever saw the space the animals are kept when the zoo is closed to the public,I think you would change your views of a fair number of the exhibits at the current Emmen Zoo!!
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Nonsense. The indoor enclosures are good. Still enough zoo's can really take an example from the emmen indoor enclosures.

Yeah, I guess I understand. But what is already there is excellent. Is that walk between the Old and New sections of the Zoo really that long? Is it significantly longer than the tunnels (under the street) connecting the Zoos in Copenhagen, Moscow, or even Dallas? I personally enjoyed the walk between the two sections of Emmen's current Zoo.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical. It just bugs me to see excellence torn down. Over here in America, we see it when they tear down a perfectly good sports stadium because the sports team is demanding an even better one. This happened in recent years here in my city of Indianapolis. They tore down a perfectly good (American) football stadium that wasn't even paid for yet! Now the city is even deeper in debt, but hey, we have an even better stadium! But is it that much better? I don't see it. (Sorry to diverge, but I'm an anti-waste person.)
Emmen zoo has had 2 problems since the expansion; bad management and a lack of money for further expansion, also due to bad decisions from the management. Moving the zoo was the onliest way to get financial resources. But, the perosn responsible for the bad situation the zoo is in right now, also was responsible for this project, and is responsible for huge delays and for the fact that it took 4 years to get the finances for the plan in order. The biggest mystery is still, why was this person put in charge of such a big project?
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@ Jonny I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree about how good the off-show housing is for the animals,as personnaly when I saw it the only think that stood out for me was that its was very different with much of it actually being under the public exhibits,which I will admit is a good use of space under the exhibits and in saving space within the zoo.
 
There's no need to disagree about anything. I have seen the indoorenclosures in emmen and also in other zoo's. And there's one thing that's the same everywhere; indoorenclosures are smaller than the outdoorenclosures. And from what I have seen the emmen indoorenclosures are good and spacious. Only the indoors off the savannah-inhabitants are a little outdated ( build in 1974), but still not too small, which is quite an achievement regarding the developments in zookeeping the past twenty years.
 
The indoor facilities for giraffes, hippos and elephants are not good. There may be zoos with even smaller/worse accomodation, but all 3 species need better indoor enclosures in Emmen to fulfill modern standards.

The hippos and elephants also need a lot more outdoor space, especially the hippos. For the elephants, the herd enclosure is not that bad, but they needed to fill the moat and a proper, larger bull paddock.

I can`t see any of that happen in the old zoo, there is just not enough space. They could send the elephants away and build a new hippo facility on the space of the old hippo enclosure and the elephant enclosure. But the elephants are the main attraction. Moving the whole zoo is the only way to solve that dilemma.
 
The elephants only need a sand floor in their indoor enclosure, which is not doable at the moment because it's underground. But, most zoo's also don't have a sandfloor. Indeed, they need a better bull enclosure, the current one was build out of necessity, while there was not much space for it. Th emoat isn't much of a problem, but all together this is a reason to build a new elephant enclosure. But it is still a enclosure that is acceptable for at least the coming twenty years. The hippo enclosure is a good one, in all aspects, onliest problem is, you can't see them underwater. And allthough it would be nice to enlarge it, it is not a necessity, it is not a small enclosure. The giraffes inside enclosure is absolutely not a bad one, but it would be nice if they had a larger one, especially for the male.

Animal exhibits in emmen can be improved, that's true, but they are quite good, so they are no reason to move the zoo. The biggest reason is a simple one; to need to move to keep attracting visitors and be acceptable in the future ( twenty years from now the current zoo will be outdated).
 
I totally disagree that the elephant bull accommodation, elephant barn, the moat, giraffe barn or the hippo enclosure (indoor or outdoor) are not problematic and would be acceptable for the next 20 years.

You`ll have to accept that a lot of people completely disagree with you about this, Johnny.
 
Yassa said:
The indoor facilities for giraffes, hippos and elephants are not good. There may be zoos with even smaller/worse accomodation, but all 3 species need better indoor enclosures in Emmen to fulfill modern standards.
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Wow, I feel that is quite harsh as well? The Elephant barn isn't all that bad, it might need some sand substrate but other then that it isn't too small? Maybe it looks that way from the window the visitors can use, but I think it's pretty O-K. It ain't top notch, but still.

Allthough i agree the bull enclosure ain't all that, it hasn't been in use for about 15 years or more as a bull enclosure and it's just added to the outdoor enclosure. That isn't too specious but still among the better I know.

The giraffes have a barn which isn't too roomy, but it's just as large as Ouwehands, Amersfoort or many others in Holland. And now i'm not even comparing to across the border, where I've seen much worse?

The indoor hippo enclosure isn't that bad neither. The only thing is that it is a little crowded because of how many hippos are there, but in the wild they are also crammed into tiny pools during the dry season, I don't see it as either too small or bad for the animals. Besides, it's still roomier then any indoor enclosure I've seen like Hannover, Budapest, Prague or Antwerp?

The outdoor hippo pool is the biggest I've seen anywhere i think? Besides Longleat's lake i've only seen on the television... It might not look THAT big but when you look at it closely, it really is.

I do agree that Emmen could do with improving, the enclosures mentioned aren't europes best but they do reasonable well imo. I've had a big presentation about their plans recently though, and in the end i wasn't all that impressed i'm afraid :(

I'm also really sad about Playa Penguinos :(
 
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