Berlin Tierpark Tierpark Berlin news

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There are some news for the Tierpark. First of all, many enclosures have received more structure and behavioral enrichment. As I have stated many times, in my opinion most enclosures weren't bad in the past and I believe most animals were doing quite well. But nonetheless, I do welcome all improvements. I have seen many instances where the animals readily accept and make use of the new equipment.

Besides that there are some additional mixed species exhibits now. 2 marabou storks have moved to the giraffe enclosure and some African spurred tortoises have joined the ostriches.

There also have been some changes to improve the service like official feeding times and some animal encounters. I won't go into details here, but I think it is the right direction.

As for the new concept there still is no official publication or press release (this is due for end of December), but Knieriem has reinstated the main idea of a geographically themed park. For instance, he envisions a large enclosure with elephants, giraffes and other African hoofstock. Earlier he indicated that he generally wants large enclosures with large groups of animals for the Tierpark. And it seems like he will stick to the pre-existing plan to remodel the enclosures of the Brehm building. They are to both meet modern standards of animal husbandry and fall into the new concept of geographical regions. I guess this clearly implies that some species/ individual animals will either move within the park or leave it for good.

Also, male Asian elephant Ankhor was sent to Prague for breeding. Apparently, there are more changes to come for this group which also holds for the giraffes.
 
^In fact, Berlin Tierpark is going to work together with the European breeding program (EEP) in the future. So they will just breed with the sub species from Sumatra.

Besides that, Knieriem presented some first projects that are to be implemented in 2015 and 2016 with the already secured funds from the senate (5 mio) and the Klassenlotterie (4 mio):

The Brehm building is going to be further modernized and restructured for 2.2 mio + 4 mio. The new theme for the building will be "Islands of South East Asia" and the present inside halls will get largely extended as will the corresponding outside enclosures which in fact will be merged into one massive enclusure for the tiger sub species from Sumatra. The inside and outside boxes will be merged as well and apparently the inside boxes will not be open for the public any more. At the same time many species are to leave the house. In German zoo forums there are speculations on which of the species are goin to stay. Given the new theme, clouded leopards and still more so the leopard subspecies from Java seem obvious cases. More than that, the present bird boxes will not Show up in the new scheme. There are going to be some (presumably far larger!) boxes with reptiles (and perhaps amphibian or even invertebrate species like insects) from the region in front of the large hidden inside boxes of the carnivores. Last but nor least, the freshly re-opened tropical hall will be remodelled so it can house comodo dragons and one crocodile species. And the plans also indicate that the sun bears may get an exclosure right next to the Brehm building in the future.

The remaining 2.8 mio are going to be invested into the pre-existing and an entirely new playground area (1.6 mio), the old show arena (450k), new trains (250k) and some more or less cosmetic improvements of the entrance area and other areas of the parc.

The detailled plans (in German) are available via PDF (around 13.6 MB): http://www.parlament-berlin.de/ados/17/Haupt/vorgang/h17-1628-v.pdf

The still more detailled plan is still due for the end of the year.
 
I wonder, noone cares about Knierim has killed recently a whole group of wild boar, only for"space reasons"( yes, the Tierpark is defenitely too small for a wild boar exhibit, which costs a lot of money also !), because they need the present(now former ) wild boar exhibit for "much more important" species like the the chacoan peccaries...Fortunately, he has killed them"artgerecht".....
 
Thanks Markmeier for the plans! It is all very interesting and I look forward to seeing how this project develops and to see what species will be kept! Interesting that they will now have two crocodile areas! I wonder if they will house more than one pair of Sumatran tiger!

I'm glad also the sun bear will get better housing!
 
@Bib Fortuna: I guess, because only the regional tabloid press reported about it (for as far as I know). But in this case, I agree that the argument of space was quite weak.

@Dave: Oh, I see. But it also seems like some of the members who had subscribed to the old thread aren't around here any longer. It used to be a lot more discussion back then rather than just posting news every now and then ;)

@Al: In a German forum we just discussed the same question. Some believe/ speculate the present crocodile halls may actually close, because they are consuming too much energy. The Tierpark needs to cut spending as well as raising more income. It seems like they won't just open new attractions, but also cut down. In the end there may be far less species than now as Knieriem indicated more than once. In fact, Dave's report on here may be one of the last reports on the Tierpark as I know it for many years. It may change radically over the years and decades to come. I am not quite sure yet whether I'll like all of the changes, but some seem necessary to improve the financial situation...
 
It does seem the end of an era for the tierpark. I only hope that they keep certain diversity and some of the rarer species! I see a lot more mixed species geographical areas!

Wether two species of elephant will remain, three takin, many zebra etc
 
It definitely is going to be the end of the taxonomic era and it probably will change some characteristics of the parc. I think your thoughts are very realistic. There already are some new mixed-species exhibits for instance. Knieriem clearly stated, however, that endangered species still will be an important part of the new concept. In fact, the Tierpark just joined the European breeding program for Asian elephants and is going to breed with the subspecies from Sumatra. Along the same lines, the Chacoan peccaries are going to receive more space on the expense of some not so rare boars, as Bib Fortuna mentioned. But I also think the Tierpark probably won't continue to keep numerous subspecies of a species even if all of them are endangered in the wild. The case of the Brehm building shows what the future may bring.
 
Interesting to see how relatively small the zoo looks on this map, something that is certainly not the case in real life :p
 
lintworm said:
Interesting to see how relatively small the zoo looks on this map, something that is certainly not the case in real life :p
Click to expand...

Your right it looks incredibly small compared to reality!
 
It's more or less the first new map since 1992 - all the maps since that point, although altered in the labelling where required and with additional areas added at times, have been based on the same design.
 
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