Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo Developments 2021

Yeah I can agree the caribou exhibit is poorly designed and doesn't feature great chances for photographers. But they hopefully will get the reproductive stuff going. They have a fairly new healthcare centre holding cyrobanks and should be put to good use. Also the Caribou aren't far from the healthcare centre so hopefully the process goes smoothly.

By now following their timeline the master plan should be submitted and hopefully approved and then released to the public next month. So we hopefully just need to wait a little while longer.
 
yeah I've figured the old Master Plan's been toast for a while, it became outdated the second they realized turning Australasia into a Canada Pavilion was a terrible idea. still they've been talking about bringing the Domain animals up for what feels like decades, I remember a Zoomobile driver telling me that they were coming up when I was like 12 and I'm an adult now and they're still down in the abyss. I know once the orangs are outside (fingers crossed Puppe is one of them) they're doing the entrance plaza, but I hope once that's done they finally get to work on Canadian Wilderness or whatever form it might take, I've got a feeling Dolf wants it to happen
 
Ah yes, I forgot about the plans for the Caribou reproductive stuff. Ok, then let's regrade the exhibit. make it easier to see the animals, because most people think it's an exhibit to see Canadian geese.

Yes, the Kangaroo walk-thru was open today. I didn't go through, but I did see people going in and out..

If we're all lucky, the Master Plan will come out and bright all our days and not send us in a frenzy of anger and disappointment.
 
hyena142, that's some really great knowledge and we are glad you are also up to date with the Canadian wilderness. I was also hoping it would be done by now. But it's not. July to September will hopefully be big months for the Zoo with the opening of the orangutan exhibit and hopefully a new master plan. Also I do hope that soon enough there will be more babies by 2022. The Zoo unfortunately lost a lot of sales from Covid and babies would help boost those sales back to normal. Also we already know that in 2022 there will be another giraffe baby. So I'm sure there are a lot of looking towards the next few months and next year!
 
@hyena142, I don't know if you have gone back in the threads yet to learn this or if you already know but the new entrance is supposed to provide us with sea otters... and a second place to keep penguins not important. Sea otters though would be massive. I'm willing to wait on the rest to get sea otters in the next hopefully 3-5 years. Of course I dont know what the rest entails yet but I feel safe in saying I can be patient if it means we get sea otters.

The animal plan also mentioned koalas coming. Covid definitely could have killed that but if they could swing that for spring 2022, it will be massive. If you dont know about the animal plan I would suggest going back and looking for the posts around that and looking through the document for yourself. It does help to show some of what the future of the zoo might be.
 
I have the animal plan bookmarked on my PC so I can keep tabs on roughly what is and isn't going on at the zoo, plus it's the most fun I've ever had reading a document that long. Koalas would definitely make me happy especially since the zoo needs koala redemption after what happened at the end of the 2002 visit. I really want sea otters as well. I'm just hoping covid didn't break everything especially since the walrus deal already went bust
 
TZFan said:
Hi hyena142, welcome to the land of the obsessed! I'm sure you will enjoy hours of reading and learning how "special" we all are. Lol.

I agree with Akula don't invest any thought into the old master plan. Having sat in on their web chat a few months again one thing was made very clear to me, the old plans are out. They didn't clearly state what the new plans are but the little snippets they did share made it evident this would be a plan unlike any other we have scene before. It's not even being done by a traditional zoo design firm. The only thing we can say for certain is the front entrance will be the next project because they already have the design plans. Absolutely everything else is up for grabs to be completely reimagined.

Just what until its released later this summer. There will be a flurry of posts that come in fast and furious. Not to mention the orang habitat's opening. You and Kalvin have joined us at a very interesting time. Buckle up its going to be a wild ride this summer.

@cypher there is no reason to replace the fairly new caribou. The exhibit is poorly designed for sure but the caribou are about to embark on a big reproductive study and we should be getting caribou calves. They are about to get interesting. The zoo should probably alter the terrain so people can see them better.

The kangaroo walkabout is open surprisingly. I wouldnt have thought they would want guests in with the roos.
Toronto zoo following safety protocols as reopening begins - CityNews Toronto

Currently only 3 Wild Encounters are being offered, penguin, kangaroo and giraffe.
Click to expand...
Plans with the caribou are rather timely affected as they are by the threats of climate change and available habitat being impacted and detoriating.
 
Here's some more information on the zoo's reopening.

Right now they are letting in 4000 guests and monitoring the animals reaction and the guests ability to follow the rules. They have already increased it from 2500 in the first days.

Pavilions will not reopen until we enter stage 3.

The zoo is working with an animal pharmaceutical company and hopes to begin vaccinating its most vulnerable residents later this year.

If you visit the newly reopened Toronto Zoo the animals might watch you as keenly as you watch them

Also cool news about the penguin Wild Encounter. You get to go into the exhibit now with all the penguins. Looks like you stay behind a kiddie fence. Hopefully this works out and when the allow feeding and touching again you can just be free in there with the penguins. Really neat.
 
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The roof repair on the Americas is apparently more extensive. They are doing waterproofing down in to the beaver and otter exhibits. Probably good because theres usually leaks. Glad to see Dolf is on top of these general housekeeping issues that have long been ignored.

The tamarins have an new background in their habitat. Instead of greyish green walls they have installed a what appears to be photographic mural. The photo on Dolf's instagram isnt the best. Heck even if its a painted mural it should be better then what they had.
 
The other day I overheard a volunteer talking about having done observation with the Hamerkop in the rainforest pavilion. they mentioned that they were doing observation for breeding, and that the pair hadn't really hit it off yet. To my knowledge, we only have two Hamerkop, both of which are males. They're also not a species at risk, so breeding isn't really a big deal for conservation. It'd be nice though, for Homer to finally put his nests to some use, assuming it's the walkthrough aviary and not the bat aviary, in which case I think the other one is named Herman. Maybe we'll be in for a surprise when the pavilion opens (fingers crossed it's the Hamerkop chick kind of surprise and not Homer swooping unfortunate passerby)
 
They were trying to find a mate for whichever of the boys is older. I think its Homer. The population in captivity is pretty small so it was going to be a long shot, especially with covid. I'm not going to complain if we got the female and we get some breeding going. Any chicks while not valuable to the wild population overall, they would be a boost to the SSP's population.
 
@TZFan neat! Fingers crossed for Hamerkop chicks!

Todd the red fox is on exhibit now. It might be worth the trek down to domain to see him. He's very energetic and is curiously exploring his exhibit. Unfortunately, the fence isn't very forgiving to most photographers, unless you have a lens that can achieve a very shallow depth of field
 
Kalvin said:
@TZFan
Todd the red fox is on exhibit now. It might be worth the trek down to domain to see him. He's very energetic and is curiously exploring his exhibit. Unfortunately, the fence isn't very forgiving to most photographers, unless you have a lens that can achieve a very shallow depth of field
Click to expand...

Sounds like a challenge lol. If I head back down, I'll definitely give it a shot.
 
On Facebook Live they did another update on the orang exhibit. They are now expecting completion sometime this fall as they are just working on building foundations right now. They are still short $2 million of the fundraising goal. They haven't designed the exhibit to ever house gibbons and siamangs and they have no intention of adding hoofstock.

And in weird news we can vote on the Tundra Trek bathroom to be the best in Canada this year.

Vote - Cintas Best Restroom
 
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Orangs being finished by the fall would be nice, especially if they manage to get it open by September-early October and they can get a bit of use out of it before the snow hits. by then the pavilions will probably be reopened and people will be more comfortable going out, from what I've heard things've been looking good in the GTA over the last few weeks on the covid front but you never know with this thing so I'm cautiously optimistic. shame they're not planning on adding the gibbons or whatever replaces them when Lenny and Holly pass tho, I was really hoping for a giant mixed primate habitat. oh well, maybe someday
 
Wow, $2 million short is kind of significant. I feel like they really should be focusing on raising funds for that. It's an area the zoo really falls short with, fundraising. Honestly, I'm not surprised that the zoo hasn't planned for mix species with this Outdoor exhibit. It's just there M.O. at this point.
 
I think it has to do with space. They said in the live that they would need indoor housing for any other orang roommates and they couldn't build that without encroaching on the orang habitat based on the existing area they had to work with. Would probably cost too much to clear a new section from part of the hill for it as well
 
The other part of the live and more significant is they said with gibbons and siamangs they didnt want the exhibit to be fully enclosed. I would assume if you have the trees whatever distance back from the exhibit they need that would be good enough. Just look at the indoor exhibit. It's not like they are hopping out over the moat all the time. Plan a little. Lots of zoos let gibbons and siamangs outside and dont keep them fully enclosed. Feels like a lame excuse to just phase out the gibbons in a few years and not mix like so many other zoos do, successfully. Im incredibly disappointed they wrote off the idea completely. I would be fine if they said we have planned for it to happen later and we will have to do some improvements at that time.

It doesn't leave me much hope that they would do a mixed exhibit inside but that is still possible. You could have the orangs outside chilling alone and the group on display inside could be hanging out with gibbons and babirusa. Reality is in the next 5 years we will likely be down to one group. Puppe will be dead. Kembali and Jingga will be in new homes. Budi might be able to keep the peace between Sekali and Ramai. So all summer you are going to tell me they are going to leave the heart of the pavilion empty? That would be incredibly foolish. Why even go in there? Oh yeah you have no choice because of where the orangs will be. But people will complain that they have to walk through the pavilion when its pretty much empty and they would be right. So either you get the orangs used to some winter exhibit mates and unite the gibbon and orang exhibit or you keep two separate exhibits and still have gibbons or siamangs who get access to the orang exhibit when the big guys are outside. My guess is they will go the foolish root and leave the pavilion empty 6 months a year.
 
I caught that as well @TZFan. I thought it was a lame excuse. I'm more under the inclination that they either didn't plan for mixed species at all, or they ran into obvious budget issues.

I would like to think they would renovate the indoor exhibit while the Orangutans are in the outdoor exhibit, but that's wishful thinking. Instead, assuming they only have 1 group of Orangutans as you suggested, I think you're right. it'll be an empty exhibit.
 
The budget issues could have easily been solved with we will address adding them later. It would be pretty cheap modifications in comparison I would guess. We know there is no way they can mix them until Lenny and Holly are dead and who knows how much longer it would be until that happened. Makes more sense to wait and see because you never know what would be available. They could also go for langurs. I think they just dont want to do a mixed exhibit yet again.

Oh it will be an empty pavilion for sure. Even if Ramai and Sekali cannot be in the same group that means the exhibit still feels empty compared to how it used to feel when the group was bigger under Dinding. If you dont replace the gibbons and expand into their exhibit its going to feel even more empty with just 2-3 orangs in it. And there is no way we are going to get any more females unless they breed the girls, ship Budi out, keep Jingga and bring in a new male or at least a sample you could try AI on with Jingga. Then hopefully Budi produces girls and our group can grow again. Im dreaming here. We will waste breeding time for Budi by keeping him in Canada for another 7 years waiting for Sekali to be ready again. Ramai will only be able to have this next one and she is done. She will be 40 before its old enough to breed again. They wasted a full breeding cycle for both Ramai and Sekali waiting on Budi. It's a crime.
 
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