I was visiting someone with a good collection of deer and Antelope for the first time and we arrived before the owner. We were told it was OK to climb the gate and walk to the house so we did. It was also getting dark so we were walking wearing head torches to see our way. Two of the pens we went through were Sambar and Chital in one and and Blackbuck and Mesopotanian fallow deer in the next. They were all due to be fed so came up to us in the dark. It was an interesting experience do a walk through in the dark, while lost.
Walk through enclosures
- Thread starter J.simpkin
- Start date
I was visiting someone with a good collection of deer and Antelope for the first time and we arrived before the owner. We were told it was OK to climb the gate and walk to the house so we did. It was also getting dark so we were walking wearing head torches to see our way. Two of the pens we went through were Sambar and Chital in one and and Blackbuck and Mesopotanian fallow deer in the next. They were all due to be fed so came up to us in the dark. It was an interesting experience do a walk through in the dark, while lost.
That sounds like a neat experience. This was just somebody's ranch?
Agree very much with your statements here. Most people presume that females and castrated males of ungulate sp. are 'safe' to handle, but even they can be 'crabby' and I am always concerned about the risks with even quite small animals and small children in so- called contact areas. Pygmy goats and sheep, especially horned ones, even. Even a castrated male Pygmy goat can be difficult sometimes.
Fallow are among the most timid of Deer and I think the does are pretty suitable for walkthroughs. Sika and Reds are much bolder though. New Forest Wildlife Park has both Sika and Fallow females in a walkthrough but I noticed that though they have Red deer also, they are not in the contact area.
Pheasants- Silver cocks can be very pugnacious, I know from experience of one. He used to attack ladies, but never myself.
As well as the current walk through enclosures being discussed for the likes of lemurs, goats etc. I recall in the seventies there were walk through areas, although perhaps it would be more accurate to describe them as walk about areas at several of the U.K.'s safari parks in areas containing much larger animals than is what being discussed. At Longleat the public were at liberty to walk about the giraffe area, which I recall also contained zebra. At Lambton Lion Park, the lake area was later turned into a walk about area which contained not only ducks and geese but also the park's two Asian elephants, which were in this area with their keeper, completely at liberty, the public were allowed to feed them, pat them and indeed in certain cases get on the back of the larger elephant, Duchess. This was also the case at Windsor in its early days with their young Asian elephants when the park was under the direction of the Smart family.
I an unsure about ibex. If I were planning such a paddock, the buck would either be kept in the smaller pen during rutting season and females let in and out (most exhibits contain a smaller separation area anyway), or the exhibit would be seen only from the outside during the rut.
Curious question: Are there any bird species which cannot be kept in a walk-through exhibit, not because they are timid and will get stressed by having humans walk among them, but because they are too dangerous or aggressive to the visitors? Big ratites (at least ostriches and cassowaries) excluded.
I would think some waterfowl, cranes, birds of prey and hornbills would be the most likely groups. Some waterfowl, even the same species, behave very differently in different collections. In one they will try to attack you and in another they totally ignore people walking right by. Some parrots could also be agressive depending on how they were raised, but I don't think that's as common. Pheasants too as already mentioned.
logan.ody861
Member
world of birds in cape town, nearly all there enclosures are walk though. incuding
Barbets
•Bishops
•Bulbuls
•Buzzards
•Cassowaries (only ones not in walk though enclosure)
•Cockatoos
•Conures
•Cormorants
•Cranes
•Crows
•Dikkops
•Ducks
•Eagles
•Egrets
•Emus
•Falcons
•Finches
•Flamingos
•Francolins
•Gallinules
•Geese
•Goshawks
•Guans
•Guineafowl
•Gulls
•Marabou
•Herons
•Hornbills (including rhino and giant ground hornbill)
•Ibises
•Jays
•Jungle Fowl
•Kites
•Lovebirds
•Lorikeets
•Magpies
•Cockatiels
•Owls ( little owls too eagel owls)
•Parrots
•Parakeets
•Peafowl
•Pelicans( they where so close we could feel the heat of there body)
•Pheasants
•Plovers
•Quails
•Raven
•Rheas
•Secretarybirds
•Shrikes
•Softbills
•Spoonbills
•Starlings
•Storks
•Swans
•Thrushes
•Turacos
•Turkeys
•Vultures
•Weavers
•Waterfowl
and they had some mammal walk though enclosures
•Baboons ( onlt mammals not in walk though enclosures)
•Meerkats
•Monkeys
•Marmosets
•Tamarins
•Squirrels
•Mongooses
•Foxes
•Genets (tiny ones and some as big as spaniels)
•Racoons
•Guineapigs
•Porcupines
best place ever!!!!!! a mind blowing experince!!
Emu's are a weird lot. Some contexts they are basically treated like goats (ie harmless) and in petting areas and in others they are fenced like Velocioraptor at Jurassic Park.
ungulate nerd
Well-Known Member
Walk-through pen with Dybowski deer used to be successfully run in Zlin zoo. It was closed down only when the zoo needed space for its new ethiopian area ca 5 years ago.
Both Bratislava and Prague used to have a free roaming markhor herd on zoo grounds for years. It was not a result of a plan, rather of run-down fence of their enclosures. I don´t think they ever caused any problems with the visitors.
Alpacas and vikunja are placed in walk-though petting pen in Olomouc. But there are no adult males.
I´ve never heard of any tapir walk-through. But I´ve heard that the first Prague´s Malay tapir female (sometime in the 1960es?) castrated a male keeper when she was sent on a short breeding loan to a foreign zoo, by bitting off ... you know which parts. Since then the species is considered dangerous here.
Tamanduas could be a good species for a walk-through pen maybe?
Orangs and gibbons are off limits for any real walk-through exhibit, even hand-reared ones cause too many heavy injuries.
Wow, this looks so awesome I would love to pet a Tamandua and a Vicuna, I have never seen Vicuna living with Domestic goats, that looks like an interesting walkthrough exhibit, In fact it is a first for me, thanks for posting these pictures !!!
ungulate nerd
Well-Known Member
Another interesting walkthrough exhibit is the Walk through White tailed deer exhibit at Pittsburgh Zoo, the deer are relatively docile, but the unfortunate thing is thatyou cant feed them, I would guess they create that rule because some idiots and fools were probably feeding them chips and soda, anyways I also came up with an idea for a walkthrough Suni exhibit, I told my freind about it and he thought I was crazy, I can see why because Suni are very skittish antelopes and are also very small, also the San Diego Wild Animal Park had a very cool walk through exhibit called the Exotic Kraal which had handraised Barasingha, Persian goitered gazelle, Axis deer etc. now its just domestic goats
ungulate nerd
Well-Known Member
The San Diego Wild Animal Park also had a walk through South American aviary with Red brockets, Toucans, Macaws and Sloths which closed in 1995 to make way for a rainbow lorikeet aviary, they should have also put Gray brockets, White lipped peccaries, and Lowland pacas. Another cool walk through exhibit I would like to see would be Pronghorns because I have worked with them at the Los Angeles Zoo, they are very sweet animals one of our feamales sible really enjoyed being pet, this pronghorn was like a puppy dog, and also I remember baby Afghan urials in the Exotic Kraal also
A walkthrough whitetail exhibit? Basically a state park in any US state haha.
My llama is a mean son of a b tch I wouldn't recommend people walking through with him. I trust our female bison when they don't have a calf more than our Llama.
My llama is a mean son of a b tch I wouldn't recommend people walking through with him. I trust our female bison when they don't have a calf more than our Llama.
I wouldn't trust peccaries in a walk-through. I've had pronghorn in my yard so I guess I have kind of experienced them in a walk-through.
Absolutely agree, I have a scar on my wrist that would attest to this (slightly different position could have had very heavy consequences). These animals are not also known as Javelina without a good reason. Putting them in a walk-through would be creating an accident waiting to happen.