Chester Zoo Wish list of new animals at Chester

A few exhibits i would like to see for the new Islands exhibit would be,

FALKLAND ISLANDS

A starting point for our journey, an indoor climate controlled exhibit for king, gentoo, macaroni and Magellanic penguins.
With underwater viewing through a tunnel for both the penguins and Patagonian sea lions, which will be in a covered outdoor area, sharing with striated caracara.

NEW ZEALAND

Another indoor area with an exhibit for the zoo's tuatara alongside a tank for wetas.
Moving into a darkened room for North Island kiwi, with an off show breeding aviary outside.
Outside an aviary for kea.

SULAWESI

Basically a large mixed exhibit for Sulawesi crested macaque, lowland anoa and babirusa.
With an adjoining aviary for red-knobbed hornbill.

SUMATRA

The main exhibit would be a mixed enclosure for Sumatran orangutans, agile gibbon, Asian short clawed otter and Malayan tapir.
A new Sumatran tiger enclosure.
An enclosure for sun bears
Aviaries for rhinoceros hornbill, great hornbill and wreathed hornbill.
A walk through aviary for amongst others woolly necked stork, milky stork,
Javan pond heron, Asian pied hornbill and Great argus pheasant.

PHILIPPINES

Paddocks for Philippine spotted deer and Negros warty pig
An indoor area for Balabac mouse deer, continuing through to a nocturnal area for slow loris, Panay cloud rat and Philippine tarsier, passing to an outdoor area for binturong.
An area of aviaries for the likes of Palawan peacock pheasant, Mindanao bleeding heart pigeon, Philippine cockatoo, Visayan tarictic hornbill and others.

HONSHU

A series of outdoor enclosures for Japanese serow, Japanese macaque and hooded crane.
A small indoor area for Japanese giant salamander.

GREENLAND

A large outdoor enclosure for polar bear, featuring underwater viewing.
A paddock for musk oxen, with satellite enclosures for lemming, snowy owl and Arctic fox.

OUTER HEBRIDES

A series of enclosures and aviaries for white tailed sea eagle, European otter and common seal.
A mixed sea cliff aviary, with underwater viewing for UK seabirds.
A small vivarium for Canna mouse.

See what you can do Tim ;)
 
I've been thinking about this thread. Gorillas and hippos will have to wait for Heart of Africa to become practicable. But I think bongorob and kiang are on the right lines in thinking about Islands, which will come off the drawing board quite soon (I hope).
I'd like to see a consolidation of the Philippines animals broadly as kiang suggests plus bongorob's Gray's monitors. As this is a wishlist, I would add tamaraw.
Sulawesi has lots of possibilities. There are several other species of macaques and several tarsiers too. I didn't know until I looked up the mammals that there are a couple of cuscus species there that have crossed Wallace's Line - there are lots of nice birds too, anyone for racket-tailed parakeets? In the real world, I suppose the priority for new specimens should be unrelated babirusa.
New Guinea could be very good: as well as all those tree kangaroos and birds of paradise, we could see forest wallabies and echidnas plus lorikeets galore (can we have our Stella's back please?).
I'd like to suggest New Caledonia as an Islands exhibit too. There are no native mammals except bats, but the birds and reptiles make up for it and they are endangered too: kagu, horned parakeets, New Caledonian crows (possibly doing behavioural shows) and giant geckos. How about a breeding program fro the terror skink?*
As a temperate island group, I like the idea of the Falklands; I'd suggest southern fur seals and steamer ducks as additions or alternatives to kiang's suggestions.

Alan

* I have done my homework ;)
 
For Islands, I would love to see the Galapagos represented. Since this is seeming to be a somewhat fantasy wishlist, galapagos sea lions and galapagos penguins would be ace, along with the usual tortoises, marine iguanas, boobys and a few others [though I think all that would be available in reality are tortoises, so not really viable in the real world].
 
Cat-Man said:
can i go off topic for a bit, and ask where the islands expansion is going to be?
Click to expand...
Its on land that currently has no animal exhibits on it off from the paddocks,this has been explained in more detail in another thread if you fancy a bit of searching!!
 
The thing I like so much about chester is that it has so much potential in regards to expansion to the collection. I reccomend people look at the personal vision of chester threads so others can get idea's on what others want to expand chester with. I'd like to see siamese or new guinie crocodile to come in and replace the philipine crocodiles Old enclosure.
 
A lot more reptiles. It would be nice to have a local zoo with a collection of similar quantity (or better) to London's but with more crocodillians. The last curator at Chester continued reducing the on-show collection (as he did at London!), especially venomous snakes (nice to see London reversing this). I hope we see a large increase in "Islands" but I fear that reptiles are at the bottom of Chester's list and as such are given a token representation. The only area they seem to invest in is the off-show turtle breeding facilities.
 
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