Colchester Zoo World's Apart exhibit

[Chris79]

I know there has been talk of the Cuban crocs on this thread but I didn't see any mention of their new exhibit. The following is taken from Colchester Zoo's website:

Colchester Zoo opens brand new exhibit – World’s Apart! - 23-May-08
Colchester Zoo is very pleased to be able to announce that it has just opened its latest new exhibit World’s Apart. This wonderful new exhibit is made up of six new enclosures and has provided a fabulous new open Rhinoceros Iguana enclosure and walk through Tamarin exhibit.

The new exhibit has been developed on the site of the old Aquatic House and provides a superb new enclosure for the zoo’s two Rhinoceros Iguanas. The open enclosure has been made with a glass wall that offers excellent viewing for all visitors, including young children and wheelchair users. It provides a spacious new exhibit for the pair who used to live at the Heart of the Amazon exhibit. It is very much hoped that once the pair have settled in their new home, they will breed to help boost the numbers in the EEP breeding programme that their species is a part of.

The new exhibit has also provided a new home for one of Colchester Zoo’s Water Monitors but in the coming weeks it is hoped that a pair of juvenile Cuban Crocodiles will transfer into the collection and be housed here until their new enclosure is built in Colchester Zoo’s state of the art new Tropical House that is to be developed on the old Orangutan site. This will be a brand new species to Colchester Zoo and a very exciting new addition as this species of crocodile is extremely endangered in the wild due to excessive hunting and habitat encroachment across the Caribbean.

World’s Apart will also offer visitors the chance to be able to walk through a walk through Tamarin exhibit, in which the Golden-headed Lion tamarins and Emperor tamarins will be able to run freely around the exhibit as visitors amble through and see them jumping around them. This will be a truly immersive and sensational experience for visitors of all ages, enabling everyone to get closer to nature and really appreciate the beauty of these endangered little monkeys. There are even twin golden-headed lion tamarin babies to try and spot. They have been born in the middle of a baby boom for Colchester Zoo which includes warthog triplets, baby lemurs, red river hog triplets and a baby Emperor Tamarin!

Has anyone seen this World's Apart exhibit yet? It's hard to get a sense of what the overall theme is from the species mentioned. Also it mentions six enclosures - so what other species are exhibited there?

There's a tantalising mention of a new Tropical House on the site of the old orang exhibit. I assume that this will be Colchester's next major project after the completion of Orangutan Forest.

I've not been there yet but kudos to the zoo for the pace of new development there.

 

[Roz]

Worlds apart: 1st Enclosure- 2 cubans (will house a water monitor when they move to part of dragons of komodo)
2nd- Blue poison dart frogs
3rd- Indo-pacific marine tank
(enclosures 2 and 3 are still in place from the aquatic house)
4th- Rhino Iguanas
5th Yellow Anaconda
6th- walkthrough tamarin exhibit

Going to colchester 2morrow!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chris79]

Thanks Roz.

I found the planning application drawings for the new tropical house on the Colchester Council website. It's a 2 storey shed-type rectangular building - cheep and cheerful. There's a ramp up to an entrance at the upper level, a bit like ROTRA at Chester. Inside, the pathway coils down in a loop underneath itself and exits the building at ground floor level. No info on what's going inside yet, other than it will have South American species. The size of the building is slightly larger overall than the current exhibits on the site. Budget about £2 million.

The zoo article I quoted above mentions that the Cuban crocs will be moving into the new tropical house.

 

[Roz]

Can u post a link of the plans?

 

[Chris79]

Can u post a link of the plans?

Not sure if a direct link will work, but here's the way to find them:

Go to Colchester Borough Council website and click on "Online planning and building control including current applications" on the RHS of the page.

Click on the "Accept" button, then search under application number 081166. You'll get links to all the plans there.