ZSL London Zoo Your ideas for spare land at London Zoo

Cat-Man said:
ahh, tnakyou for your opinion stulch:) you seem to be very in the know and i like to hear your personal opinions because of it. I believe London has massively improved since the free fall of the 90's. my school runs a yearly trip too the zoo and hopefully i will get to go on the trip this year (last year i was on a trip too france with the school in which i visited Nausicaa sealife centre, which was worth it). I would love to see leopard at london zoo, what sub-species would you personally like to see? Have they decided what they'd like to do with the mappins yet? on the masterplan it says 'wild china, madagascar or part of wild indonesia' however, the only thing i think they could put on there to link with wild indonesia would be dholes or Sun bear. Possibly Orang-Utan.

Thanks for the Info:)

Dan
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I would like Snow Leopards but I do like Leopards in general.

I'm afraid I don't know if they've decided what to do with the mappins yet but you've reminded me of something I noticed the other day when looking for the masterplan link.

There is another document labelled masterplan with some of the other planning documents, you may have seen it, but this one labels the listed buildings, other valuable buildings which must be retained in any development and buildings which could be demolished if necessary as part of redevelopment.

I was surprised to note the reptile house, next to the mappins, was in the last group. I do think it would be a shame if they did demolish it but then again they are probably just keeping their options open.
 
I think leaopard, or snow leopard or clouded leopard (remembering that snow leopard and Clouded leopard are different species to the tradinional leopard;) ) and I have seen said map. It would be a great shame if they were to demolish the reptile house, because as much as I would very much love the geo-graphic zones to take place, but I would also like to see a multi-national, well stocked, reptile house remain at the centre of the zoo. Is this new batcave in the clore? Or the east tunnel is anyone knows?
 
Identifying 'spare' land at an Urban zoo such as London is difficult, as much of the land not occupied by enclosures is used to promote biodiversity and encourage wild species to utilise it.

- I think the North and South bank slopes would work well as open-air primate exhibits if connected by overhead ropes high above the canal. The roundhouse (depending on its success as a bat exhibit) could also provide spacious indoor/holding quarters if connected again via overhead bridges/ ropes to the south bank wood. There is sufficient space on the North Bank to allow some of the enclosures to be walk-throughs, this could either allow for an extensive madagascan walk-through, or allow the squirrel monkeys to be relocated here, allowing redevelopment of their current enclosure, again potentially for lemurs. Using the banks in this way would also solve the issue of locating the monkeys currently living in the Lion Terraces, assuming there are still plans to redevelop the terraces solely for lions (and smaller species in their range).
 
That made me laugh – did you really mean primates should be able to swing their way merrily over the canal?? Quite a picture!! Not sure what the occupants of passing narrowboats would make of it... monkeys overhead, eyeing up their sandwiches...
 
johnstoni. said:
Identifying 'spare' land at an Urban zoo such as London is difficult, as much of the land not occupied by enclosures is used to promote biodiversity and encourage wild species to utilise it.
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In a city like London I'm not sure how important this is. You have the rest of Regents Park which is enormous and has some quite wild (as in not cultivated or planted) parts, Primrose Hill, the vast expanse of Hampstead Heath, Highgate Woods, Waterlow Park and that's just in part of north London. Further afield there are many urban parks then places like Richmond and Epping Forest.

With all that I don't think it is too important for ZSL to be doing that kind of work in the zoo grounds.
 
Shirokuma said:
In a city like London I'm not sure how important this is. You have the rest of Regents Park which is enormous and has some quite wild (as in not cultivated or planted) parts, Primrose Hill, the vast expanse of Hampstead Heath, Highgate Woods, Waterlow Park and that's just in part of north London. Further afield there are many urban parks then places like Richmond and Epping Forest.

With all that I don't think it is too important for ZSL to be doing that kind of work in the zoo grounds.
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Quite.

It's nonsense, IMHO, for ZSL to be wasting the canal banks as they are currently doing. Promoting native species biodiversity at Whipsnade, where 50 acres could be put aside for the task and where the Downs are a SSSI, is great. Putting aside the canal banks, which have only been in existence for under 200 years, pales into insignificance by comparison.

And similarly, the Events Lawn has only been an open space since 1976. In the days when London regularly attracted crowds of 2 million a year plus the Lion House stood there.
 
^i generally like your idea of the monkey / lemur enclosure johnstoni. Maybe not as realistic as one would think, however, I would very much like too see something like that happen, and would be a very epic postcard shot :D
 
I don't think it would be unrealistic, just a different use of space. Rope bridges or horizontal wooden poles above water are used for many primate exhibits, the height of the banks would mean the animals would be high above the narrowboats, there are public bridges connecting the two parts of the zoo over the canal, I see no reason why primate bridges couldn't combine two areas.
 
^ yes, I do understand where you're coming from. It would be a good use of space, and also a good advert for the zoo, and the city aswell. Imagine boats coming down the canal, then thinking 'let's visit the zoo one time' . Also, I really like your plan, and it would be a good use of space imo. Where would there indoor acomodation be?
 
Of course I think it's a great idea, BUT... can't imagine how it would work. How would the intersection between enclosure and rope be managed to stop the animals climbing out onto the roof of the enclosure, and thus away into the world? And the canal is outside the zoo, it's not ZSL land, and nor is the north towing path, whereas what you call the two "public bridges" over the canal aren't public as such: they're within the zoo. I don't think Camden council or whoever it is who has responsibility for the canal and towing paths would relish London Zoo animals being loose outside zoo land, even if (somehow) confined to ropes. But perhaps I'm lacking imagination... please explain! I still think it's brilliant!
 
I believe ropes overhead have been used [America?] but would not fancy the odd Orang or [probably much more dangerous] Gibbon falling off asnd getting either injured or loose.
 
volvox said:
Of course I think it's a great idea, BUT... can't imagine how it would work. How would the intersection between enclosure and rope be managed to stop the animals climbing out onto the roof of the enclosure, and thus away into the world? And the canal is outside the zoo, it's not ZSL land, and nor is the north towing path, whereas what you call the two "public bridges" over the canal aren't public as such: they're within the zoo. I don't think Camden council or whoever it is who has responsibility for the canal and towing paths would relish London Zoo animals being loose outside zoo land, even if (somehow) confined to ropes. But perhaps I'm lacking imagination... please explain! I still think it's brilliant!
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I was more suggesting a number of open air hotwired enclosures, with ropes or horizontal poles connecting the live trees on the south bank with upright telegraph poles/similarly tall climbing structures on the north bank. Like three pairs of connecting enclosures, one of each pair on the north bank, the other of each pair connected over the canal and on the south bank. The primates would be far above the towpath and the canal, almost at bridge level.

The bridges are indeed within the zoo - what I meant by them being public is they are for the visiting public to cross above the canal without leaving the zoo. At some point these were constructed without using the land beneath (and outside) the site, I see no reason (apart from H&S legislation) preventing equivalent bridges for animals as described above being used to connect these two parts of the zoo further along the two canal banks.

It would be one thing to suggest housing baboons or great apes in this way, but the risk to the public in the unlikely event of a falling small monkey would be negligible, and primates are put at the same risk to cross water or (simply being allowed to climb high up over solid ground) in many, many exhibits across the world.

Indoor housing could be from the Clore, the roundhouse, or some low-impact wooden stilted housing on the North bank.
 
The bridges are indeed within the zoo - what I meant by them being public is they are for the visiting public to cross above the canal without leaving the zoo. At some point these were constructed without using the land beneath (and outside) the site, I see no reason (apart from H&S legislation) preventing equivalent bridges for animals as described above being used to connect these two parts of the zoo further along the two canal banks.

Sorry, you've said it all here.

London has had "problems" in recent years:- hanuman langurs and squirrel monkeys have got out into the Park, and a colobus got loose within the Zoo itself. Any of these have bitten someone - probably a child, being smaller and more likely to approach the animal - quite badly.

Any planning application the zoo makes, right down to litter bins, gets to be chewed over by Westminster City Council. I think they're more likely to approve a dolphinarium in the Casson than this idea.
 
^hey, the casson once held a walrus;) on a side note, has zsl ondon zoo ever kept dolphins? I know whipsnade has. I do likt the idea of exhibiting lemur inside the casson with at out door paddock tho
 
Cat-Man said:
^hey, the casson once held a walrus;) on a side note, has zsl ondon zoo ever kept dolphins?
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No London Zoo has never exhibited dolphins, but did have some (short lived) porpoises in the 1860s.

The walrus “Alice” was kept in the Casson Pavilion in 1966 / 1967.
 
IanRRobinson said:
Sorry, you've said it all here.

London has had "problems" in recent years:- hanuman langurs and squirrel monkeys have got out into the Park, and a colobus got loose within the Zoo itself. Any of these have bitten someone - probably a child, being smaller and more likely to approach the animal - quite badly.

Any planning application the zoo makes, right down to litter bins, gets to be chewed over by Westminster City Council. I think they're more likely to approve a dolphinarium in the Casson than this idea.
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I fear your alarmism about children being savaged by monkeys (two of the species you mention are found in walk-throughs in some zoos) may be a little dated. However, you're probably right about the planning issues. The sad thing is that I can imagine little treeless (or access to trees restricted) hotwired primate paddocks being permitted on the North bank, but nothing that would connect the two banks. I have to say though, I have never known primates escaping by jumping from a great height down onto concrete or into water. Yes, sometimes monkeys and apes panic when released into new exhibits with moats and have been known to drown (or have rescued and have had no further incidents), but these kinds of risks when acclimatising animals to new enclosures are many, and often managed carefully on introduction so as to minimise any risks or respond to any incidents.

Squirrel monkeys- escaped due to their enclosure being sited adjacent to a large number of mature trees outside the zoo perimeter - arguably an unwise place to position an enclosure for primates. As a result, 'Meet the Monkeys' now restricts the inhabitants from using the live trees in the enclosures. This wasn't in the original design, and so I would argue the exhibit is poorer for it, and requires moving to an area of the zoo where the monkeys can utilise an isolated stand of trees, far away from any outside the zoo boundary. As with Paignton, I really feel situating arboreal primates in enclosures containing live trees they have no access to, is far from ideal. Obviously with colobines this isn't as easy (as we have seen with Howletts having to build a second open-air Javan langur enclosure just to rest the live trees in the main one), but squirrel monkeys pose no such problem to live trees.

Langurs - I had not heard of any langur escapes at ZSL, I am assuming these were from the mappins, which arguably are less suitable as primate enclosures than what I was proposing.

Colobus - Munster zoo has a colobus walkthrough. ZSL's own masterplan included the Snowdon aviary as a colobus walkthrough. However still don't agree that bridges or ropes 10-15 metres or so high above the towpath and canal would allow for an escape route. Far more likely for primates in open-air enclosures to escape within the zoo.
 
^i actually feel like this could be realistic. especially the open topped monkey/lemur exhibit. as i may be visiting this week, i'll have a little snoop around that area + have a look for areas that could be used for animal exhibits.
 
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