Berlin Zoo Zoo Berlin News 2022

PossumRoach said:
does this policy apply to red pandas or are they somehow exempt?
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A bit of a special case as red panda unrelated to European stock imported from Padmaju Zoo Darjeeling in India.

I think the 2 zoos support in situ with red panda releases in Aruchanal Pradesh and Sikkim in India, a WWF project. Consequently, the red pandas have a bigger presence in both zoos.
 
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Besides joined conservational efforts, Berlin Zoo tends to interpret the policy in a way where they still get to show all the attractive species. For example, if Berlin Tierpark ever gets some Orangs again (they gave all apes away as they "agreed" to have all 4 species in the Zoo rather than 1 or 2 in the Tierpark), Berlin Zoo still will keep theirs as well. It may be different subspecies, though.
 
As the Carnivore Building is to open by tomorrow, Berlin Zoo announced they still plan to extend the enclosures for Tigers, Jaguars and Leopards via bridges.

They also announced some new species to be found in the nocturnal section: Malagasy Giant Rats, Goodman's Mouse Lemurs and Black-Rumped Agoutis.
 
markmeier said:
As the Carnivore Building is to open by tomorrow, Berlin Zoo announced they still plan to extend the enclosures for Tigers, Jaguars and Leopards via bridges.

They also announced some new species to be found in the nocturnal section: Malagasy Giant Rats, Goodman's Mouse Lemurs and Black-Rumped Agoutis.
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Bridges to where? Like elevated tunnels?
 
The list of species that can be seen in the night house has yet to be confirmed. I am intrigued to know if they are still in the collection and visible with bengal slow loris and greater slow loris
 
dublinlion said:
What a great video showing the improvements and also most of the inhabitants. It looks so much better than before and it almost makes me want to book a flight if it were not for covid. It's a pity other zoos don't copy this type of valuable promotion.
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I am not a big fan personnaly. I think big cats exhibits are far too small for 2022 standards. Yes the refurbishment make things looks nice and large indoor exhibits is nice to have but I do think something more innovative could have been done.

I had done a few years ago a fake masterplan of the zoo and the predato house would have been converted into an Amazonian house with the largest enclosure being dedicated to jaguars, and tigers one to large family of giant otters. With other South-American cats, a few monkeys and birds, herps inside and the nocturama down below, it could have been an exhaustive presentation of Amazonian wildlife. But it was decided to keep the predator house only for carnivores and four species of big cats in quite small enclosures...
 
amur leopard said:
The zoo has posted a couple of photos of the Carnivore House on their Instagram story, comparing the before and after. It looks really good, but I’d have to see more to conclusively say whether it has been worth it.
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So far, I also didn't see much coverage. There are a small number of videos which show some more details, though:

This one was made the day before the opening and shows some outside enclosures.

The next one is one of the earliest inside the new building. Unfortunately, it kind of gives me a headache with some shaky and fast camera moves, though. So I had to slow it down and switch the sound off.

All in all, I'd say the modernisation definitely improved the visitor's experience a lot and the carnivores also benefit from this. They also only found out now HOW bad the structure of the building had become. Apparently, the building was in a very bad state.
 
Therabu said:
I am not a big fan personnaly. I think big cats exhibits are far too small for 2022 standards. Yes the refurbishment make things looks nice and large indoor exhibits is nice to have but I do think something more innovative could have been done.

I had done a few years ago a fake masterplan of the zoo and the predator house would have been converted into an Amazonian house with the largest enclosure being dedicated to jaguars, and tigers one to large family of giant otters. With other South-American cats, a few monkeys and birds, herps inside and the nocturama down below, it could have been an exhaustive presentation of Amazonian wildlife. But it was decided to keep the predator house only for carnivores and four species of big cats in quite small enclosures...
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We should not forget that there will be additional outdoor exhibits for Tigers, Leopards and Jaguars, while the Lions already have the largest outdoor enclosure. Actually, the sky bridges between present and additional exhibits seem kind of innovative to me. So far, I only know of a single zoo in the US which implemented something like this some years ago.

When it comes to the species mix or the theme of the building, we should also not forget the general concept of Berlin Zoo and Berlin Tierpark. According to this overall concept you would rather expect an Amazonian building in the geographically structured Tierpark with its large landscapes (and they actually do plan to build one sometime in the future). Berlin Zoo, however, generally sticks with the systematic approach. So it makes sense to have a carnivore/predator building. And if we look at the didactic material, I think they did quite a good job at it, too (the same goes for the Bird Building). I think, we can be quite happy that Berlin offers two rather different approaches with one (the smaller) zoo focusing on presenting similar animals together and explaining their similar and different characteristics in more depth; whereas the second (much larger) zoo focusing on presenting natural neighbors of a number of habitats/geo zones alongside each other and explaining how these ecoystems work.
 
It looks like another great upgrade. I’d love to see a complete updated list of species in the house.

A slight change in species that where originally planned. I think ocelot had previously been mentioned as well as serval.

As much as I like oncilla and margay I wonder if another non-feline carnivore species would have been nice to compliment the collection.

Do we know where the extended leopard, jaguar and tiger enclosures will be? Potentially the use of other hoofstock areas near by.
 
Here is the lineup as seem from my visit today:

Southern oncilla
Margay
Sand cat
Jaguar
Red panda,
Narrow-striped mongoose,
Ring-tailed mongoose,
Dwarf mongoose
Rhinocerus iguana.
Persian leopard
Amur tiger
Lion

Night house:
Aardvark
African pygmy mouse
Bengal slow loris
Kinkajou
Goodman's mouse lemur
Azara's night monkey
Malagasy giant jumping rat
Fennec
Rusty-spotted cat
Sugar glider
Seba's short-tailed bat
Pallas's long-tongued bat
Southern springhare
Bushbaby,
Yellow armadillo
lesser hedgehog tenrec
Azara's agouti
Coruro
Ansell's mole-rat.

From a visitor's perspective I enjoyed the new house. If the renovation was worth it for the animals, I'll leave that decision to those more knowledgeable than me.

As for the additional enclosures for the big cats: For the leopards there is an enclosure that has been empty for quite some time on the other side of the visitor's path. That may be usable, but the path is very broad and probably listed in some way.

For jaguar an tiger xou also would have to cross the visitor's path into the lake. It like seems quite an endevour to me to create sensible additions there, but not completely unfeasible.
 
Thanks so much for the info!

are many of the nocturnal species in mixed species exhibits? Do you know which species have left? I remember aye-aye, bengal loris, mouse deer and vampire bats previously kept.

the rhino iguana seems a strange choice for this house!
 
The mixes are as follows:
-Aardvark, Southern springhare, Bushbaby
-Goodman's mouse lemur, lesser hedgehog tenrec
-Azara's night monkey, Azara's agouti
-Azara's night monkey, Yellow armadillo
-Seba's short-tailed bat, Pallas's long-tongued bat

I don't know what was in the house before the renovation, the bengal loris are still there (at least one). The aye-aye left in 2015 according to ZTL and I remember reading the vampire bats died sometime last year in the annual report. The mouse deer is kept in the Fasanerie for quite some time now.
 
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