Thanks for posting the photographs, and sketching out the new interior (and hi). I have mixed feelings about what ZSL are doing here.
Good points:
- The splitting of the outside enclosure into two again (although not over the same boundary) and, from your sketch, what appears to be the division into three sections of what was the (recently-added) indoor tapir pool. Should the hippos need to be separated, its encouraging they will both have access to outdoor areas, and indoor pools.
- The secluded appearance of the indoor 'show den'.
Bad points:
- The outside footprint was already very small for an animal that wil graze heavily. Either the zoo will alternate the (generally compatible) pair between these enclosures, leaving one to recover while the other is in use, or they will use them both fully and just let them turn to mud/add woodchip after the grass is gone. I'm surprised they even bothered to turf the area to be honest.
- It doesn't appear the enclosure extends beyond the original perimeters, linking the enclosure to any further areas (it would have been easy to create a fenced/gated corridor along the top path to part of the woodland walk, in a similar fashion to Whipsnade, to provide grazing. It may be that there could be planning permission or licensing issues with using the south canal bank for new animal enclosures (the key word being 'new'), but there's no reason why corridors couldn't instead have been created across the front of the house to give night access to the other Cotton terrace enclosures. While grazing is pretty thin on the ground (with the exception of the okapi paddock), it would still have addressed the issue of space and at least given the animals more opportunity to at least forage for grazing.
- The new entrance into the hippo house uses two of the indoor dens, which could otherwise have been used as indoor space for the hippos. One of the redeeming features of this enclosure (and was true while it held Malayan tapir), was that the large amount of indoor space compensated significantly for the lack of outdoor space in colder weather. While this was not intentional (the Cotton Terraces were an intense example of how London exhibited species in rotation within the same outside enclosure but was left with a vast amounts of unused indoor accommodation when this ended), it was fortuitous and I believe contributed to their success with the tapirs.
If there were steps down into the public area of the building originally, I understand why it may have been easier to create indoor viewing on the same level as the enclosure in line with legislation, but it halves the potential indoor area available to the animals. It is also possible that the zoo wished to heat a smaller area rather than the whole house, but again it can be argued that there were other ways to do this without giving over enclosure space (such as a raised public corridor alongside and on the level of the indoor stalls).
- Given this is clearly not the appearance of something meant to be temporary (relatively speaking), it has implications for the neighbouring animals. From these photos, its hard not to coclude that it is clear that ZSL have no short-term plans to extend the giraffe enclosure using the Decimus Burton house (although I await the next Masterplan), so I am resigned to hoping that they send away the remaining giraffe, along with the zebra (which have no grazing, with the exception of limited night access to the patches of grass in the giraffe yard in summer), and concentrate on the okapi. It must be remembered that, since 'Into Africa' opened, the okapi may have had a superficially more attractive enclosure, but when they were in their original exhibit (now the zebra enclosure), the outdoor area could potentially be separated into three sections, and there was double the indoor accommodation with access to one side of the giraffe house. Currently, if the female is with a calf and the male is separated, they have to rotate them within one outside enclosure. There is also no potential for an off-exhibit outdoor space, when the old enclosures provided this with the yard at the back. With at least one adult showing signs of stereotypic bar and branch sucking behaviour, I think decorating the metal gates with liana wood doesn't really cut it.
The hippo exhibit does look aesthetically-pleasing, works on an educational and contextual level in terms of the wider work of the charity, but reflecting on the journey these two animals have had: when they arrived at the zoo, they occupied a large a semi-wooded paddock combining half of the westerly section of the stork and ostrich house, combined over the fomer visitor path with the old sea lion pond. Granted, there was no indoor pool and so they were moved to the Casson every winter, but I would argue that this new enclosure is one of the smallest land areas they have had (especially if separated or rotated between the two sides), and the outdoor pools are much smaller than the old sea lion pond, which they used to make full use of in summer.
While there may be issues with one or both animals pre-dating their arrival or beyond the control of the zoo, London is arguably the least productive holder of this species in the UK over the last 15 years. Maybe others can correct me, but I don't even know of unsuccessful births from this pair, whereas even other UK collections where no successful rearing has taken place have at least recorded successful matings resulting in pregnancies. Possibly they are not genetically-important animals within the EEP, fine, but the press release that went out this week included keepers earnestly suggesting the new enclosure was part of their attempt to breed the hippos. This is disingenous, unless London has been keeping them on contraception all this time until they could house them in a habitat where they could accommodate a calf. I don't really believe this (males can be sent elsewhere), but am actually thankful that this pair appear to be mixed for much of the time without issue, meaning the already compact spaces offered them are not reduced even further through their separation the majority of the time. Given the long lifespan of hippo, it seems strange
that ZSL will continue to attempt to breed from this pair. I'm not aware whether either animal has
been sent temporarily on breeding loan elsewhere, but it would seem strange if there weren't some
other attempts being made to trigger breeding.
I don't want to appear too gloomy, obviously there are significant improvements to the hippos' welfare compared to them being housed in the old tiger cage, but I do think that criticism is important where it is due.
