Photos.

Bristol Zoo

I've added another entry to the list of zoos I've seen recently.

My Dad was here for a visit at the end of August, while Dave was in Canada visiting his family.
We stayed in Cambridge for a couple of days and then we headed off towards south Wales to visit family. On the way, we decided to stop at Bristol Zoo. Bristol is another one of those British zoos which is totally hemmed in by the city in a small amount of space, and has no way to expand. Their strategy for dealing with it seems to be not having much in the way of large animals that need big enclosures. No giraffes, no elephants, not many big cats or hoofed mammals, etc. They have made some recent updates, and done some creative things though.

We were there in time to see the newly opened "Monkey Jungle" which is a redesigned area for several species of monkey with outdoor areas landscaped to be natural looking. The exhibit also includes the "Lemur Garden", an outdoor area shared by two species of lemur (Ring-tailed and Red-Ruffed) where you can walk in through a double set of gates and get right up close to the lemurs without any barriers. The area is constantly staffed to make sure visitors don't try and touch the animals or feed them or do anything else stupid. The lemurs themselves didn't really seem interested in trying to touch us, but seemed much more interested in each other. The two species can apparently be a little bit antagonistic and they certainly seemed to be keeping themselves separate. Anyway, pictures!
Ring-tailed:






Red-ruffed:




There was also a walk-through area for fruit-bats, and a few walk-throughs with different kinds of birds.
They had an interesting exhibit about common pests like rats, mice, cockroaches and other bugs which was built and decorated like part of a house. The animals were in cupboards, bookshelves and kitchen appliances with glass fronts and tunnels connecting them.
If you've been to Toronto Zoo and seen the "Edge of Night" section of the Australasia pavilion, you know that it's an area where they house nocturnal animals which is kept dark during the day (and light at night), so that visitors can see the animals while they are awake. Bristol zoo has a similar sort of thing called "Twilight World."
The penguin and fur seal pools at Bristol had clear tunnels going under the water, so you could watch the animals swimming. I got the best pictures of the fur seals from above-water though, as a little family group decided to leap out onto the rocks and play around a bit while we were standing there. By snapping my camera shutter frantically for the few seconds they were out of the water, I managed to get a few decent shots.






Overall, I think the zoo is doing a good job of finding innovative ways to display their animals.

And one last picture (taken so Tavis won't complain about lack of tapirs this time):

It's a baby South American Tapir, born this past April. Isn't it cute?

posted by Sian at 10:57 AM