I. First, a few pictures of springtime in Hamburg. These are taken at
Planten un Blomen, a large park in Hamburg.
II. Ok, now on to the Tierpark(Literally ''Animal Park''). Hamburg has been home to
Hagenbeck's Tierpark for about 100 years now. It's apparently the first zoo of its kind, keeping the animals in using giant moats instead of barred cages, and hiding the moats (pretty well) from the visitors with short hedges. The idea is to better approximate the animals' natural environment, and it seems to be working well, as I saw a (2 day old) baby elephant, as well as a baby lion, alpaca, and various other animals (it seems to be a notorious problem for zoos that their animals tend not to reproduce in captivity). The
wikipedia article is informative. Apparently, he exhibited originally not only animals but ''exotic'' humans (Laplanders, Nubians, Inuit, and Samoans). When the camera got popular, he had to get more exciting/reali
stic, so started a circus.
"Using data that he had compiled running his circus, Hagenbeck had estimates of how high and far different animals could leap. Using this data, he built moats filled with water or an empty pit that he determined the animals could not cross. Using moats to separate animals that did not swim, one could look across an expanse of the zoo and see many animals at once, as if in the wild.''[from the wikipedia article]
So, on to adorable animals.
First, the red panda. I could have probably sat around and watched these guys all day. There were two in a tree, one curled up asleep and the other eating some fruit.
Around the corner were some sleepy lions.
There were a large number of the animals that one was allowed to feed, assuming you bought either dry food from the store as you walked in, or fresh fruits and veggies cut up and sold in bags by the ''Friends of the Zoo'', near said shop. One of the neatest arrangements was for the giraffes:
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| Platform for feeding giraffes. Yes, that's a baby giraffe, missing out on the food. |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
The design of the zoo is such that you can look up and see a ''panorama'', lions watching zebras, ignoring flamingos. Here's the lions and zebras:
``In front'' of the zebras were flamingos, intermixed with fancy ducks.
There was a separate enclosure full of chirping (and a bit smelly) fluffy ducklings:
Many exhibits had an inside and outside, I'm supposing for when it gets cold or really unpleasant out, the animals can hang inside. This one had ''domestic'' animals, which included a pig (I had no idea that were that huge) and a fake workshop with rats running around in it.
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| Pigs are huuuge. For scale, the piglets are maybe each 20-30cm long |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
Amidst the wild(er) animals, were also several cute areas for housepets (Haustiere). Rabbits, guinea pigs, etc. I'll guess they may've received quite a lot of the food that people doled out on a daily basis, since they are very fluffy and happy to eat everything.
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| One building in the Guinea Pig village. There were two or three more. |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
Except for maybe Mr. Skepticalrabbit here, looking his nose down at a piece of carrot.
The zoo had some 1 month old alpacas and a 2 day old elephant.
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Baby Elephant and older elephants, inside the elephant building
(they also had a very large outdoor area that they were ignoring) |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
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| baby alpaca, debating if that finger is in fact a carrot, and/or delicious |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
I like the look on this alpaca's face (and the intrigued Ostrich/Emu/Rhea in the background):
One of the inside rooms contained a swarm of antelope and another similar sort of animal from Africa, whose name I'm forgetting. They were milling around, eating a lot of hay or alfalfa:
They were being watched over by a suspicious antelope, peering through the curtains:
They had a neat Orangutan enclosure. Their moat had a family of pygmy otters, who also had a baby otter with them, who were impossible to take a picture of, so you'll just have to trust me.
The Orangutan area was full of lots of ropes and things that move around, and the Orangutans were frolicking around cheerily, stretching themselves to impossible-seeming lengths to get between objects.
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| The thing in the middle-ground that looks like a hollow bamboo-esque tube was atop a hing of some kind, so an Orangutan could grab it and swing/fall forward with it. |
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| From Germany 2012-2013 |
There was a helpful chart nearby with pictures and names of the Orangutans, and then a request to not call out their names, since it just confuses them. Here's the ''chief'' of the bunch, next to their moat:
One of the last things I went to see was Kangaroos, of which there were two, and they were inside. The building they were in also (surprisingly) housed free-flying birds, such as this guy (sorry for the blur, he was really fast):
Also, walking around, un-enclosed were various birds and other small animals, e.g. these Pea hens:
And, to conclude, a bunch of other stuff that was there. They had a nice pond/lake thing in the middle, surrounded by statues and things:
and a totem pole gifted to them by the city of Seattle in the '30s
And if you stand by the water for too long, you get some ducks walking up to you and eyeing you hopefully:
Yay! That looks like a nice zoo. I was in Frankfurt's zoo once, and all I remember is monkeys in little cages. :-(
ReplyDeleteI think your fancy ducks are Mandarin ducks?
I think Hamburg's Zoo kind of revolutionized zoos in general. I'm sorry Frankfurt's was not so nice :/. I think you're right that they're Mandarin ducks.
DeleteMan, I want red pandas here. Lovely update as always!
ReplyDelete