London Zoo - A cold day at the zoo by Glen_Bailey

Glen_Bailey — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:13:27 +0000

Review by Glen_Bailey

Rating: 3.00

Phone: 020 7722 3333

Website: http://www.zsl.org/

I have conflicting thoughts about zoos. I think itâ¬"s great that the population of a city can visit a zoo and see animals that they may never otherwise see in their lifetime. I also think a zoo is a great way to educate people about different species of animals, their habitats, threats to their survival and ways to prevent this.

On the other hand, I feel that the animalâ¬"s recreated environments should closely reflect that of their individual needs and be as concrete free as possible. I donâ¬"t see the need to build enclosures in concrete and with minimal features. It surely is not beneficial for the animal and certainly is not appealing to look at.

With that in mind, I feel that the London Zoo has a little way to come to make its enclosures more appealing to both man and beast. The zoo has clearly grasped this idea as there are several new enclosures, namely the Gorillaâ¬"s, a walk in bird enclosure, the Penguinâ¬"s (I walked past the old penguin enclosure and was shocked to see that it was all concrete) and the tropical.

I wasnâ¬"t sure how new the butterfly enclosure or the bug house was, but these are also along the lines of what I expect from a zoo (the fact that the butterfly enclosure is inside a giant bouncy-castle style caterpillar is brilliant). Seeing butterflies with transparent wings is something of a novelty. Even more so when they land on you and you can see your hand through their wings. Inside the bug house I was suitable impressed with the display of ants near the doors. They do ant things like taking bits of leaves from one area to another via several ropes. It was only after I got close enough to them that I realised that it wasnâ¬"t an enclosure as such, you could reach out and touch them if you so desired. I had no desire to do this having seen what happened to my sister when she sat on an ants nest in Australia or my partner when she stood on an ants nest in Costa Rica.

Whether its butterflies or bugs youâ¬"re into, both are worth looking at.

If youâ¬"re at the zoo on a cold day, make sure you swing past the Tropical Rain Forest enclosure (maybe more than once depending on how cold it is). The highlights for me were the two, two or three toed sloths (Iâ¬"d seen them in the wild in Costa Rica also much to my excitement). And by the time we got down to ground level, the â¬Stropical rain stormâ¬

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London Zoo - A cold day at the zoo by Glen_Bailey