Zootrip report 2024; southern German and Austria

ZOOTRIP REPORT:

Zoo Heidelberg. 14-04-2024.
(Photo's are to be uploaded to the Zoochat Gallery at a later date)

I just returned from my annual zootrip, this time to southern Germany and Austria, making use of the 49-euro ticket that grants access to the majority of the public transport system in Germany (including the horrible, horrible Deutsche Bahn)
With this trip, I added 3 German zoos (Nurnberg, Munchen, Augsburg), a wildpark (Oberwald) 2 Austrian zoos (Salzburg, Innsbruck), and 2 musea with a living animal collection (Haus der Natur in Salzburg and the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe) to my zoo list. I also did revisits to Heidelberg and Zoo Karlsruhe, which I visited before in 2007 and which I had only foggy memories of. My zoo/aquarium list now stands at 144 in 20 countries.

First up was my revisit to Zoo Heidelberg. Because it's quite a long journey from the Netherlands to the south of Germany and Austria, I decided to head down to Heidelberg first, stay a night there, visit the zoo in the morning/early afternoon, and then continue my journey to Nuremberg later that same day.

As stated above, I visited Zoo Heidelberg before in 2007 (in a trip that also included Neunkirchen,
Saarbrücken, Karlsruhe, Amneville, Mulhouse, Zurich and Basel; the latter 2 I revisited in 2013). My memories of the zoo were quite foggy, and since I lost a lot of my photo's from that time, I didn't have much to go on. I remembered seeing tufted deers, ring-tailed mongooses and golden cats, but much else of it was a blur. Of course, a lot must have changed in 17 years, so a revisit to this zoo was very welcome.

My visit was on a sunny, warm sunday (the rest of the trip would be much colder) but the crowds were not too bad. I arrived a bit before opening times, and I was happy I could spend the few minutes enjoying the (quite active) Syrian brown bears that you can see from outside the zoo. They're a lovely subspecies I hadn't encountered in a while, and their enclosure (which was upgraded since 2007) was very decent.

Once inside, I started my visit in the 'Küstenpanorama', a very nice walk-through aviary for water birds which I remember was there in 2007 as well. I really enjoyed the antics of the inca terns, harlequin ducks, avocets, oystercatchers and ruffs.

Right next to the aviary were the Malagasy carnivores. The fossa was inactive and poorly visible, but I did get to enjoy some very active ring-tailed mongooses, including a mother with her cub.

Next up where the (inactive) red panda and tufted deer (one of the enclosures I somehow remembered, probably because in 2007 I saw tufted deer for the first time), and the mediocre enclosures for rufous hornbills, black-and-white ruffed lemurs and (unsigned) white cockatoo.

From there I passed the elephant enclosure (I'll revisit that later), the honeybee-exposition and the ''Lebensraum Schilf'' aviaries. One of the aviaries was home to little owls, the other to reed bunting, European turtle dove, hoopoe and bluethroats. It would have been my first time seeing the latter species in a zoo, but they were no-shows (fortunately I've seen them in the wild plenty of times).
From there I visited mouse house (cute 'domestic setting' enclosures mice and rats) and the very nice raccoon/mink enclosure, but both of those species were no-shows. A small aviary for laughingthrushes and Edwards pheasants brings me to the enclosure of the golden cat, a target species for me (I've seen them before, but it had been several years). I was very happy to see the animal walking around (luckily no pacing) but the enclosure is not very photography-friendly.
Across the golden cats are the water birds (pelicans, ducks, flamingo's) but that's barely worth the mention.

After that I went to the Carnivore House. I somewhat expected to see some subpar enclosures for the lions and tigers, but they were actually not that bad. I saw three Sumatran tigers all sharing one enclosure, as the seperation cage was connected to the main enclosure, giving the animals plenty of room to enjoy. The main enclosure was well planted and gave the tigers the opportunity to hide from the public as some parts of the enclosure are hard to look into (but two of them were in plain sight anyway)
The lion enclosure was quite simple, but spacious enough for two animals (1.1). The secondary (seperation?) enclosure is horribly small though and I'm happy it wasn't currently in use. Definitely a relic from the old days. There's a elevated viewing platform for the visitors to give a better view of the lions and the enclosure itself.
The indoor enclosures for the lions and tigers were the standard, small cages we see so often in Carnivore houses. From the Carnivore house there's also an addition viewing in the lion enclosure, as well as the only viewing into the striped skunk habitat, which were also no-shows.
In addition to carnivores, there's also a few terraria. One of them has a black-breasted leaf turtle, the other has Maranon and demonic poison frogs. Unfortunately I was not able to find the Demonic poison frog, a species that is kept only in this zoo worldwide according to ZTL.

Adjacent to the carnivore house was a nicely done enclosure for porcupines and meerkats. The enclosures was designed in a way you can get to eye-level with the meerkats, and the porcupines have a visible den, which they were currently using because they had cubs!
Across from the meerkats is a large enclosure for white-necked ravens. Also closeby is a really good, large aviary for keas.

The enclosure for South-American sea lions unfortunately was small, old and ugly and just not suitable in my opinion. It was the first thing I really disliked about the zoo (but not the last)
The house for giant tortoised was closed due to storm damage to the roof (the tortoises temporarily reside in Prague). On my way to the southeastern corner of the zoo which I skipped previously, I passed some very standard enclosures for camels and snowy owls, as well as red-crowned cranes. The griffon vultures and ravens are up next, in a nice good-sized aviary, followed by hooded vultures and southern ground hornbills. The next enclosure currently/temporarily held a new arrival to the zoo; a young southern cassowary from Avifauna, which was rejected by its father.

The Africa house is a simple building featuring the stables for the savannah animals (zebra and blesbok) as well as 2 terraria (Burmese python, Egyption tortoise + black hardun). Although the Africa house is nothing special, I always enjoy when an animal house also has a few 'side' enclosures for smaller species (just like the carnivore house did). It gives you something to watch when the main species are in their outside paddocks. It's one of the reasons I love zoos like Plzen and Prague so much!

The African savannah enclosure itself was also very simple (and spacious enough for two species), but I was much more interested in the aviaries across from them. The walk-through South-American aviary was an highlight, and I'm pretty sure it did not yet exist in 2007. Besides the obvious birds (black-necked stilt, lake ducks, socorro doves, turquoise tanagers, grey-breasted parakeets, red-crowned amazons, sunbitterns) there were also map turtles, juvenile paddlefishes and two-toed sloths here. There's an underwater viewing where you can enjoy seeing the lake ducks and turtles dive and the paddlefishes swim by. For the sloths, there's ropes and other objects to climb and I loved seeing them transverse the enclosure. Their indoor enclosure is viewable as well. I think this aviary is a lovely piece of zoo design.
The other aviaries were more simple, and held species like bali myna, Palawan peacock pheasant (not seen), Siamese fireback, crested wood partridge, rainbow lorikeet, Java sparrow, crowned pigeon, Papuan hornbill (the female was in her tree-shaped nest box, with the male bringing her food!) toco toucan, Brasilian tanager (not seen), village weaver, and my personal favorite; the Yellow-crowned gonolek.

I quite like the elephant house and the elephant enclosure. The biggest downside was its size as it's not particulary large, but it is made up by the natural structure and enrichment. The elephants had a choice of being indoors or outdoors and I saw them do both.

The elephant house is home to one other species; the indoor enclosure for binturongs is located at the entrance hall of the building. It's pretty good, as is their outdoor enclosure. What makes it even better is that the binturongs have a access to a 'tunnel' that goes over the visitors head and into the enclosure for the small-clawed otters. That gives the binturongs three enclosures in total (indoor, outdoor, and the otter enclosure) although they both decided the tunnel was the best spot to hang out. The otter enclosure was really nice as well, including ofcourse a water feature with underwater viewing. The otters were outside, but unfortunately sleeping.

Before visiting the last part of the zoo, I went back to the golden cat but it wasn't visible anymore. I also tried to find the demonic poison frog again, but again I had no luck.

Next to the sea lions is the entrance to the walk-through aviary signed as 'Ibisvolieren' on the map. I quite enjoyed this simple yet nice aviary. I spotted most of the birds; an European roller, European bee-eaters, Chukar partridges, waldrapps, northern lapwings, European thick-knees, ferruginous ducks and a white-headed duck. The only species that was signed that I did not see was the marbled teal.
Next to this European-themed aviary is another aviary, this one is not a walk-through and features birds from South-America. I saw boat-billed herons, roseate spoonbills, scarlet ibisses, black-faced ibisses, southern lapwings and unsigned white-faced whistling ducks.
After the aviaries I came across a very basic enclosure for prairie dogs.

The kangaroos had left the zoo and their former enclosure is now a construction site. Due to time constraints, I skipped the petting zoo/barnyard area/Explo-Halle, potientally also missing out on the European hamsters, and went straight for the Great Ape house and lemur enclosure.

I initially did not remember the great ape enclosures for this zoo, but when I saw it, the memories returned. Zoo Heidelberg must have what is the worst gorilla enclosure I've ever seen. It's ugly, cramped open-topped and offers the gorilla's very little enrichment or privacy. It's really not much more than a piece of grass and a few dead tree stumps with a concrete background. Saddening to see, and it almost ruined this zoo for me. Luckily, the aforementioned constructions works are for a new gorilla enclosure, so in a few years the gorilla's will (hopefully) finally get an enclosure worthy of them.
The adjacent chimpanzee enclosure is slightly better than the gorilla enclosure, but still not good. It's somewhat larger, and netted over so the chimps can climb a little bit, but it's all very below average still.

A few meters further, the lemur enclosure was decent enough. It's a medium-sized cage with some good height to it, climbing structures and a lot of vegetation, providing the lemurs with privacy. Besides the ever-present ring-tailed lemurs, this enclosures also keeps a pair of lovely crowned lemurs, and even more excitingly, crowned sifaka's (they should have two although I only saw one), a species I just absolutely adore. I have now seen 4 out of 5 zoos with this species. (there were no sifaka's in Heidelberg in 2007)

Almost just as bad as the great ape enclosures is the enclosure for white-naped mangabey. They are a bunch of small, ugly steel cages. Three small cages were linked together, adding up the amount of space these animals have, but it's still not an enclosure any zoo should be proud of. They do luckily provide the animals with natural substrate and plenty of climbing opportunities.

The final primate species of the Great Ape house are emperor tamarins, who have pretty good indoor and outdoor enclosures, connected through an overhead tunnel. They share their indoor space with three-banded armadillo's (another no-show)
The other indoor enclosures for the primates are of the familiar, old Monkey House style. I did not like the building at all.
Besides the primates and armadillos this building is also supposed to have a number of free-ranging birds. It was really quiet in the building though, and I only heard and saw a couple of red-whiskered bulbuls. I did not see any of the other birds that were signed here, like the violet turaco. I was especially disappointed in not being able to see the pied hornbill, as it would have been a new species (Walsrode only got them after my last visit). I have to say the building did not really work well for spotting birds as there were a lot of 'blind spots'.

Heidelberg has another monkey house, the 'Kleines Affenhaus'. This features three monkey species; Roloway guenon, grey langur and golden lion tamarin.This is another very basic building with simple cages for the animals. Especially the grey langurs have very little space because of their large size; their enclosure would suit squirrel monkeys better and I honestly don't understand why the zoo hasn't replaced the langurs with something smaller as of yet.
(I also saw a ring-tailed mongoose here, sharing the enclosure with the langurs. And there's a small enclosures for degu's in the building as well.)

The last enclosure I visited was for another monkey species; resus macaques. Ironically, this must have been the best enclosure for this species I've come across as this is a species that usually gets shifted in zoos when it comes to enclosure quality.
It is a green, good-sized, open-topped enclosure, but it does lack in the climbing opportunities.

And that concludes my revisit to the Heidelberg Zoo. Overall, I enjoyed the zoo, even though not much really stood out and it's not a zoo I'd except anyone to add to their must-see list.
The zoo is brough down immensively by it's very subpar enclosures for primates (and sea lions as well) but tit also offers plenty of good things. I really liked the aviaries in this zoo, especially the walk-through ones. I also really enjoyed the elephant house with the superb binturong enclosure, some very active Syrian brown bears, the racoon enclosure (despite not seeing any animals there) and the resus macaques. The zoo also offers a few interesting species with sifaka and Asian golden cat as the highlights.

Wait a minute. No, this wasn't it. In the entrance/exit building, after going through the gift shop, is one more terrarium. It houses 3 species; Terrible poison frog, blessed poison frog and Graham's anole. The latter 2 species I'd never seen before (the anole was a no-show for me in Duisburg). Unfortunately I had a bus and then a train to catch to get to Nurnberg, so I didn't really have time to look for these animals. I managed to find the anole, but had to go before being able to find the frogs.

I got on the bus, then the train and arrived in Nurnberg that same evening. The next day would be my very first visit to a zoo than has been very high on my list for a long time; Tiergarten Nurnberg!

 

Thanks very much for your review of Heidelberg Zoo. From your comments, it very much sounds like a hit-and-miss facility, with some particularly poor primate exhibits. I'm looking forward to your remarks about Tiergarten Nurnberg.

 

Wonderful review Ralph, of a medium-sized zoo that for some reason I am really fond of.

It is amazing how very different the impressions can be between visitors to the same garden. I visited the zoo in Heidelberg 3 times and was charmed each time by the intimate atmosphere and interesting collection.

In the report of my last visit in 2022, I wrote, among other things, "The Heidelberg Zoo is a moody garden located in the city's university district on the spot where the main cemetery used to be. The species list includes a few crowd-pullers supplemented by a range of special species that are of particular interest to primate and bird lovers. The entire garden exudes tranquillity and intimacy. There are no exceptional complexes or enclosures to be seen, but apart from the (great apes)/monkeys there are no real weak points. Snacks and drinks are available on the stately zoo terrace near the entrance, or in the jungle kiosk next to the cats. A zoo that absolutely does not disappoint!"

I visited the zoo every time in summer, maybe that makes a difference.

Apparently the greater kudu are gone from the 1977 African savannah, an exhibit that imo adds great charm with its old trees and watering holes.

In the Great Ape building, I eventually saw all the birds but it is indeed a bit of a search there.

Were there no more hooded vultures among the white-necked raven?

Agreed with your opinion for the sea lions and monkeys. The revamped monkey building is a disappointment as the cages have apparently not been enlarged, which is really needed for both the grey langur and Roloway guenon. The latter were in 2022 temporarily housed in one of cages of the Great Ape House and it is planned that de Roloway guenons will join the western lowland gorilla in the new enclosure.

 

Thanks for the replies.

@snowleopard. Yes that sums it up pretty nicely. Although in all honestly, almost every zoo is 'hit-and-miss'. For me, Heidelberg has only a few misses, but those misses are really huge misses. When the zoo finishes upgrading the primate enclosures, there won't be much to dislike about the zoo (except the sea lion pool)

@Philipine eagle Don't get me wrong, I like Heidelberg Zoo. It just didn't stood out as much because in this trip, it had to compete with the likes of Nürnberg, Hellabrunn, Salzburg and Innsbruck! In my opinion, it is not a must-see zoo, but it's also not a zoo anyone should ignore while in the area. It was also not the most disappointing zoo of this trip. I don't think the time of year was much a factor in my enjoyment of the zoo, as this was the best day of the trip in that regard.

Yes, the greater kudus are gone. The savannah is just home to zebras and blesbok now (and guineafowl). I suspect the reason might either be confrontations between species, or the limited amount of stables, as the outdoor enclosure is definitely spacious enough for 3 species of hoofstock.

Glad to read you did manage to find all the birds. Maybe I'd had more luck if I visited the building in the morning.

The hooded vultures are still in the zoo, they were in an aviary next to the griffon vultures (formerly Stellers sea eagles) which they shared with ground hornbills (this aviary is located between the cranes and the Africa House. I did mention it in my report, but you might have missed it)

I'm really happy to read the guenons will get to share the new gorilla enclosure as their current housing is just horrendous.
I'm hoping after the guenons move to their new home, their current enclosure will be merged with the langur enclosure. And hopefully, the zoo will implement further upgrades to the small monkey house for the sake of the langurs.

 

DAY 2

Tiergarten Nürnberg. 15-04-2024.
PART 1

My second zoo of this zootrip was the one I was probably looking forward to the most; Tiergarten Nürnberg. It is a zoo I've seen mentioned on people's list of favorite zoos multiple times, and there has to be a reason for it.

The zoo has some famous enclosures I really wanted to see for myself (the manatee house, the desert house, the yellow-throated marten enclosure...). Additionally, the zoo also has a really nice collection of animals, including some of my personal favorite species, as well as a few species I had not seen before, with the striped weasel being my main target.


That morning, I woke up in Nürnberg which ment having to take only a short tram ride from my hotel to the zoo. Because I couldn't stay until closing time, I wanted to be there early and I arrived at the zoo a little after 8 (Tierpark Nürnberg was the only zoo of this trip that opened at 8; all others opened at 9). The weather forecast predicted a quite cold, windy day with some periods of rain; eventually, it was better than predicted; it rained a bit, but the son was present a lot as well. It was however, quite cold and windy throughout the entire day.


Immediately after going through the entrance, there's a pathway on the left side that takes you to the Naturkundehaus, the zoo's Education Building. Even though I was aware this building also has some living animals inside of it, I decided to skip it for now and head immediately to the Giraffe House.


The Giraffe House is home to three (techinally four) species. The first animals I saw here were the squirrel monkeys in their indoor enclosure in front of the giraffe building. It's quite a spacious enclosure with ample covered (it was raining ever so slightly) glass viewing. (There's even more viewing opportunies from inside the giraffe house itself.) Next to it is a equally spacious outdoor cage for these small monkeys. But what makes this enclosure even better, is the second outdoor enclosure these monkeys have access to; a lush island with living trees. The island is connected to the indoor enclosure by some fake vines that go over the visitors head. The squirrel monkey enclosure is just fantastic! This zoo is immediately off to a good start.


The second (and third) species in the building are of course, the giraffes. One reticulated and one rothschild’s giraffe are the current inhabitants. The indoor enclosures for the giraffes are nothing special; they're the typical 'giraffe house' style stables we find in a lot of zoos. The outdoor enclosure for the giraffes is a very green, lush paddock with a beautiful backdrop of trees and other foliage. Beautiful!


Finally, the giraffe house is home to a real rarity, a stunning species of small carnivore; the striped weasel. The zoo keeps multiple individuals of this species, and has bred them. Two enclosures are found at the Desert House, another is found right here in the giraffe house. The enclosure is large for such a tiny creature, and consists of both an indoor and outdoor part, about equal in size. The enclosure has different hiding places for the weasels. Unsurprisingly, the weasel in this enclosure was a no-show.

Because the weasels recently had offspring, two additional 'pet store rodent cage' type of enclosures were temporarily placed inside the giraffe house. No luck with seeing any weasels in here either. This ment I had to get lucky at the Desert House, or I'd have to return to the Giraffe House at a later time to try again.


I left the giraffe house and went to view the enclosure immediately across from it. A large paddock is home to Eastern grey kangaroos and emus. Most of the enclosure is a green field of grass, but there's patches of sand as well, and the backside of the enclosure is forest; the kangaroos and emus could therefor 'hide' from the publics view if they'd want.


Next up is the mixed enclosure for meerkats and yellow mongooses. Again, this enclosure is spacious, well-vegetated and caters to the animals' needs very well. I haven't seen many zoos that mix two species of mongoose, but the animals seemed to get along great, warming up under the heat lamps together.


The next animals I came across were the crowned lemurs; a species I really like and which I had just seen the day prior in Heidelberg. The lemur enclosure consists of three medium-sized tent-shaped netted enclosures. I'd say each of these enclosures on itself would be inadequate for the species, but since all three enclosures were connected, the lemurs had plenty of space to roam and climb around in. They also had access to their indoor enclosure ,which is not viewable to the public. I saw 1 male and 3 female lemurs.


At this point I had come across a fork in the road with 3 possible paths for me to chose from. I decided to take the middle road, which lead me to the enclosure for Guinea baboons. Baboons are not my favorite animals, but since I've ever only seen this particular species once before (in Paris) I did spend some time at the enclosure watching the baboons do their baboon things (eat, fight, and hump each other). The enclosure itself looks great; it's surrounded by a moat of water, the rock wall backdrop really adds to the natural look, and there are a lot of rocks and dead trees for the monkeys to climb on. However, I'm not entirely convinced the size is adequate enough considering how many baboons are in this enclosure.


I continued my walk and came across the enclosure known as the 'Mediterraneum’ next, a very natural looking enclosure for ground squirrels and European reptiles. I really enjoyed watching the very active, very cute squirrels. I didn't see much reptiles, probably because of how cold it was that day. I only managed to spot one marginated tortoise; I didn't see the Hermann's tortoises, European pond turtles, ocellated lizards or legless lizards that were also signed here.


I walked a bit further and found myself surrounded by multiple enclosures; sea lions as well as the entrance to the Manatee House on my right side, bat-eared foxes on my left, and the gorilla/aquarium house right ahead. Unfortunately, the bat-eared fox enclosure was temporarily empty.


Even though I really wanted to see the Manatee House, I decided to check out the Gorilla House first.

Right next to the bat-eared fox enclosure is a spacious, lush outdoor enclosure for the gorilla's and barbary macaques. It wasn't quite clear if this is a mixed enclosure, or if these species rotate. Either way, neither species seemed to be out.

Right next to the entrance of the gorilla house is a very simple enclosure for hyacinth macaw. After entering the building, there's the viewing into the indoor enclosure for the macaws.

I quite disliked this enclosure; it's not necessarily bad, it's just an ugly steel cage and it didn't fit in with what I've seen of the zoo up until then. (I didn't see the macaws indoors or outdoors)

Before entering the 'main' hall of the building, you'll find a tank for Lake Patzcuaro salamanders.


The main hall of the building has the gorilla indoor enclosure on one side, and a selection of various aquaria on the other.

The gorilla indoor enclosures are the classic Ape House style. Devidable into multiple sections, glass viewing panels, concrete floor, iron mesh ceiling with ropes attrached to it… Not terrible, not great, definitely not impressive. The gorilla's were all indoors, but inactive, so I spent very little time here.


Luckily, the building also features some small tanks with various aquatic animals; there is an aquarium with African cichlids, a mangrove tank with mudskippers and an Amazon tank with rubber eels and a few small fishes. There are Kaiser's spotted newts, a tank with anglerfish, razorfishes and seahorses, an African tank with reedfish and Congo tetras, and of course 2 coral reef tanks, housing species like turkeyfish, leopard triggerfish, marbled dragonet, clownfish and different kinds of wrasses.


I exited the Gorilla/Aquarium house, and there I stumbled upon the enclosures for white-handed gibbon enclosures. I was disappointed. They are typical cages with glass viewing below and metal mesh op top. I wouldn’t call them terrible; there’s definitely worse gibbon enclosures out there. But neither would I call them good. Walking around the gibbon enclosures, I found additional outdoor enclosures for the gorilla’s. They were ugly and quite small, but since the gorilla’s also have a larger, more beautiful outdoor enclosure, it’s not much of an issue.

Anyway, the entire gorilla building just didn’t meet the high expecations I had of the zoo. Again, nothing about it is terrible; but it is quite mediocre compared to the rest of the zoo I’d seen so far.

Now that I had seen the gorilla house, I decided it was time to visit the Manatee House, one of the things about this zoo I was looking forward to the most!

 

Tiergarten Nürnberg. 15-04-2024.
PART 2

Before entering the Manatee House, I took a quick look at the sea lion lagoon; a much larger, deeper and more natural looking sea lion enclosure than the one I saw in Heidelberg. All of the sea lions were swimming; I didn’t see any on land.

I entered the Manatee House and was immediately greeted by the humidity and lushness of a tropical house. I usually love tropical houses in zoos, especially ones with free-roaming species. The one in Nürnberg is especially beautiful though, and does a good job of immersing the visitors into the rainforest setting. The fact that I visited the zoo on a quiet day really added tot he experience; there were barely any other people here.

The Manatee House mostly consists of a single, one-way route throughout the building, with several points of interest along the way, including a small elevated observation hut, bird feeders and of course multiple vantage points into the water area.

The best thing about the Manatee Haus is the fact there’s animals everywhere; beneath you in the water, all around you in the plants and trees, and flying above you. There are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and insects; it’s like a complete zoo within a single building!

Nürnberg’s Manatee Haus focuses on South America; therefor, all the species displayed here are from that continent. The manatees obviously are the headliner. A species beloved by many, including myself. It’s a true pleasure to watch these animals suddenly surface right in front of you for a breath of air, only to submerge again after. The water in the manatee house is very clear and you’re able to see the manatees even when they’re at the bottom of their pool, but it’s definitely worth waiting for them to get to the surface as it provides you with excellent views of them!

The pools of the manatee house are home to more than just the manatees; the pacu’s are impossible to miss, and I also spotted a few cichlids and catfishes. The yellow-spotted turtles were easily to find, but I failed to see the mata-mata.

Besides the manatee, the building is home to two more species of mammals. Despite their nocturnal tendecies, the Pallas' long-tongued bats were actively flying around the hall, mostly around the bird feeders to snatch a quick bite.

The white-faced saki monkeys were also easy to find, and it was obvious their favorite spot was in the back of the hall, near the exit.

In addition to the turtles, the reptiles are represented by 3 species of free-roaming lizards; green iguana, yellow-headed gecko and Martinique anole. With some effort I managed to find an iguana near the water (or at least, its tail and hind legs) but I was unsuccesful in finding the smaller species.

There’s frogs in the building as well; no less than 4* species live here. I’m not surprised I didn’t spot any of the 3 tree frog species, but I did manage to find multiple Anthony’s poison frogs hopping around.
* 6 species are signed, but ZTL tells me 2 of them are no longer there.

No tropical house would be complete without some free-flying birds. There’s a total of 7* species living in the Manatee house. The Peruvian ground-doves were very noisy and easy to spot, which was good news as they were a new species for me! I also had very little trouble spotting the turqoise tanagers, as there was a small group of them conspicuously flying around. I also managed to spot the other small passerines; red-legged honeycreeper, paradise tanager and violaceous euphonia. The final two birds species are ducks; lesser Brazilian teal and red shoveler, both of which were very easy to find on the water.
* 8 species are signed, but the lake ducks are no longer kept

The leaf-cutter ants have an enclosure that consists of multiple 'rooms' with one of them being an open-topped island enclosure. Finally, there’s a bunch of butterflies flying around, but I didn’t see a lot of them.

I could have easily spent more time in the Manatee House, but as there was lots more to see, I had to go on eventually. However, I still wasn’t quite done with the building just yet, as the next stop on the route was the ‘Blue Lagoon’

The Blue Lagoon is a subterranean hallway which has the viewing panels into both the manatee pool and the dolphin pool. As it was very quiet here as well, I took the opportunity to get off my feet for a bit, sit down and enjoy the underwater viewing into the U-shaped manatee pool, complete with flooded forest theming. The large windows and crystal clear water provide excellent observation of these amazing creatures, as well as the fishes. I was also glad to spot the mata-mata here; it was swimming around above the bottom in the deepest part of the pool. I think I’ve only seen mata-mata’s in small, shallow enclosures before, so seeing one actively swim around was a cool, new experience, and I wish more zoos would give mata-mata’s the opportunity to actually move around!

Nürnberg is the 7th zoo I’ve been to with manatees, after Burgers’ Zoo, Berlin Tierpark (which no longer keeps them), Duisburg, Paris, Wroclaw and Faunia (Madrid). After visiting Nürnberg, I have an even harder time deciding which manatee house/enclosure I liked best (obviously not Berlin), but Nürnberg is for sure in the top 3.

I didn’t spend much time at the dolphin pool as I’m not a fan of cetaceans in captivity. But I do have to give the zoo credit for being the second best dolphin enclosure I’ve seen, after Hardewijk’s Lagune. It’s pretty deep, and much more natural looking than most other dolphin enclosures, like Duisburg’s. There’s rocks in the enclosure which provided the dolphins with some enrichment, and they also seemed to enjoy the fake kelp. It’s also an outdoor enclosure, which means the dolphins get to enjoy the weather conditions and natural sunlight.

I left the manatees and dolphins behind me and headed to what was probably going to be another highlight of the zoo; the Desert House.

The Desert House is located next to a few enclosures for hoofstock; I saw Somali wild asses on my right, Dybowski deers on my left. I decided to leave those for later and head straight the Desert House. The outside of building itself doesn’t look very ‘desert-y’. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the theme of this building if there weren’t a big replica of a dung beetle in front of the entrance! First, I checked the outdoor enclosures for the striped weasels. Two large (considering the size of the species), nicely decorated enclosures are located on the right side of the building. Of course, there were no weasels to be seen. Has anyone ever seen any weasels here?

The Desert House itself consists of one medium sized walk-through enclosure. A one-way visitor path takes you from the entrance to the exit, while all around you there’s sand, rocks, desert foliage and of course, animals. It looks absolutely fantastic! The idea of a walk-through desert house is so much more original than a tropical rainforst (although I will always love those too) and it’s great to see the execution is even better than the idea. The building is small enough for people to get good views of the animals, but big enough for the animals to have opportunities to retreat. The lighting in the building is phenominal. It had started to rain at this point, but it was barely noticable from inside the building at all.

None of the animals in this building are ‘crowd pleasures’ or big names. Instead, it introduces the public to species most of them have never even heard of. The building is themed after arid northern Africa and Arabia, and houses animals native to this part of the world.

Only two mammals call the desert house home; the fat sand rat (one of the best animal names out there!) and the round-eared elephant shrew. During my first visit tot he building, the rats were everywhere. Running around, digging, peek-a-boo-ing from their burrows. There were amazing to observe and didn’t seem shy around visitors, even crossing the visitor path right in front of me.

I initially didn’t see the elephant shrews, but I revisited the building later that day, and I saw two of them, casually wandering around and eating from their food bowls.

Birds are represented here by three species; Red-billed firefinch, red-cheeked cordon-bleu and trumpeter finch. Tiergarten Nürnberg is the only zoo worldwide to keep the latter species! All three species were very active and easy to see, and therefor I was able to add the trumpeter finch to my list as a new species! A lot of the birds were collecting nesting material, which was awesome to observe.

Unfortunately, the reptile collection has been quite thinned out in recent years. European chameleon, Yellow fan-fingered gecko, Bosk's fringe-toed lizard, Eyed dabb lizard and Atlas agama, all pretty rare species in zoos, have all left the collection (although some of them are still signed). Only three species are left. The most recognizable are the Egyptian tortoises, which I observed doing absolutely nothing. The most numerous one is by far the black hardun, which were all around the building, mostly basking on the rocks. The rarest is the Sinai agama, as this is their only holding outside of Arabia. Luckily, I did manage to find one as this was another new species.

Lastly, the signage mentioned no less then three species of (dung) beetles. I saw the dung, but no matter how hard I looked, couldn’t find any beetles whatsover. It was quite disappointing as dung beetles are quite a rare sight in zoos.

Overall, the Desert House was really good! I wish I could have visited earlier in time, when more species were present, but even with a smaller species line-up this building is a memorable, unique animal house that absolutely deserves the praise it gets!

Upon exiting the Desert House, it was still raining. I shortly visited the bharals next, who have a really good, natural looking enclosure. (This enclosure was marked as ‘takin’ on the map. I suspect the animals were switched around, as the opposite was true as well). Before heading into the next part of the zoo I hadn’t visited yet, I decided to backtrack to the giraffe house first to get another go at seeing the striped weasels. I made my way back there and first checked the large (main) weasel enclosure. Outside, nothing. Inside, nothing. The smaller ‘pet store’ cages seemed quiet as well, but then I noticed slight ‘digging’ sounds coming from one of the next boxes in one of the cages. And sure enough, after half a minute, a striped weasel emerged from its next box, only to immediately disappear into another! Over the course of the next 10 minutes, this happened a few times. One time the weasel even stayed out for 10 seconds at the time, finally giving me the opportunity to snap something that at least resemples a picture of it. And to make thing even better, I even got a very quick glimps of one of the weasels offspring! (It came out of it box, and disappeared into another, but never showed itself a second time). After the weasel stopped showing itself for 2 minutes straight, and all sounds had ceased as well, I decided to finally return to see the rest of the zoo. At this point in time, it was 11.15 and I still had A LOT to see!

(I also want to make a special mention of Lucy, the zoo cat who lives in the Giraffe House and who is very, very cute!)

 

You had a very lucky run with the weasels. When I went to Nürnberg a few weeks before your visit I only saw one weasel peek out from its nest box before I had the chance to take a picture since there were also guests around. The poor animal got scared and hid back by the time I had the chance to take a shot. I did not see any other weasel on mi visit to the desert house and my return to the giraffe house. I did see the food get depleted with every visit so the weasels must have been active.

 

Yes, the same thing happened on my visit. Because of the rains, more and more people went to seek shelter in the giraffe house. When a group of kids got in, the weasel had enough and stopped showing itself.

It's not the first and it won't be the last time other zoo visitors 'ruin' an experience.

At least I saw them.

(Third attempt before leaving the zoo was unsuccesful)

 

Consider yourself very lucky for the sighting of the weasels. I visit the Tiergarten almost every month and have only seen them four times: Two times in their enclosures at the Desert House and two times in the temporary cages, never in their main enclosure in the Giraffe House.


As for your experience in the Desert House: Yes, the reptile diversity has been higher before. But it is not as bad as in your report and will get a lot better soon: Last year Spiny-tailed Lizards had their return to the house with a single adult that is still holding strong against the harduns. Waiting to move in are Arabian Chameleons that were behind the scenes but visible through the small window at the entrance when I visited early April. So sorry to say, but you missed a glimpse at the only zoo-holding in the world and definitely need to come back when they are on show. The dung beetles aren’t always on display because they need to be flown in from Africa regularly until the Tiergarten achieves to breed them (Which is, what this house and the complicated technic inside the sand is all about. They say they are now close to this world-first.). Some days ago, 700 dung beetles together with darkling beetles and tiger beetles were released inside the house.


The bharals moved into their enclosure only recently after yearlong renovation finished. In the future, the takins will move down to them so renovation of their enclosure can start. When this is finished (hopefully it won’t take as long as the bharals), both enclosures can be connected and shared by both species.


Thank you for your extensive report. Its always very interesting to read reports on the Tiergarten from zoo-nerds that aren’t used to the Nürnberg way of zoo-things like I am.

 

Thanks for your comment!

Yes I realize I got lucky with the weasels! I was going in with the expectation of not seeing them, so I was very pleasantly surprised!

Glad to read the Desert House is going to get new species, especially the chameleons!

Yes, I figured the dung beetles wouldn't be on display permanantly. They don't exactly have long life spans.

Nürnberg is for sure a zoo I'd like to visit again. Perhaps in a few years. For next year I'm currently considering eastern Germany (Dresden, Cottbus, Chemnitz. Maybe Erfurt or Aschersleben, perhaps a revisit to Madgeburg or Leipzig.)
I wish I had the opportunity to do a second zootrip this year, but alas.. So much to see, so little time.