Tanganyika makes an interested contrast from Sedgwick, which highly reflects its owner's philosophies. Exhibits and facilities are more utilitarian than natural - lots of enclosures built of poles and wire, with little emphasis on immersive elements. This isn't to say that the enclosures are necessarily bad for the animals - though some certainly are better than others. It just means that they look more like something you'd see in a private keeper's yard rather than a major zoo. There is also an extraordinary emphasis on visitor-animal interaction, which is Tanganyika's hallmark.
Today's review will largely look at the exhibits, tomorrow at the interactive components.
The exhibits of Tanganyika are grouped around a central lagoon, which houses island exhibits for white-handed gibbons, siamangs, and lemurs (the islands are among the most attractive exhibits, and wouldn't be out of place at any major US zoo). There isn't a particular rhyme or reason to the organization of the animals themselves, either by geography or taxonomy. The largest single exhibit holds the facility's crown jewel, an enormous herd of giraffe, with satellite exhibits for okapi and bongo (except for the brief period of time Columbus Zoo lost its membership, this marked the first time I'd seen okapi outside of an AZA facility). This is easily one of the biggest giraffe herds I'd ever seen, a necessity for Tanganyika, as feeding the giraffes is one of the major draws here. Other large mammals nearby are pygmy hippopotamus and Indian rhino. Hoofstock yards around the grounds feature Grevy's zebras, red river hogs, and springbok, as well as a red kangaroo walk-through.
Breeding big cats is a specialty of this zoo, especially clouded leopards and snow leopards, the exhibits for both were fairly nice. The clouded leopards had paired exhibits with a viewing area in between - they were tall habitats of adequate size, something you don't always see in unaccredited facilities, while the snow leopards had a someone plain habitat that still managed to incorporate a decent amount of vertical complexity. I was much less impressed by the tiger exhibit, fairly small, sparse, and overall the weak point of the facility (which surprised me, considering breeding tigers was one of the original main goals for this zoo). Other smaller exhibits include serval, giant anteater, bat-eared fox, and rarely-displayed ratels, sometimes known as honey badgers.
Primates are also a strength of here, if in terms of diversity rather than exhibits. Besides the primate islands, there are pole-and-wire habitats for DeBrazza's monkeys, mandrills, colobus, and Javan langurs, another species seldom anywhere. Birds, in contrast, are in very low numbers, surprising considering that Fouts was once primarily a bird dealer, with a lorikeet aviary and a few small exhibits forming most of that collection. Herps are likewise in very limited number.
The single indoor exhibit is Troublemaker's Cove, a large indoor habitat for African penguins (more of which will be said tomorrow). The building also features exhibits (indoor and outdoor) for a white American alligator and Asian small-clawed otters, neither of which managed to impress me too much. The whole aquatic complex was a little bland to me, and put me in the mind of a large hotel swimming pool (flanked by smaller hotel pools for the other exhibits) which had been converted into zoo exhibits. The one positive I'll say for their penguin exhibit was that they have a good-sized colony, which I feel is a major benefit to penguin welfare and social enrichment. I've been to too many zoos that only have three or four pairs, which hardly counts as a colony in my mind.
The zoo isn't that big, and doesn't take too long to walk around if you are just walking it. Of course, for most visitors the main draw will be the interactive components, so it those that we will explore tomorrow.
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