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Zoo day today. Leipzig zoo is meant to be one of the biggest and best zoos in Europe. It is well advertised here in Leipzig, and it is the #1 thing to do here on Trip Advisor, where it gets rave reviews. The reviewers can't have been to many zoos, because although it was very good and money well spent, it was not much bigger or better than Paignton Zoo.
Most of the enclosures were excellent, the highlights being the elephants, the savannah plains, the aquarium and the ape exhibits. The elephants (there were 5 or 6) had a huge space with 2 pools, and we saw one of them take a swim. The savannah plains had giraffes, zebras, gazelles, oryxes, ostriches and cranes, and there were several viewing points, some of which where above the fence, so you could get really close to the giraffes. The aquarium had an upstairs room with a 360 degree tank around the wall with sharks, eels and various other fish. The ape area, called Pongo Land, had several large exhibits with chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orang utans and, allegedly, gibbons but we didn't see them. There were large indoor and outdoor spaces for all the animals, and we saw big family groups of them all (except the gibbons).
There were lots of other good bits - lions and tigers, sea lions and penguins, okapis, baboons and bears. The main attraction was an Eden Project style biome that functioned as the tropical house. It was well presented, and involved a boat ride around the waterways, before walking through the 'jungle'. In theory, this should have been excellent, but on the boat ride (which cost 1.50€ each) we saw - get this - one bird. Out of all the monkeys and otters and ocelots that were in there, we saw one bird, which reminded us of that bit in Jurassic Park, where they see nothing on the tour. Walking around was more productive, and we visited squirrel monkey island, where the monkeys were roaming free. The giant otters were good fun, but the tapir was asleep, and the ocelots and fishing cats were no-shows. It was quite disappointing, as this part of the zoo was so hyped up. The enclosures here were so good and full of trees and plants, that seeing the animals was almost impossible.
Unfortunately, the zoo had some horrible bits. The monkey house was more of a prison - we took one look and left straight away. Ironically, not far away there was a display of a zoo from 1902, showing lions in a tiny cage with nothing to do, and saying how cruel this was. This monkey house wasn't much different, with quite a few animals cooped up in really narrow cages that were taken up with beams and ropes for them to play on. There was no foliage and the walls were either concrete or tiled. The outside areas were tiny and dark, with horrible Victorianesque bars. The other let-down was the leopards. They had 2 Amur leopards (incredibly endangered) and 2 snow leopards, all in 4 separate enclosures, that were too small and really grim. The one leopard that wasn't asleep really didn't look very happy.
For the most part, this zoo is very good and definitely worth visiting. There is a massive variety of animals, many of which we had never heard of, or at least never seen before.
We got back to the hostel after booking our train tickets to Paris for tomorrow, and I utterly thrashed Anna at German Monopoly.
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Jane Pugh I saw a fishing cat at Exmoor Zoo. And a rusty cat.