Munich’s zoo has left the pandemic behind – Munich

The flamingo-leg-sized boy can’t make up his mind. Should he now look over at the pink-feathered birds standing in front of them in their new netted enclosure, billing at the top of their lungs? Or to the man with the rumbling cordless screwdriver, who is just screwing on a wooden strip for the viewing platform in front of him? Technology wins, the craftsman leans towards the blond boy and says: “More interesting than the flamingos, right?” But there is currently a lot of interest in the zoo anyway. For example, the animals that have either just moved in or have just moved. Or the many construction sites that are about to be completed or have just been completed. Or the number of visitors after Corona and the increased ticket prices. And above all there is the question of who has actually just got used to what or has already gotten used to what at Hellabrunn Zoo in the supposed post-pandemic era.

Lots of visitors, new animals, new facilities: the zoo and its actors appear as if they have fully recovered from the pandemic. But, is this really the truth? The head of the zoo says “Yes,” the head of the zoo says “Yes,” but the new wolves would certainly say no. Because they have been waiting for weeks in an alternative quarters for their appearance in the new city and new enclosure.

The easier protagonists in terms of getting used to it are certainly the animals. There have recently been relatively many changes, says Carsten Zehrer, the zoological director. New meerkats came to a completely renovated and even better collapse-proof meerkat enclosure after the four previous residents were tragically buried and died last October. However, the adjustment is not comparable to that of an average Munich helicopter child in the day care center. “With the exception of two animals, the acclimatization is actually totally problem-free for all species,” says Zehrer. Only monkeys and elephants need intensive care, meerkats do not. What you look at them somehow.

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On Wednesday afternoon, two of them are lying on their backs in the sun, almost like a shooter, while the officer in charge of the security guard is manning the lookout position and keeping an eye on everything. He sees: nothing new with the giraffes, neither with the visitors, the mixture is familiar pre-coronally: pram pushers and especially inside, young date couples, older couples walking, and many languages ​​can be heard again, about Italian for the meerkats or just the suricati. The tourists are back, which should calm the zoo boss.

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But Rasem Baban is not only in good spirits because of the multilingual visitors, there are many coming from all over Europe, “but also from the Arab region” – as one puts it when one has to do with animals full-time. “The world has been in order again since April 3,” says the zoo director. All corona restrictions were lifted, “and since then the number of visitors has been developing very well”. We are not yet at the level we were before the pandemic, but we are on the way there. “I have the feeling that many are coming right now to be in a place where you can hide the current world situation.” Some things have changed at the zoo due to the pandemic period. There used to be stronger peaks, says Baban, during holidays and on sunny weekends, but now there are a lot of visitors. “And it seems to me that they were a little more considerate of each other.” Not that zoo visitors are normally ruthless, but there are now almost no disputes at all. Otherwise it works.

The meerkats are fully integrated. And the lions have now taken complete possession of their entire 2400 square meter facility, which would sell for so much money on the free housing market that the Hellabrunn master plan could be implemented by 2023 instead of 2028 as planned. According to Zehrer, lions are somewhere between monkeys and meerkats when it comes to getting used to them. During the move, the zoo management recently decided to anesthetize both animals as an exception in order to be able to carry out an extensive medical check – for example with ultrasound. Normal cat diseases came to light, a kidney and a cardiac insufficiency. “Quite normal at this age and it’s good that we know that now,” says Zehrer, who, like every zoo employee, knows the critics’ topics and already proactively argues around them. Animals under anesthesia are a popular topic for opponents of the enclosure, so the zoo likes to mention that diseases can be identified and then treated with medication.

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After passing the medical check, the lions were driven over to their new address in transport crates, where they only explored the indoor enclosure. “The basic principle for every acclimatization is: the animal sets the pace.” Once the lion has looked at everything calmly and is ready for more, which in the case of Max and Benny took a week, the keepers will also notice that because the animals often look out. So the door to the outside is opened. And there, too, the lions are gradually expanding their radius. The monkeys do the same thing, but they are much more difficult to relocate than lions, meerkats or even blacktip reef sharks. In the case of primates and elephants, the usual keepers are initially with them in the new place, like in a day care center.

“There was a case years ago when an orangutan from Leipzig came to another zoo, but the familiar keeper came too late,” says Zehrer. “Until the man got there, the monkey didn’t eat anything.” This is the absolute exception, acclimatization in and out of Hellabrunn has always worked. So good that the animals don’t even leave their enclosures, even though they could. Of course, lions, monkeys and elephants can’t do that, but kangaroos can. “We have some open facilities,” says Zehrer, “and a kangaroo that can jump up to eight meters would have no problem crossing the one-and-a-half meter wide moat with its plants, but it doesn’t want to.” The animals don’t want to leave?

The visitors responded positively to the price increases

“They see the facility as their home and, above all, as safe.” There is food, water, social partners and a facility. “Moving around is basically one of those things,” says Zehrer. After all, zebras and wildebeests don’t want to walk “just for fun in Africa through crocodile-soaked rivers or past herds of lions”, but rather have to follow their food, in this case the grass. A comparison that puts a static zoo enclosure in a different light. A zoo professional like Zehrer naturally brings up the topic of enclosures in a conversation as casually as the zoo does one of its price increases. price increases?

The fact that admission for adults has risen from 15 to 18 euros “didn’t cause any problems at all”. Rather, the zoo received “exclusively positive feedback” that the adjustment was “absolutely understandable”. Happy about a price increase? A zoo director is usually as adept at selling the unpleasant in a positive light as his zoological director can explain the exhibit issue as a good thing.

Kangaroos sometimes jump out of their enclosure

Kangaroos, that’s how long it takes, seldom jump out of the enclosure, even in Munich. “But only if we’re not careful.” By this Zehrer means that young males of mating age want to break out of the environment of dad and his females, and the zoo should normally recognize this in good time before a possible escape and then hand over the animals.

The opening of the new wolf enclosure was delayed by “several weeks” due to the general situation, so that the new animals have been waiting in the background for a long time. Now the jungle world is being renovated, which should be finished in 2024 and should be home to some new animal species. In addition, the jungle house needs a new foil roof after hail damage, and the penguins in the polar world need new building technology and will therefore probably not be seen for a few months in autumn.

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For the foreseeable future, children like the boy with the flamingos will have to choose between construction sites and mountain zebras, cranes and crocodiles or wheel loaders and seals. But that’s the way it is: you’ve long been used to it.