Posts Tagged ‘Construction’

Oct
27

Chimp Update: The Great Outdoors

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

Finally, after years of planning and months of construction, the time has come to open the door. This would be the chimps’ first glimpse at their 18,000 square foot outdoor exhibit. We spent several weeks discussing what the plan would be for letting them out, as this is a bit more complicated than people might think.

As many of you know, we have 10 chimpanzees and while it would fun to just open the door and let them go outside, there are a few concerns we have to consider. First, if all 10 go out at once, they might be a little tough to keep track of and we want to watch closely these first few days. Its possible that one of the animals might get scared or they might break something we thought was chimp-proof so we need might need to get them back in quickly. Its also possible they might refuse to come inside. By leaving part of the group inside, there is more motivation for them to come back in when we ask.

So in the end, we decided that Lucy, Lulu and Willie were the right candidates for the inaugural events. What did they think? Just watch.

This was just day one – more updates on the chimps and how we get them to come back inside are coming soon.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Aug
12

Chimp Update: The Great Outdoors

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

Its amazing what can happen in a few weeks. While we were busy with our 10 new residents, something amazing happened outside.  Those triple digit temperatures haven’t been much fun but the dry weather did mean that major progress could be made in the exhibit.

Here’s the exhibit in June

rainy weather brings everything to a halt

And here’s a photo I took today

extreme makeover, zoo style

Tags: , , ,
Jul
10

Chimp Building Update: Finishing Touches

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

The building is almost done. There’s a bit more work to do and then its up to us to get everything cleaned up and ready for the chimps. I say “we” in the general sense, I’m  leaving all this up to Judy, our newest supervisor, because tomorrow morning I fly to California to pick up the chimps.

almost there...

We’ve talked about where zoos get their animals but have you ever wondered how? The answer depends on the animal – some we ship cargo on commercial airlines or FedEx, others come on land via a professional animal shipper or we just go pick them up ourselves. This shipment is a bit unusual and we’re using a combination of methods. Three Houston Zoo staff, including me, are flying to California, where we will rent a vehicle and meet a professional animal shipper. All of us, plus Greg and Carol, who owned the chimps, will then load them up Monday morning and we’ll all drive to Houston.

The shipper has a large climate controlled trailer with 10 comfortable crates for the chimps. We’ll be driving straight through but will stop regularly to check on the chimps and provide food and water. We expect the trip to take about 40 hours, and if weather and traffic cooperate and should get to the zoo Wednesday morning.

For more updates from the road next week, follow @HZIChimps on Twitter.

Tags: , , , , ,
Jul
07

Chimp Building Update: Furniture

Posted by in Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

So last week we headed over to IKEA to pick out furniture for the chimps – OK, not really. All of the furniture in the chimp building is custom-built and is quite heavy-duty, as you see in this photo.

7 bedroom, 1 bath, large living room, and 1/2 acre backyard - must see!

This is the largest room in the building (about 1000 square feet and over 20 feet tall) and its filled with benches for chimps to sit and sleep on. There are also steel nests (in the upper right) that they can fill with hay and nap in. The posts and walls have steel rings anchored to the to attach ropes and hammocks too. Eventually this room will be filled with 30 inches of pine bark mulch, creating a natural, soft floor indoors.

Before you are too harsh about our decorating skills, let me explain that the first rule of animal exhibit design is function first. Concrete is easy to clean and paint has a tendency to chip under the strain of everyday cleaning and chimps with time on their hands. All of the caging is galvanized steel, which won’t rust after repeated washings (and other chimp bodily fluids I won’t mention here). Once we hang some toys and hammocks the room will be much more colorful, which is actually important to chimps since they see the same color spectrum we do.

Chimps arrive one week from today!

Tags: , , , ,
Jul
01

Chimp Building Update: Doors and Windows

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

Last fall, I made a trip to Arizona to pick out doors and cage mesh for our chimp building. This is perhaps the most important part of an animal building because the right choices will make a building safe for staff and comfortable for animals. Chimpanzees are large, potentially dangerous animals, so all of their doors must be operated remotely by keepers from outside the animal area.  Fortunately the contractor providing the doors and mesh had working mock-ups of all the doors at their shop so I could see everything in person and test it out.

Because the building is so large and complex it contains a total of 33 animal doors. Depending on the location, the door may open horizontally or vertically. Some handles are removable so they don’t get in the keepers’ way and others operate by turning a wheel or pulling a handle. Each door gets inspected and tested by the staff after installation. All of the caging is carefully inspected for rough edges.

cage mesh in the process of being installed

The mesh is fabricated in Arizona galvanized to prevent rusting, and then the panels shipped here for assembly and installation. This involves a lot of drilling and welding – every bolt inside the animal are must be welded so that the strong, dexterous chimps can’t undo them.

Safe for chimps? Check.

Safe for keepers? Check.

Functional? Check.

Soon it will be time to add the comforts of home.

Tags: , ,
Jun
29

Chimp Building Update: A Roof Over Our Heads

Posted by in African Forest,Chimpanzees

A few more weeks of construction and the building has a roof – this place is starting to look like a chimp building.

check out the truck for a size reference - this place is huge!

The tall part of the building is the 2-story dayroom – lots of natural light and lots of room to play.

soon this space will be filled with benches and climbng structures

Oh yeah, one more thing – if you’re on Twitter, we’re tweeting about chimps! Follow @HZIChimps for even more info about animals and construction, including updates from the road as the chimps make their way to Houston.

Tags: , , ,
Jun
26

Chimp Building Update: Forms and Functions

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

At the last update, the building was just starting to take shape – once the walls start going up you can start to picture what its going to look like. Building a home for chimpanzees is a little different than building a house in your neighborhood. First, it has to be strong – imagine building a daycare for superheroes. Second, it has be easy to clean – imagine said superheroes keep house like college kids. Third, it has to be comfortable and meet all the needs of one of the smartest, most complex species on the planet.

Concrete is the best material to meet the first 2 needs – its strong and can be hosed down for cleaning. After the slab was poured, forms were built for the walls and filled with concrete.

A few days later the forms come down and we can see walls!

Of course you may have noticed there still isn’t a roof, but at this point we could walk around the building, see the layout, and start to appreciate how much space 4000 square feet really is.

Tags: , ,
Jun
01

Construction Begins: Exhibits in Real Life

Posted by in African Forest,Behind the Scenes,Chimpanzees

Starting last September, I began making regular trips out to the African Forest construction site. At first it didn’t look like much, just a pile of dirt with some PVC pipes sticking out of the ground. This period of time in a construction project is exciting but its also a little scary – up until now everything just existed on paper (which means making changes is still cheap, relatively speaking). What if when they started building, it didn’t look like what I pictured? What if I forgot something? Too late, here we go…

if you squint, you can picture a chimp exhibit in the foreground

We did a preview of some of the finished product last winter when we viewed samples of some of the carved rockwork and walls. These guys are artists, they do an amazing job, making it impossible to see where real wood and rock end and cement begins.

no trees were injured in the making of this uh, tree - its all cement!

Tags: , ,