Neuwied Zoo Zoo Neuwied
We visited the zoo near the town of Neuwied today. Neuwied is located in western Germany, on the banks of the Rhine, roughly halfway between Frankfurt and Cologne. The zoo is about 10 kilometers from the station. From the nearest bus stop, you still have to climb uphill for another 30 minutes.
The zoo has a large area and lots of greenery. In the more remote part, if it weren’t for the mesh along the sides of the path, you could think you were walking through a forest. On the downside, the grounds are in the hills and a bit vertical, so you can get tired.
The manul enclosure is not far from the entrance. The nearest neighbors on the left:
anteater (is there such a neighbor anywhere else!?), but it was in the winter indoor area.
On the right is an extraordinarily handsome sand cat:
Behind it is a large overgrown meadow, where several live, as one member of our group put it: “a giant quail for the manul”:
Opposite are some hoofed animals.
The manul enclosure itself is about 7–8 by 3–4 meters. There are several shelters, one even in a tree. The floor is earth. There is a small pile of rocks, logs, and trees. Lots of shelves, including ones right under the ceiling, and there is even a rope bridge. The fence is mesh about 3 by 3 cm, painted black and slightly glossy. If you look at the enclosure in the middle of the day, the sun is behind you and the reflection from the mesh completely overwhelms the interior space. The enclosure’s design shows that it can be divided into two halves. The enclosure has a very large back section: it is as wide as the main one, and about three times deeper. Its furnishings are completely identical to those of the main part. It looks as though the manuls do not have a permanent building, only outdoor shelters.
Since the sand cat does not have such a luxurious back room, there is a lot of empty space to the right of the enclosure, and you can try observing the manuls from there
Now to the main thing: there was a manul! But in a very manul-like way.
There was one manul; it would periodically come from the back part to the front and back again. The first time it came out, it apparently did not notice us, and we managed to take several photos. The second time it appeared, it apparently realized we were watching it, gave us a very funny whisker twitch, and stopped openly wandering around and climbing. Then we made a terrible mistake — we went off for food, and when we came back the manul no longer showed itself.
Since we could not figure out exactly which one we had seen, we asked the keepers. They confirmed that there really are two manuls. And if we saw one, it was most likely the male. The female comes out rarely and mostly hides somewhere on the upper shelves in the far part.
I uploaded the best photos I managed to get and marked Arthur on them. If someone can compare them with known photos of Manuela, then they can be reassigned.
And one last handsome fellow
UPD. I forgot to mention one more important feature of the zoo: the zoo sells 0 manul merch
Comments 10
Thank you, excellent tour.
A sand cat, that’s an instant 5 🤗🥰
Pavel Burov, Barkhanization is inevitable!
Thank you very much for the tour!
The photo is definitely Arthur 👍
Oh my, thanks for all the photos. Especially Arthur but the cute sand cat and the rest too. Pity about the lack of merch but beautiful place!
Thank you for the most fascinating and very detailed story about the zoo! What a large enclosure the manuls have — so cool!
It’s a pity that no manul merch is sold at the zoo 🙁 Although we noticed that there is very little of it in other European zoos too, or none at all.
Thank you for the wonderful tour!
Thank you for the report! Great that you showed us Arthur in full!! ❤️
Thanks for the news! Very interesting!
Ohhh, thank you so much for this fascinating story and photo report! 😻 I read it with immense pleasure! All the more so because, believe it or not, just the other day I somehow remembered this zoo and lamented to myself that there was still no information from there about how the manuls were settling in. So I was especially delighted by your post! 😻
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It’s great that the enclosure is quite spacious, and I also really liked the suspension bridge — I think when a manul strolls across it, it looks very beautiful and even epic!
But the mesh that “glows” in the sun is a whole separate pain point. Alas, such mesh is found in most of the zoos we’ve been to. Photographing through it (and even just looking through it) at certain times of day is very difficult or even impossible🙁
In some European zoos, where the enclosures were built relatively recently, we came across matte (!) black mesh, and that is pure bliss! (For example, we saw such mesh at the Berlin Zoo and in Hellabrunn).
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Manuela apparently continues the family tradition of Berlin manulady and prefers to lead a “high-rise” lifestyle 😹 It’s funny, because her older namesake sister Manuela from the Lodz Zoo also loved sitting up at the very top, in a tree, and Ula from Gdansk is also extremely fond of this 😄
Actually, I find this a very curious fact, because it’s funny that in the Berlin Zoo, where all three were born, the manul enclosure doesn’t have any very high shelves or trees.
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And the neighboring anteater... that’s very extravagant, and I’d even say Salvador Dali-esque! 😹👌🏻
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Once again, thank you so much for the tour!
Are you planning to visit any other manul zoo?
Vika Malyshkoverified_filled ,
Vika, thank you so much. To be honest, the style of the description is inspired precisely by your zoo review videos.
If the planes/ships aren’t canceled because of the crisis, then we’ll soon go to see Mimi and Katti-Matti 😻.