Zoo Berlin and Tierpark Berlin have been my favourite collections since I visited them in April 2014, with only Prague, Plzen and Chester approaching them in my affections.
Having written a pretty comprehensive report on my trip to the Berlin collections, I think it would be most apt to repost the portion of the concluding chapter of this report pertaining to my overall feelings towards the collections rather than try to sum them up once again:
As will have become very obvious through the course of this thread, I have fallen in love with the two Berlin collections, each of which I would now rank in joint first-place in terms of my favourite zoological collections. One of the great things about the two collections - something which I feel confident in saying is unique to Berlin, with no counterpart to be found in other zoological collections - is the degree to which they complement one another, with each playing to their own strengths and displaying a wide range of taxonomic variety whilst largely avoiding duplicating exhibits. Zoo Berlin is the collection for those who want to see historical buildings, a comprehensive collection of invertebrates, fish and lower tetrapods, a vast collection of tropical birds and a wide range of primates; Tierpark Berlin is the collection for those who want to see large tranquil areas of woodland and grassland dotted with zoo exhibits, massive sprawling areas of hoofstock, a comprehensive collection of caprines, camelids and equids and a large collection of cold-climate birds. There are some strengths shared by both collections; a massive collection of both large and small carnivores, a keen eye for unusual and unique taxa, a comprehensive representation of the diversity of life - but by and large, each collection does not compete with the other, and as such they stand as equals.
Each collection does have failings, some long-standing and some newer in origin, and many of these issues have been discussed on Zoochat both within this thread and the wider forum for years. For many of those who read this report, these faults are fatal to your enjoyment of the whole; others deny the faults altogether. I personally would like to think I take a more balanced view; I would very much like the failings of each collection to be addressed, but I do believe they can be addressed without compromising the spirit of the collections, what makes them so very special. My reservations about the future direction of the two Berlin collections under their new director have, I think, been discussed at sufficient length already. Therefore, I shall only say that I fear that future developments at the two Berlin collections may well risk compromising that which makes them so special. Even if - as I very much hope - my fears are unwarranted, and Zoo Berlin and Tierpark Berlin retain much of the spirit which I perceived, they will still be very different places. My visit came at the end of an era for the Berlin collections; I certainly hope and plan to return there before too much time passes, but when I do the collections I fell in love with will be gone forever. I very much hope that I fall in love with them again.
