With all the suggestions on here it would be better to knock it down and start again.
ZSL London Zoo Reviving ZSL London/Whipsnade
- Thread starter StoppableSan
- Start date
redstarsmith
Well-Known Member
Either ZSL has serious money to redevelop in which case there is no real current desire to do so and so knocking every thing down is moot. Or they have little capital to invest in redevelopment and so knocking everything down and starting again is moot.
Personally I think there is enough potential to redevelop what they have even within the restrictions of the listed buildings. It seems to me that the real issue is money and they don’t have it and they can no longer attract enough people to make enough money to redevelop fast enough.
I guess even Chester would ideally like to sweep the board and redevelop.
Personally I think there is enough potential to redevelop what they have even within the restrictions of the listed buildings. It seems to me that the real issue is money and they don’t have it and they can no longer attract enough people to make enough money to redevelop fast enough.
I guess even Chester would ideally like to sweep the board and redevelop.
So.... in your opinion the answer to the fact they cannot demolish listed structures is to demolish the listed structures AND the unlisted alike?
Somehow the phrase "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" comes to mind.......
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
London still attracts more than one million visitors per year. That's (a) plenty of income, and (b) evidence (not proof!) that the zoo is not in the crisis mode presented by this thread.
All I will say on visitor numbers is that London is seriously advantaged by foreign tourists and school visits over better nearby zoos eg Colchester!
sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
An excellent and well-agued post; this point is especially true, I fear.
...but this 'fact', often mentioned, is incorrect. As has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, it was actually Bristol about which the word 'zoo' was first used.
Why do you keep putting forward such nonsense? It doesn't really take the discussion forward in any way at all.
sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
redstarsmith
Well-Known Member
But plenty of money for what? To maintain what it has? It is clear that things have changed since my visit in 2013 there are fewer species to see and now they have more areas will be closed permanently like the Aquarium.
That seems pretty clear to me that they do not have the capital to maintain what they have. At the rate they are modernising their major exhibits around ZSL does not seem to be at a quick enough pace to out run other potential issues of redevelopment at ZSL. I think that suggestions of an existing or potential crisis are not fantasy but quite logical. I’m not closed to it being a certainty but I’d put money on it being a high probability that ZSL will run into serious problems in the longer term.
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FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
You are 100% correct, but that advantage does matter; London (probably) can afford to not be a particularly good zoo and still draw large numbers. As long as they run in the black financially (which was the issue in the nineties I think), not being a good zoo might not matter.
I think there are big differences between not being able to maintain the Mappins, and not being able to maintain the site in general. Almost every zoo pulls down major developments from decades past and we wouldn't necessarily criticise them for not maintaining the exhibits that they have. It's just that in London's case (it seems) all but the most expensive option (renovating) are closed to them.
I am also unconvinced that a declining species line-up is financially related; it is in-line with a general trend that is much noted and bemoaned by zoonerds. Is it scandalous that London doesn't match up to Basel and Frankfurt? Maybe, but that matters to almost no-one. Personally I think that London is drifting towards something along the lines of Hanover. This might be anathema to most on the forum, but if that could be done in a way that preserves the architectural value of the Mappins, the Casson, the Snowdon Aviary, the Reptile House and so on I could live with it.
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sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
While I’d agree that 99% of visitors are oblivious to the rarity or unusualness of what they’re seeing, I do think that they recognise - and appreciate - quantity. It’s a major issue that there just isn’t that much to see at London. Zoos that have maintained large collections, from Beauval to Berlin to Prague to Wrocław, have very healthy attendances. This may just be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.
I disagree - but much as I hate Hanover, I’d almost prefer that vision. Hanover knows what it is: a garish fun park where animals are props. London maintains the idea of its being a place of science, but then it tries to “do a Hanover” and gets it wrong. Land of the Lions is the equivalent of Theresa May dancing: undignified, embarrassing, and wrong on every level. Hanover does, at least, have a sense of the rhythm to which it dances...
[QUOTE="sooty mangabey, post: 1137875, member: 721"
. Land of the Lions is the equivalent of Theresa May dancing: undignified, embarrassing, and wrong on every level. Hanover does, at least, have a sense of the rhythm to which it dances...[/QUOTE]
This has to be one of the best posts of the year, I'm still laughing as I type!!
. Land of the Lions is the equivalent of Theresa May dancing: undignified, embarrassing, and wrong on every level. Hanover does, at least, have a sense of the rhythm to which it dances...[/QUOTE]
This has to be one of the best posts of the year, I'm still laughing as I type!!
Venatores
Member
I always thought the word 'zoo' first appeared in print in relation to the London Zoological Gardens in 1847 (Blunt,1976) and in song about 20 years later (Berger,1977,2015).
Apologies for not having read all the forums as I'm a newbie just trying to add to the general discussion.
Ive always thought this was an area of the zoo with plenty of untapped potential. And, more or less, a blank canvas.
If it wasnt for the surrounding Asian theming (gibbons, tigers etc) I'd have said net across the elephant and rhino stalls, knock through the walls and create a 360 rainforest exhibit with various tamarin, marmoset species and forest floor fauna. Maybe along the same idea but with Asian variants.
The question is-what replaces the Bearded pigs when they die out? ZSL transferred a very successful breeding group of Francois langur to Whipsnade during the lion redevelopment. Where are they now?
Still at Whipsnade according to the 2019 inventory.
I mean the pipe dream for the bearded pigs would be an extended paddock covering the llama yards bird display lawn (because if the plans for the rebuilt Children’s Zoo are anything to go by they’re getting a third display area there) and then see the return of some large mammal - perhaps a bachelor Indian rhino set up similar to Edinburgh’s that would thematically link up with Land of the Lions across the way but that’s both money and the will to spend it on ZSL’s behalf.
A 360-degree rainforest exhibit would be very impressive but would the Casson not prove too dark for a lot of plant growth? Perhaps the trick would be to opt for a nocturnal rainforest on the scale of Chester’s bat house, work in lorises and civets perhaps.
A 360-degree rainforest exhibit would be very impressive but would the Casson not prove too dark for a lot of plant growth? Perhaps the trick would be to opt for a nocturnal rainforest on the scale of Chester’s bat house, work in lorises and civets perhaps.