Yes.
The fact that Americans try to smuggle in their pet dogs as service animals indicates that the demand to bring your dog along might be there...
I meant more in the respect of, do the European zoos that allow it also prohibit service animals from entering free-flight aviaries, lemur walkthroughs, etc.
I have seen that a lot as well Arizona Docent, usually it's not too hard to tell when it's not actually a service animal. Emotional support animals get interesting, cats I understand, but I've heard of even parrots and peafowl being claimed as "emotional support animals."
Yeah that's not legal, unless the zoo otherwise allows pets in
When I said Americans buy fake "service animal" harnesses to sneak their dogs into places, I was not referring to zoos per se. In fact I very rarely see dogs (service animal dogs) at American zoos. I was referring more to people taking them to stores or even airports. A coworker of mine bought one of those harnesses so she could take her dog with her to the grocery store.
When I worked in a grocery store for a good few years, many people would bring in dogs without any service vests. Most were very obviously people's pets, but we were told we legally could not ask for prove that the animal was a service dog and could not legally tell them to remove the animal from the building so long as they insisted it was a service animal. I'm not sure if this applies nationwide and for all businesses/institutions, but at my college there are a couple of girls who carry their small dogs around with them claiming they are service animals and not one has a vest.
Hear, hear and not only in zoos but many public places. I was amazed how far behind Europe was in smoking regulations.
It was quite the culture shock for me when I landed in Madrid and found people smoking
inside the airport! As someone whose lungs get irritated by smoke quite easily, I've found walking through many parts of Europe rather frustrating.
Five bucks for a map at Smithsonian? That is surprising (and somewhat distressing). It's also a bit ironic considering the zoo is free.
I don't think it's unreasonable at all considering, as you said, the zoo is free. I just think of it as the admission being $5 personally. It's not as though they try and force you to buy one either, you have to specifically ask for a map at a service desk near the gate (or at least that's how it worked in 2012).
I don't think so. American zoos, at least some of the major ones, house an impressive variety of reptile species and can rely on a larger number of local species. The housing itself, however, often falls short in regard to enclosure size, husbandry demands and naturalism - with the exception of some American zoos in the southern states, where the local warm weather allows for outdoor husbandry conditions most European zoos can only dream of. However, so far I have only seen a very limited number of American zoos having outdoor reptile enclosures with the same focus on naturalism and quality such as, say, Innsbruck or Nockalm.
I can't say that I've seen Europe excel in this area either. I've not been to Innsbruck or Nockalm, but I've seen some great outdoor native herp displays at zoos like Prague and even Plzen, but the vast, vast majority of European zoos I've been to have more or less the same standard of exhibitry for their herps as US zoos do. More and more major zoos are committing to new multi-million dollar houses with superb exhibitry standards as well. I can't really say I've seen reptile houses in Europe that even come close to the top 10 I've seen in the US, except for Wroclaw of course. Species-wise, the US simply dominates Europe, especially when it comes to venomous species I'm afraid. At least in public institutions anyway, the private sector can be an entirely different beast.
Quite a few American species are currently not or only very rarely displayed in European zoos, may it be the black-footed ferret, pronghorns, coyotes, the fisher, the black-tailed jack rabbit, the Texas blind or the coastal giant salamander. Some exotic species that are more or less common in American zoos (like Jamaican fruit bat, bontebok or gerenuk) are absent from European zoos.
I was referring to birds of prey in particular, building off TLD's and Thylo's points. Somehow it's not surprising that North American animals are rare in European zoos just as European animals are rare here. Though we do share a few species across both continents which seem to be fairly present in zoos; Red Fox, Moose (or Elk), Rough-legged Hawk, and several of the duck family come to mind.
One thing I've noted is that European zoos have better collections of North American animals than the opposite. A few North American species are commonplace in European zoos - e.g. American bison, black-tailed prairie dog, raccoon (at least for now since the EU ban will all but exterminate them from zoos), and wood duck - while North America doesn't seem to have any European animals that are anywhere near as common, except if the species in question lives in both North America and Europe.
Of course this may not mean European zoos have better collections in general - after all there's a lot of animals from other continents, and I find that North American zoos have a slightly larger focus on their native animals than European zoos do (European zoos often ignore their native animals altogether unless it's specifically a native-species zoo).
Surely this is simply the natural result of certain zoos being located in certain countries/regions are more likely to have species from said areas that zoos outside of those areas are unlikely to have. Most of the examples you gave are species only kept in and in immediate proximity to their native range. Black-Footed Ferrets and to an extent Pronghorn can be found pretty much anywhere in the US, although the Peninsula Pronghorn is restricted to the Southwest. Coyotes pretty much only come from the rescue of wild-born animals and therefore the zoos that keep them are the zoos that have wild Coyotes in-state. This becomes even more apparent when one visits a Northeast zoo and starts finding coywolves instead of Coyotes. Fishers are only found in a very small handful of zoos all within their natural range, same goes for the jackrabbit and blind salamander. I've never seen or heard of the giant salamander being in zoos, but if they are it'll likely be the same story. I would imagine that similar patterns can be seen with native European species as well. I can't say any US zoos have known pedigree Red Deer anywhere. Certainly no US zoos keep Eurasian or Iberian Wolves just as no European zoos keep Red or Mexican Wolves.
As for exotic species being relatively commonplace in US zoos but not European, this is true. That also goes both ways, though. I'd even argue that, mammal-wise, there are far more exotic species kept in European zoos that are absent in US zoos than the other way around. Many of our newer imports of mammal species even come from Europe (ie. Mohol Bushbaby, Northern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat, Indian Sloth Bear, European Wolverine, etc.). This is cemented, for me, by the fact that
@Hvedekorn is absolutely correct in saying that North American species are more common in European zoos than vice versa. Sometimes they're even more common in Europe than in North America. Wood Bison, Woodland Caribou, Dall Sheep, Rocky Mountain Goat, Tule Elk, and American Mink are all examples of North American mammals which are extremely rare, if not absent from US zoos yet are found in European zoos at varying degrees of rarity. The only European native mammal I can think of which is currently in the US is Wisent, but that's only kept at one or two places nowadays. All other examples I can think of are for birds and herps, but even then there are not many examples. There are so many North American natives not found in American zoos that are found in Europe that it's become a running joke between myself and a few of my European ZooChatter friends that I keep getting American lifers in Europe instead of in America.
Or rather, what the zoo staff thinks what the visitor associate with the respective native country...which has led to plenty of fake Asian temple ruins, African pseudo-"tribal" villages, "crashed" safari planes / jeeps in European zoos as well. With the egyptian cobra exhibit at Staten Island Zoo as one of the most infamous examples.
I think the point being made is that many more US zoos tend to prioritize theming of exhibits more than European zoos do (certainly more than UK zoos at the very least). Of course, there are examples of extreme theming in Europe as there are examples of extreme simple/basic exhibitry in America, but I would say the latter is far more common in Europe while the former is far more common in the States. Personally I generally prefer the latter, simply because it allows for more space to be dedicated to the animals and, somewhat ironically, often leads to more naturalistic displays.
I've only been to half a dozen US zoos but they're seemed to be a greater degree of variation in quality within a zoo. Enclosures costing tens of millions next to corn crib cages. European zoos seem more uniform in quality with in a zoo.
Certainly there are outdated enclosures in Europe but I don't think the gap between the best and worst in any one particular zoo is as great in Europe as in the US, but as I say, my experience of American zoos is very limited.
Did you visit San Diego then?
That's the only example of this I can think of off the top of my head. Which other US zoos did you visit? In my travels, the largest variation in exhibit quality I have seen is at Wroclaw. There is a very clear line between the old zoo and new zoo, which the latter being a fairly excellent institution and the former slowly improving, but still have many, many, many outdated areas and problems. They probably have one of the worst elephant houses I've ever seen, due to the fact that it was built in the 1800's and rarely touched since then.
~Thylo
