Your zoo is a CAZA zoo with the theme of "Northern Asia". I know pretty simple but try to create a message with your exhibit.
Don't forget with all that as been recently discussed, try to incorporate concepts that make the exhibit profitable.
Here it is. Not surprise what the key animal is. I also thought about polar bears, but this is native animal in Canada..
Siberian Forests
The exhibit shows forest of Siberia, the worlds largest continuous forest, and teaches of forest conservation and predator protection.
Entrance and visitor path
The entrance is through a wooden gate with beautiful Russian ornamental woodwork. The exhibit area is existing forest and preserves the forest feeling. Exhibits are surrounded by simple, unobtrusive chainlink fence partially hidden by with fast growing shrubs planted in front.
Along the visitor path, dead logs and tree stumps are positioned and East Asian shrubs and trees are planted. Education items are positioned along the walkway. They include animal footprints pressed in concrete, asking visitors to guess the species. A storage hut is built on tree trunk, which is traditional Siberian way to protect supplies from bears. On one tree there is a traditional Russian beehive carved high up in a dead standing tree. There are also camera traps, a look-into fake leopard den and a live tiger trap used by researchers.
Enclosure 1.
The exhibits are used by siberian tigers, dhole and amur leopards in rotation. Leopards can use only the two mesh-covered exhibits. First is the biggest, forest exhibit with a dry moat, which uses an existing gully. It is up to 1 hectare in size. The background information tells, among others, that the dhole is the only wild carnivore able to chase tiger off its kill.
Owl aviary
A large aviary with old trees and a pool hosts Blakiston's fish owls. This species is especially worth bringing to Western collections. There is a breeding program in Japan. It is not only attractive and endangered owl, but will forever require an insurance population due to destruction of forests in the Far East. If sourcing the owls is impossible, the aviary can host Steller's sea eagles or eurasian eagle owls.
Enclosure 2.
The second exhibit is covered viewed through glass viewing windows. It has a water pool, allowing underwater view of the tigers if they use the area and choose to swim. There is a broad wire tunnel going over the visitor path which cats can enter. There is a heated pad which encourages big cats to rest directly over the visitor path.
Enclosure 3.
The third carnivore exhibit is also netted. It is viewed from a hut with information on the predator research. The hut extends into the exhibit and has partially glass ceiling. The nearby panel is heated, which encourages predators to sit on the roof. The look at a tiger overhead almost within touching distance is probably the last thing which zoo world did not yet do about tigers. There are fake poacher's traps hidden between trees near the path, and visitors re asked to spot them. Some fake snares are in the tiger exhibit, so visitors can see the tiger almost walking into the trap.
Holding building
Visitors can look into the tiger holding building through the glass. There is a detailed information how zoos care for the tigers. For many people, the zoo by itself is also interesting. There is also a family tree of all carnivores in the exhibit, tracing their ancestors to the wild.
Enclosure 4. and animal demonstration
Nearby, the fourth small exhibit has an amphitheater and is used for presentations and medical training of carnivores. It includes a feeding pole for tigers and leopards to climb. Another leaning tree trunk illustrates the surprising agility and climbing skills of dhole. There is also a metal line pulled over the exhibit, which lets dhole or tigers chase a moving target.
One special event is tug-of-war between children and a tiger. It involves pulling a rope going between the visitor area and the animal area. A pulley system prevents the rope from being pulled too fast. The 'prize' is a cardboard bag with dry food or a whole dead chicken, to avoid the situation that the tiger ingests the rope.
I suspect that the dholes will be more popular than the cats, due to their general activity and sociability.
The restaurant
There is a restaurant themed as East Russia. It serves Russian and Chinese cuisine. It has a terrace overlooking a tiger exhibit, and visitors can also see amphitheatre presentation on the other side of the complex.
The stream aviary near the restaurant
A glass wall opens from the restaurant into an aviary. It shows a rocky forest stream with a small waterfall and split-view above and underwater. It is carefully designed to be beautiful, with a quality of a Japanese garden architecture. It hosts mandarin ducks, scaly-sided mergansers and endangered Amur sturgeon. It illustrates importance of forests for water quality. The sturgeon can be stocked from hatcheries in China or Russia.
Children playground
There is children playground focusing on protecting ancient forests. The children can climb and slide in giant, modeled tree trunks and walk on ropes between trees in a rope park. In the tree trunks are hollows with models of animals which require old trees, like a bear in her den, martens, woodpeckers, owls, mergansers and mandarin ducks. Many other animal pictures and wood sculptures illustrate lives of tigers and other animals without the use of words. A mesh tunnel extends over a visitor path, and lets children climb like big cats climbed in their own tunnel. There is also a number of underground tunnels and passages in rotten trees. They let children go like a dhole or a chipmunk into an underground tunnel which opens in several glass domes and viewing windows inside the tiger exhibit.
Specific topics are illustrated:
*old trees as key resource – a mock nest of Steller's sea eagle on top of a climbing tower. A row of planted and existing trees: from young sapling through a 20, 40, 60 and 200 year old tree trunk; illustrating that planting a young tree in place of an old tree is not enough.
*old hollow trees as an important habitat – treehouse
*dead timber as key habitat element – crawl over old tree logs, open little doors to see models of small animals living in dead wood.
*habitat corridors, ecological corridors – rope walk between trees
*spreading seeds – playing by sliding on a hook attached to the rope
*forests and preservation of freshwater – a drinking water fountain like an a little forest spring
*umbrella species – look into tiger exhibit through the window
Species:
Amur sturgeon
mandarin duck
scaly-sided merganser
Blakiston's fish owl / Steller's sea eagle
amur leopard
siberian tiger
dhole
All species are endangered except the mandarin duck, which is cheap to maintain and very attractive. All illustrate forest protection in some way (sturgeon, merganser, owl, leopard, tiger) or predator protection.
Reasons why the exhibit should be profitable:
The place uses the existing forest and requires no heated animal building or large pools or rocks. There is a number of attractions: children playground, carnivore demonstrations, a hut with tigers resting on a glass roof, walk-over wire tunnels which big cats can enter. There is a restaurant which can be accessed from outside the zoo and can be rented for events.