What is the single worst zoo enclosure you have ever seen?

FunkyGibbon said:
And I am probably lucky (for a given value of lucky) that three years later this is still the worst exhibit I've seen:

Nanjing Zoo - Green Turtle Exhibit - ZooChat
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Hi all, just a comment. Late I know, I have just been surfing Internet and missing all my wonderful friends in China.
As a foreigner, I had the honour to work in Nanjing Zoo for 7 years. This area does not belong to Nanjing Zoo has separate owner.
The Nanjing zoo is modernising its exhibits so the changes are exciting.
Yes this area is poor but out of the control by the Nanjing team who put animals welfare and conservation as their drive for change.
 
Carin Harrington said:
Hi all, just a comment. Late I know, I have just been surfing Internet and missing all my wonderful friends in China.
As a foreigner, I had the honour to work in Nanjing Zoo for 7 years. This area does not belong to Nanjing Zoo has separate owner.
The Nanjing zoo is modernising its exhibits so the changes are exciting.
Yes this area is poor but out of the control by the Nanjing team who put animals welfare and conservation as their drive for change.
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The member you quote have not been on zoochat for a number of years and probably won't see you comment but, yes nanjing is a zoo with very great potential and have done wonder in the past few years, but this is a few years ago and unfortunately i know some zoo in China still have the same problem.
I assume when you say "this area does not belong to Nanjing Zoo has separate owner.", you mean the chinese city zoo style of doing reptile house? because i do know a lot of chinese zoos "outsource"(not sure what the correct word) their reptile house to another owner and let them charge extra money for that.
 
Thankfully Cleveland's worst have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Even the abysmal Primate Cat and Aquatic building is on the way out. Dishonorable mentions within the last few years:
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The Pachyderm Building (1955-2008)
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Monkey Island (1933 -2020)

Sun, Andean and Sloth Bear Grottos (1960s-2022)
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This is a tough choice. I've seen plenty of awful zoo exhibits in my life, so it's difficult to decide on one in particular, but the worst would probably be this Yellow-Headed Amazon cage at the Shell Factory & Nature Park.
Double Yellow-Headed Amazon Exhibit

Double Yellow-Headed Amazon Exhibit

A ghastly little cage with a lone pinioned Parrot squawking “Hello?” on the floor. Taken 2/20/22
 
groundskeeper24 said:
The corn silo exhibits at Knoxville were not so great.

And the old Ape House in Cincinnati. Yikes.
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I give a little ground with old exhibits though. They were undoubtedly bad, but clinical and improvised were more of the standard at the time. Most zoos do better as exhibit construction, funding, and husbandry advance. I don't think old zoos intended to torture animals. They just didn't know what they didn't know.

I really get perplexed when a zoo builds a brand new exhibit or complex and still botches it. I REALLY wanted the Africa complex in Cincinnati to be great. I anticipated it for a very long time. I just can't defend it at this point. Outside of the wild dog enclose, it's just a disaster of an exhibit. They worked hard to improve the physical plant, raise money, and make that swath of space into animal exhibits where a parking lot once sat, and they really blew it. From the giraffe barn at the start, to the tiny lion enclosure, to the blah panoramic aspect, to the crown insult of an inadequate hippo enclosure, it serves as an example of what not to do when you get in a position to expand.

Is it the worst exhibit I've seen? Negative. Did it meet an ounce of the potential of what it could have been? Not IMO.
 
I once almost vomited while visiting one unaccredited facility in the eastern US from the stench of their juvenile alligator exhibit. Four or five small American alligators were in a small cattle tank with some hog paneling over the top - no land area - with a few inches of what I'm sure started off as water but at the time of my visit was brown soup of feces with a few chunks of mouse innards floating at the top. I usually consider my stomach to be pretty tough when it comes to gross animal smells, but this was beyond disgusting. The facility has since passed on to different owners, thank heavens. It's come a long way from that hellscape I encountered back then.
 
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