TheCappyCouple
Active Member
While it doesn't guarantee it being a "major" zoo, what "major" zoos are located hours away from undeveloped land? Nearly all the US zoos that have been mentioned in this thread are in metropolitan institutions.
What Makes a Zoo "Major"?
- Thread starter Coelacanth18
- Start date
Wildwood Wildlife Park comes to mind, it's a huge, full-day zoo located well over two hours from any town of halfway decent size (that town, by the way, would be Wausau, WI, with a population of about 40,000 people).
TheCappyCouple
Active Member
So location is completely irrelevant? I seriously doubt Bronx Zoo, for instance, would be the institution it is today, if not for its location.
In determining if a facility is a major zoo, yes, I would say that location is entirely irrelevant. However, it is certainly the case that a zoo is much more likely to become major in a metropolitan area.
Depending on what criteria you use, I'm not entirely sure that would be considered a "major" zoo. It certainly doesn't have the reputation something like Bronx or San Diego are, and it's seldom discussed on this site even. Sure, if your only criteria is size then there'd be a lot of zoos classified as "major", but I think there're certainly more criteria than simply how many animals a zoo has and/or how much time it takes to visit. While not as extreme as your example, North Carolina Zoo comes to mind as a major zoo that isn't in a major city- Asheboro has 27,000 people, albeit it is only 1.5 hours from Charlotte, a major city.
Sure, major zoos won't be in the middle of nowhere, but they won't all be in massive cities either. To use an example, Omaha's Henry-Doorly Zoo is considered one of the top zoos in the United States, but is in a city of 486,000 people. Saint Louis, also with one of the best zoos in the country, has an even smaller population with 286,000. That's significantly smaller than many cities without a major zoo, such as Austin, TX (974,000), Las Vegas (656,000), and Boston (650,000).
There's very little in the US in general that's hours away from undeveloped areas
Location can be a factor, but it's just part of the equation. Bronx is a major zoo, but Prospect Park and Queens, in the same city, certainly aren't. Neither is Staten Island. San Antonio and Austin are 7th and 10th in the US for population, but neither one would be considered a major zoo. San Jose is 12th, how many people even know the city has Happy Hollow Park & Zoo? Las Vegas doesn't even have a zoo, they've never been able to maintain one.