Cities in need of zoos
- Thread starter elefante
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The Horse Boy
Well-Known Member
Because I was born and grew up in the Austin TX area, it really could use an AZA accredited zoo to support its growing population. I made a Google Doc going over a potential list of species to live there when it opens 2 years ago.
I agree, I am just not sure how it would actually happen. I doubt the city or county would be interested, unfortunatly. Austin is odd that it has three sub-par facilities (Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary, Capital of Texas Zoo, and Austin Aquarium) and one quasi-zoo (Austin Nature and Science Center) but no actual city/county zoo. About an hour away is Reptilandia - which is a premier facility and Animal World Snake Farm and Zoo, which is improving. About 1.5 hours is San Antonio Zoo, but that's a pretty good drive. Austin has changed so much in the last 20 years, it is hardly recognizable from what it was even in 2015 when I left.
Is an hour really a long way to drive for Americans?
In rural areas, absolutely not. My nearest zoos from my hometown are both 1.5 hours away
Yes, kind of, although with a lot of asterisks.
Many rural Americans are comfortable driving long distances, but having grown up near the suburban/urban you will find some people who are comfortable with this but also many others who would make driving even thirty or forty minutes sound like an eternity. A lot of places I was told as a child were "out of the way" or "a bit far" are only about thirty minutes from home.
A lot of this has to do with the setting though - rural driving involves a lot more open highway and you're generally still moving, even if there are others on the road, while urban driving can involve a lot of traffic, and my experience is a lot of urban/suburban people who seem averse to driving are really more so anxious about dealing with traffic and how it can inflate times. For example, I actually live around twenty minutes from downtown Chicago when the streets are clear, but on a rough day, driving home in rush hour can be as long as two or three hours.
Depends on the person. Personally I'd say that an hour is not a long way at all, heck some people drive an hour to work every day. Certainly it's not a long way for most rural Americans. But some people, typically in urban areas, seem to think of quite short times as too long of a drive. I know one person who once described a place a 20 minute drive from their house as "too far away to visit regularly".
I think that 1.5 hours is right at the cusp of what might be considered a long drive…but nowadays is not an uncommon commute.
While we are on the topic of Austin, San Antonio and driving…I lived in Austin for my last few months of High School and in order to graduate with my class, I continued to commute to San Antonio (about 90 miles each way) every school day for those last few months.
But as others have pointed out the growth and that has occurred in Central Texas these last few decades has really changed the nature of that area…the commutes and traffic density not the least.
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I’m sure it is already on the list…but Charlotte North Carolina would seem to be a good candidate for a decent mid-sized zoo. I guess facilities in Asheville and Asheboro aren’t too far away. Wilmington North Carolina could be a candidate as well (maybe a smaller native species zoo or one focused on the Western Hemisphere…for the primates, Tapirs and Jaguars). Wilmington is home to a nearby AZA accredited aquarium and a local “roadside zoo”.
Depends on the person and location. 1 hour in Texas is nothing, people there consider anything less than 10 to be an easy drive - I do a lot of work in Texas and lived in Austin for a bit. But in the Northeast people seem to be less inclined to drive more than an hour.
It also depends on the person, I don't mind driving 8-12 hours non-stop, but my wife considers driving more than 30 minutes to be a long drive.
No, not at all.
Huh? The northeast has many people who work in our big cities in NYC and Boston, but who live well outside city lines, sometimes in other states entirely (this is especially true for NYC where many people who work in the city will live in CT or NJ). For these people, an hour+ commute is expected and it's not uncommon for it to be more like 1.5 hours. I grew up in CT and while I admittedly have a very small sample size compared to the entire region, I've known very, very few people in my life who would describe driving an hour as a long drive, especially for a non-routine "special occasion" like a zoo visit.
~Thylo
Interesting, that isn't my experience, but I guess it is the people that I have known. Most wouldn't mind taking the train an hour or 1.5 hours into the city for work or pleasure but wouldn't drive the same distance/time. But I have only known people that lived/worked in the major metro areas, admittedly.
I think a big part of the conversation of "is an hour really that far for Americans" comes down to what it is for. Most people I know never went "the zoo" more than once or twice year. It was a special occasion and for that an hour drive isn't a big deal. While a zoo in Youngstown may mean a few more people would go to a zoo perhaps more frequently, I don't really think Youngstown is lacking a zoo for the general population. For the majority of people that live there, I would guess they feel they have easy access to a zoo and don't feel like any are too far.
I was just in Youngstown within the last month and went to Cleveland, Erie, and Akron easily on "day trips". Of course, I am absolutely basing this on my own experience growing up in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities of MN, which was a good 45 minutes from the Minnesota Zoo. I don't know anyone that ever claimed the zoo was "too far", it was just more of one of those things you only did once a summer for something to do. Similar to going to Valley Fair (the local amusement park) once a year.
I was just in Youngstown within the last month and went to Cleveland, Erie, and Akron easily on "day trips". Of course, I am absolutely basing this on my own experience growing up in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities of MN, which was a good 45 minutes from the Minnesota Zoo. I don't know anyone that ever claimed the zoo was "too far", it was just more of one of those things you only did once a summer for something to do. Similar to going to Valley Fair (the local amusement park) once a year.
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The Horse Boy
Well-Known Member
I don't see why the city and it’s county would be uninterested in building a modern AZA zoo. It would certainly take the load off of doing an hour and a half day trip to San Antonio and Cameron Park Zoos on the infamously stressful I 35. I think the most effective option would be to repurpose the current Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary into a world class DAK or North Carolina type zoo if they get enough funds and approval from the local government.
Granted I don't live in Austin any longer, but I visit a few times a year. I haven't heard the city or county make any statements of interest in a zoo for quite a while. Has there been any movement? Broadly I don't see the city council supporting a new animal facility. New public zoos just don't happen these days; even the project in Sacramento fell apart. It is a lot of money that the government could spend on another project. I could see a private group or groups investing in Austin Zoo to make it much better, but I don't think that they are really trying for that kind of expansion either. A better private zoo is the way to go for Austin IMO.
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There is one major big reason why the city and county wouldn't support it and too many people on this site seem to neglect as if it isn't a real reason...COST! If money wasn't an issue, of course they would be interested, but most cities don't have hundred's of millions of dollars laying around to open a new zoo.
A zoo is essentially a guaranteed drain on tax payer money that could instead be spent on addressing real, everyday problems its citizens face. Many zoos are unable to support themselves without government subsidies nowadays, why would a city knowingly take on something that is going to be a drain on already limited resources? Zoos that already exist have one major thing that allows them to continue to exist today and continue to receive government subsidies: History. These zoos are already ingrained into a cities fabric and have that support. Yes, many have had to become less and less reliant on government money, but they enjoy a public support that has history behind it and people will fight to keep them for that reason.
As @SwampDonkey pointed out, these projects have failed repeatedly to get off the ground throughout the US and even an existing zoo (Sacramento) failed to get their project going to build on a new site.
EDIT: Just want to add, that I agree that Austin is truly a top candidate in terms of "cities that need a zoo", but saying there isn't any reason to say a city or county wouldn't support it complete ignores the realities of what it takes to build a zoo from the ground up today.
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The Horse Boy
Well-Known Member
Thinking about it, I don't think any 'brand new' aza facility in the US has popped up in years and years now due to all the complexities. I believe I read somewhere on the internet thay Disney's Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, but nothing more since. I've lately been getting anxiety that it could mean the debate and arguments against zoos growing more and more intense that the majority of American visitors might now find even AZA certified well run ones with naturalistic habitats and conversation work depressing and want every single one of these animals returned back to the wild regardless by shutting them all down. Esp in Austin. I hope Sacramento ditching the new zoo project has nothing to with these arguments from the public opposing it.
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I wouldn't be too concerned about this. The lack of big, new AZA type zoos being built is largely only due to the expense of it. As I said, it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to get off the ground and in the past such ventures have always been public ones funded by the government. Today, governments are facing much more of a budgetary crisis and having to answer calls from voters for more financial accountability and responsibility, while funding a zoo just isn't in that deck of cards. There is always the possibility that there becomes a new route through private investment that this happens, but part of the big problem there is the fact that most major cities do in fact already have a zoo somewhat accessible (Austin faces this problem with San Antonio and the glut of others in the area) and that zoos have been proven to have a hard time recouping their investment (there is a reason their is typically such a difference between AZA zoos and private run ones, obviously the funds available to them, but also zoos aren't making enough money to reinvest it.)
The only way I could potentially see a modern, publicly funded AZA zoo starting is if a city/county/state's residents voted for a new tax that is specifically designated to fund the creation of a new zoo that is in the vein of the taxes that support Omaha and Fresno. However, this would be incredibly hard to get voters behind as it is something that is currently nonexistent and they would likely have to wait up to a decade or more to see a return on their investment, in addition to the fact that the idea of "more taxes" is often a non-starter. Again, this comes down to those other zoos having been around and the new zoo is currently just an idea.
This has nothing to do with it. There's plenty of non-AZA places that have opened since 2000, and more no doubt will. The cost of building an AZA level facility from the ground up is considerably more than most start-ups, for the amount of extra detailing and requirements. Many relatively good small facilities have balked at the cost of getting to AZA standards - they can't afford to upgrade existing grounds, imagine trying to build new! The closest things generally come these days are when the big zoos start up offsite breeding facilities. More and more hoops have to be jumped through each year for planning and building codes, adding on to everything.
No, purely the costs ballooned to the point it became unfeasible. Unfortunate, but it was more than the small zoological society was going to be able to manage. The leadership change during the middle of the planning phase didn't help either.
This is something that has concerned me a little as well. I think Great Argus has explained and laid out the nature of the situation very well. It's an interesting comparison to the UK where now significant facilities were still popping up much later on.