Do you think there will ever be a new AZA zoo built in the USA?

What are the youngest "traditional" zoo/aquariums in the AZA?

Should be all aquariums, several of which have opened in the 2000s or 2010s. OdySea Aquarium in Arizona opened in 2016, so that might be the newest one period.

Far as I can tell, no traditional AZA zoo has opened since the late 1990's. Disney's Animal Kingdom and Rolling Hills Zoo both date back to then.
 
If we count the Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge as a separate AZA facility then they opened in 2001, but it is definitely not a traditional zoo.
New aquariums are more common than new zoos. Mote Marine should be opening their new large aquarium in a couple of months and they are AZA accredited. SEA LIFE Legoland Florida opened earlier this year and is not accredited yet, but the other SEA LIFE aquariums are, so it should be soon.

The new Wonders of Wildlife in Springfield opened in 2017. The original was 2001, but it was less than 50% the size of the current place. Shreveport Aquarium opened in 2017 and is not AZA yet but is in their Pathway program, for whatever that is worth.

I know the intention of the question is zoos in the USA portion of AZA, but Seaworld Abu Dhabi opened in 2023.

I don't think any new traditional zoos have been built since DAK that are AZA accredited. Some have lost their accreditation for several years and then regained it, but that isn't like building a new zoo to AZA specs.

The truth is that building a zoo from the ground up to AZA specs is not really possible for a private individual unless one is independently wealthy and just wants to blow a lot of cash on the project - a lot of cash, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. You might be able to open a very small zoo to AZA standards, but it likely could not draw enough to keep the doors open. Running a zoo is costly, and without money from outside sources it is likely an endeavor that will quickly fail. This is why most private zoos have side enterprises for breeding and sales to other private entities.

The small private places that make it are typically ran by the owner providing much of the hands on work along with relying on volunteers and a few low paid individuals looking for experience so that they can move to larger AZA zoos, so turn over can be high.
 
The most current one I can think of is St. Louis Zoo's WildCare Park. Apart from that, not much else springs to mind.
Hopefully a definite sign that there aren't a growing number of Americans who hate anf oppose zoos or saying they make them sad. I would be upset if these sentiments were noe American as apple pie
 
Hopefully a definite sign that there aren't a growing number of Americans who hate anf oppose zoos or saying they make them sad. I would be upset if these sentiments were noe American as apple pie
I don't think that we are at that point yet. I think the largest barrier to building new private and public zoos is the cost and in the case of public zoos the priorities of the local governments.

Part of the issue, from a cost perspective, are how stringent the AZA has become since around 2005-2015. Lots of zoos that were on the lower end or had financial concerns from the AZA either lost their accreditation or gave it up voluntarily around that time. Jackson, Roanoke, Pittsburgh, Wildlife World Zoo (Arizona), ZooTampa/Lowry Park, etc. not to mention what seems like retaliation at Columbus more recently. All of the large city zoos regained their accreditation, but the small or private zoos chose not to.
 
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