I'm curious to know what Zoochatters would consider their Top 20 American zoos if Cincinnati doesn't make the cut or barely makes the cut. I'm aware there are a few threads dedicated to listing favorite zoos, but no attempt to aggregate the replies into a single "official" Zoochat list to get a clearer look. I've seen at least one Zoochatter say that he preferred Cincinnati to Columbus, so while that might not be the majority opinion, it's far from absurd either, especially if the more theme park-ish ambience of Columbus turns you off.
This is one of the interesting things about this. While the top four facilities in the country tends to be pretty consistent, I feel like even the fifth spot can be a lot more controversial I could name a half-dozen facilities that seem to be someone's fifth choice - so in my mind once you get to the fifth spot, it starts to become more of a matter of opinion and personal taste. Columbus is one of the more common picks, but as you mention, for some the theme park ambience of Columbus is controversial, as are human-related aspects of theming. "It wouldn't make my top twenty" is usually used as a derogatory sort of term but I'm not sure you could make a list of the top twenty that is objective without the reviewer's taste peeking through.
Individual experience is also kind of severely understated on ZooChat. Not only do we all have individual preferences in zoos, but also different experiences - seeing hippos underwater for the first time will be a powerful experience for some people if they haven't been to another zoo that's done it, but may be pretty boring to someone whose local facility has done that for years. We all visit these facilities in probably a unique order from one another and anywhere could be our first time seeing something. There's also circumstance. I try to visit every facility twice to offset this a little. I visited Omaha over four days and I'm not sure any 'one day' would have been as strong by itself so much as four days let me see everything two or three times. I visited there close to winter that some of the African species were off-display, Kansas City on a day the chimpanzees and lions weren't visible and with a construction site in the heart of Africa, Toledo while the reptile house was closed, the great Chester Zoo when a large portion of their African region was closed, YWP on a crowded holiday when they were closing early, Detroit for an hour during a minor family crisis, etc.
Again, on top of all that, there's individual preferences -- some prefer an open, park-like atmosphere, some prefer density with things around every corner, some find a proper loop boring and constrictive and some don't like complicated pathing, some of us prefer human elements segregated from animal areas and some like being able to watch animals from a restaurant, some don't like exhibits containing references to poaching and human enroachment on nature, some more casual guests don't like too much walking, some hate the sight of concrete even when it makes sense, etc.
IMO Cincinnati is one of a handful of zoos (along with Brookfield, Minnesota, Detroit, and some of the Pacific coast zoos like Oregon) which receives a disproportionate percentage of criticism here not because these zoos are worse or more problematic than most zoos in the country, but because a disproportionate number of American Zoochatters live near them and so are more familiar with them, can more easily remember and track the losses or stagnation in their collections and exhibits, and are more likely to grow impatient or frustrated with them and judge them more harshly. This can distort perceptions of the actual quality of these zoos.
I think this is the nail on the head - and speaking from personal experience, I have both been accused of being too favorable and too negative on Brookfield, both sides of which are linked to me having such a close relationship with the facility - on the other hand visiting Kansas City, Denver and event Saint Louis, all are well-liked facilities but seemed to lack the level of discussion surrounding them as Brookfield, despite receiving better "rankings" and praise on the board. Saint Louis, despite being almost always considered one of the nation's top four or five zoos, has far less discussion than Bronx, Omaha or San Diego. It was noticeable to me that the closure of Saint Louis' Chain of Lakes area was never covered on ZooChat, and while it looks like a pretty unremarkable area you would think the closure of an area at a top five zoo would be of discussion.
Another interesting example might be Milwaukee -- which is very rarely mentioned in general zoo discussion threads and feels almost nonexistent in that part of the board, but has pretty active news threads nonetheless simply because there are several Wisconsin locals and northern Illinois visitors. It's not a popular or broadly liked facility but enough people visit to create discussion.
For example, I would argue that the North Carolina Zoo has suffered as much from a stagnant collection, which is not that species-rich in the first place, as Minnesota or Detroit have, but since there aren't as many Zoochatters whose local zoo is North Carolina (though there are a few), the latter hasn't received as much criticism over the years.
This is a fascinating example when one takes into account the slow closure of the African Pavilion at the North Carolina Zoo. Several species left the collection over time, the exhibit stood empty for years, and was quietly demolished - and you would think for a zoo with a somewhat low species count this would seem fairly significant. There's definitely been discussion of it on the forum, but less in a 'we lost species' way and more in a 'what happened to that one building?'. I might think if a more known zoo closed such an exhibit, it would create a much more strong reaction.
Likewise there are Florida zoos like Tampa and, to a lesser extent, Miami, which don't receive nearly as much criticism for some of their mediocre exhibitry as Cincinnati has gotten in this thread. I'm not sure Tampa would even be in the discussion of noteworthy zoos if not for a few rarities held there...
I think some of the Florida and California zoos have a certain advantage over the midwest in that they don't have indoor exhibits, while a lot of the more notorious exhibits in northern zoos that suffer criticism tend to be indoor exhibits. San Diego and Tampa don't need to build indoor rainforest buildings as they can create such experiences outdoors. It's often indoor enclosures that seem to be most viewed as outright egregious.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but are we ranking exhibits or the zoos? Zoos are made of up exhibits, yes. But are we going to rank a zoo with one world-class exhibit and 15 mediocre ones above a zoo with consistently good exhibits? That's the question I guess
This is one of the very interesting questions about this sort of thing and one of the places personal taste intercedes that is severely overlooked. I've seen similar thought in pop culture discussion at times - there's a show I like that I'm not going to name, but you might debate between a season that has a couple all-time classic episodes and some real awful ones, or a season that has a lot of strong episodes but not necessarily an all-time classic. You see this with music, too -- where some may favor an album that has consistent ideas and themes over an album that doesn't come together overall but has a few very beloved hits.
Many zoos on this board seem to live or die by a particular exhibit - Detroit is almost always associated with two or three really popular, high-quality exhibits such as Arctic Ring of Life, Georgia Aquarium often seems to owe popularity to Ocean Voyager more than anything else, Indianapolis is associated almost strictly with their orangutan complex, and Brookfield hardly escapes mention for anything else without comments about its two more controversial exhibits... even in Europe, you have Duisburg being a pilgrimage at one point for a specific rarity for a long time, to the point there was universal agreement it was no longer a must-see once the river dolphin passed. All of these things are worthy of mention and discussion but at the same time, these facilities are all going to be bigger and more complex than these one things.
When we moved to Miami in 2019, I had a very good impression of Zoo Miami. This forum loved their rarities and large exhibits. However, after COVID, the zoo is a shell of its former self. Asian River Life still stands but has been closed off and not acknowledged by the zoo in over three years. The Wings of Asia aviary hasn't been open in full for a similar amount of time. The gorilla exhibit is empty with no timetable for the upgrades they mentioned. The last thing resembling a master plan was redoing the tiger exhibit, which we've also not had any updates on since the initial announcement to spark fundraising. No way Miami should be sniffing anyone's Top 25 when it's currently sitting as a shell of its former self.
However, none of those criticisms have come up on this forum. There isn't any discourse to warrant a "Perceptions of Zoo Miami" thread on here. Why? To SeaOtterHQ's point, no one is there. So we all still think of Zoo Miami as this wonderful place from the mid-2000's with a bunch of rarities and large exhibits and it escapes any criticism that is most definitely warranted.
This is such an interesting perspective as someone who hasn't made it out to Miami so far. The lack of news is noticeable at times as I have tried to follow news of the zoo's upcoming Kiwi House but it seems to be the sort of project where nothing's come out since the announcement.
Meanwhile, places like Cincinnati and Brookfield (once again to SeaOttherHQ's point), both having active masterplans with upgrades and expansions already complete and more in the works, cannot please a good portion of this website. Is it because a lot of these improvements revolve around elephants and giraffes instead of platypus? It's absolute baffling.
This is an aspect I've been thinking about a lot recently. The discussions here often focus on a contrast of world-class exhibits for common species and rarities in terrible exhibits, but the majority of facilities are going to have neither - which frankly, probably undermines a lot of decent zoos for lacking in 'must-see' aspects to start - but I think when exhibit quality is mediocre, the same zoochatter who may prefer world-class exhibits for common species will still be drawn to the rarity. Even 'four star' quality exhibits for common species often seem a fraction as popular compared to their 'five star' versions.
I also think that an exhibit bringing in new species to a facility, even if they are a common species, makes some difference in reception than renovations for an existing species, and there's a clear but rarely acknowledged bias towards breeding facility exhibits over other holdings, such as 'retirement' home exhibits or 'rescues'.
Well said
@SeaOtterHQ and
@Joseph G! Myself and others have expressed similar thoughts privately. Certain midwestern zoos in particular such as Cincinnati, Brookfield and Detroit face way too much unnecessary hate on ZooChat over trivial things. Naturally there are plenty of reasonable critiques of these facilities, but the way some people speak about these zoos would make you think they're awful. All of this nitpicking is silly and undermines actual valid criticisms in the name of wanting to complain...
And even when the zoos in question do make progress it never seems to be good enough. This whole thread stemmed from complaints about Cincinnati not choosing a preferred bear species for the grotto revamp, even though their reasoning for going with black bears makes complete sense. Earlier on in this same thread are complaints about Detroit investing in a large children's zoo, suggesting it's a waste of space, ignoring that this project will also reintroduce several key species that left the collection in recent years (a step towards addressing the single biggest complaint about the zoo). Brookfield just addressed their biggest flaw by completing the outdoor primate complex, yet some people have chosen to harp on the flaws like visible concrete in some areas. I'm not saying that isn't a valid critique, it's actually one I agree with, but let's not treat the whole project as a failure for not being perfect.
This is the part that concerns me the most and I'm glad you've mentioned it. Seeing zoos actively try to tackle their weaknesses and get a shrug in response can really undermine the effort taken to address them in the first place, and we need to be wary of grading every zoo for not being an automatic addition to the must-see list.
Regarding Miami, it's been a long time since I've last visited, but at the time I loved it. Saddened to hear it's been slipping a bit as of late. I know some new enclosures by the amphitheater were finished recently, but it is true that a number of future projects are in limbo. What's going on with that ambitious tiger breeding complex they announced a few years back? Likewise for the kiwi house which has been under construction for ages with no updates. For what it's worth the former gorilla exhibit has already been occupied by an Andean bear, a new species for the zoo, which is good. I still have it in my top ten in the U.S. (with respect to the fact I haven't been to New York or Texas yet) and think it's still must-see for Wings of Asia and the substantial hoofstock collection.
Great news to hear about the Andean bear as that's at least a sign of life, and I'm there with you on the Kiwi House situation!
I personally feel like a large, well-designed modern elephant complex is one of the single most important things a zoo can have. Let's be real here: most zoo visitors want to see the ABC animals first and foremost, and elephants are one of the most basic, expected zoo animals there are. They are expensive and difficult to deal with and I don't blame all of the zoos that are opting out of trying to handle elephants anymore, but then it becomes a flashy status symbol when a zoo DOES make that effort. So any zoo investing resources into keeping its elephants for the long haul, and keeping them well, automatically gets approval from me.
This is a pretty good point, I agree. The commitment to care can really show with high level investments like this.
The ABC animals should be the first priority for most zoos. They need to have nice setups for things like giraffes and lions and gorillas and bears and kangaroos. Anything else is gravy. And you don't forget the gravy, absolutely, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the meat and potatoes.
This is a lot like how I try to look at it, and why I tend to favor exhibit complexes using popular megafauna as a focal point with supporting species, hopefully including ideally a rarity, alongside them - the former is your meat and potatos, and the latter is the gravy. The elephants raise the money but you sneak in a little bush baby exhibit, or something. I compare the concept of "umbrella species", although this is a very different context.
I don't want to agree with you, but you are 100% correct - and it seems that the AZA focus over the last 20 years would also agree. Many of us zoo nerds forget that a zoo is, foremost, for the local community and not for enthusiasts, so a homogenization or focus on ABC animals serves that community well. This makes the specialist collections (Sylvan Heights, Iguanaland, etc.) more interesting to us perhaps, and makes the inclusion of "gravy" species more exciting.
I think this applies to exhibit design in a way as well -- sometimes just because something is done better across the country, it's still going to be enriching for the local community. Stingray touch tanks and kangaroo walkabouts feel cliche for many of us but for people who live nearby and don't travel, this may be the first one they experience, and sometimes even if an exhibit is good but not 'great' it can still be a welcome improvement and a chance for the local community to experience a species - I'm pretty excited to have a decent outdoor orangutan enclosure close to home rather than five hours away, even if it's not the best in the nation right now.
