Best Zoo Exhibit in U.S.

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BlackRhino

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Not sure if this has been brought up on here before, but I was just wondering what everyone thinks the best zoo exhibit in the U.S. is. I don't mean a single enclosure of an exhibit (i.e. Gorilla enclosure in CGF), but a whole exhibit (i.e. Congo Gorilla Forest).
 
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I think you're going to be hard pressed to find many people or many lists by people that don't include Congo.
 
Hmm, interesting question. My list is only exhibits I've seen in person, so bear with me.

10. Maharajah Jungle Trek (DAK)-IMO, it is one of the best set of Asian exhibits I have seen.

9. Cat House (Cincinnati)-This makes the list for the collection. I don't think it's as bad (exhibit wise) as others here, but I can understand their point.

8. Land of Crocodiles (St.Augustine Alligator Farm)-Like the cat house, this makes the list on the strength of it's collection. The exhibits themselves aren't bad, just not up to par with the collection. However, seeing virtually every crocodilian on the planet in a 45 minute walk is amazing.

7. World of Darkness (Bronx)-Yeah, I know it's closed. However, it was easily one of the most interesting exhibits I've been in.

6. Bug House (Cincinnati)-I do enjoy the creepy crawlies, and Cincinnati's exhibit is easily the best in the US.

5.Kilimanjaro Safari (DAK)-It's the African Plains in Florida. The merits and demerits of the exhibit have been discussed ad nasuem on here.

4. Sharks/Manatees (SeaWorld Orlando)- Sharks would've made my list on it's own had SeaWorld not turned the walking part of the exhibit into a restaurant. The Manatee exhibit is here because of it's conversational efforts.

3. Kelp Forest (Monterey Bay)- Monterey is the only major aquarium I've been to and it didn't disappoint. The Kelp Forest tank is simply astounding.

2. Range of the Jaguar (Jacksonville)-If it weren't for the subpar River's Edge area, I would have put this at the top of my list. Still, the Jaguar exhibits, Temple, and aviary are top notch exhibits.

1. Congo Gorilla Forest (Bronx)-The first time I went in there, my jaw hit the floor. It is simply too amazing to describe.
 
Kilimanjaro Safari
Range of the Jaguar
Congo Gorilla Forest
Arctic Ring of Life
Africa at Kansas City Zoo

These are a few that imeadiatly popped into my head
 
Congo Gorilla Forest, Bronx
Himalayan Highlands, Bronx
Amazon Rising, Shedd Aquarium
Grizzly and Wolf exhibits, Woodland Park
Fragile Kingdom, Brookfield
Australasian Roadhouse, Columbus
Reptile Mesa, San Diego Zoo
Field Exhibits, SDWAP.
 
Out of one's I've been to:

1. Lied Jungle(Omaha)
2. Kingdom of the Night(Omaha)
3. Journey into Africa(SDWAP)4. Africa!(KC)
5. Desert Dome(Omaha)
6. Monkey Trails(SD)
7. Elephant Odyssey(SD)
8. Ituri River(SD)
9. Gorilla Tropics(SD)
10. North America(Columbus)

Also some great individual exhibits that I left out because they're not part of a larger exhibit.
 
mweb08 said:
Out of one's I've been to:

Also some great individual exhibits that I left out because they're not part of a larger exhibit.
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They can be individual exhibits, just not individual exhibits within larger exhibits, like if you said Elephant habitat at SDZ rather than EO.
 
BlackRhino said:
They can be individual exhibits, just not individual exhibits within larger exhibits, like if you said Elephant habitat at SDZ rather than EO.
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Yeah, well I don't like to compare/rank multiple enclosure exhibits vs single enclosures. In fact, I don't even think it's fair to rank something like Africa at KC vs something relatively small like Ituri Forest. I prefer to try to be as close as apples to apples as possible, but I played along here. Good thread.
 
mweb08 said:
Yeah, well I don't like to compare/rank multiple enclosure exhibits vs single enclosures. In fact, I don't even think it's fair to rank something like Africa at KC vs something relatively small like Ituri Forest. I prefer to try to be as close as apples to apples as possible, but I played along here. Good thread.
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This was certainly a dilemma for Jon and I, as we put together our lists of "Top 25 U.S. Zoo Exhibits" for our book (America's Best Zoos). In the end, we couldn't decide how to break up the big mega-exhibits like Kansas City's amazing Africa area, so we left them intact. Therefore, when you look at my list, most of the exhibits listed are mega-exhibits.

The other "dilemma" is what criteria to use in determining what is "best". If you're just looking for the exhibit that is best for the animals, without any regard to the visitor experience, then Philadelphia's Big Cat Falls is likely to be a Top 10 exhibit. I've heard it's one of the best for the cats, but when I was there, I saw hardly any at all, as they were all hiding in their densely planted and realistic exhibits.

On the contrary, the main criteria I used to put together my list was "What exhibit are most likely to make that traveling family pull off the interstate and invest maybe $30 to come see it?" Thus I picked Disney Animal Kingdom's "Kilamanjaro Safari" as my #1 overall exhibit. It's not only the most popular (by sheer numbers visiting it) animal exhibit in the nation, but I've also heard it's the #2 most popular attraction in Disney World! Others in my Top 10 include:
Lied Jungle (Omaha), Africa (KC), Texas Wild! (Ft Worth),
Kingdoms of the Night (Omaha), Wilds of Africa (Dallas), CGF (Bronx),
Range of the Jaguar (Jacksonville), CHINA (Memphis), and
Journey Into Africa (SDWAP)

Of course most of the above are showing up in many of the others' lists. Some other exhibits I listed that may surprise include:
Oklahoma Trails (OK City), Great Northwest (Oregon),
African Savanna (Honolulu), North American Living Museum (Tulsa),
River's Edge (St. Louis), Wild Africa (Binder Park), East Africa (Caldwell),
African Rift Valley (Cheyenne Mtn), Louisiana Swamp (Audubon),
Oceans (Indianapolis), and Asia Trail (National Zoo)

Three new exhibits (opened since our book was published) that we'd definitely consider include:
Russia's Grizzly Coast (Minnesota), Madagascar (Bronx),
Amazon and Beyond (Miami)
 
ANyhuis said:
On the contrary, the main criteria I used to put together my list was "What exhibit are most likely to make that traveling family pull off the interstate and invest maybe $30 to come see it?"
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What exactly was Jon's main criteria? BCF was in his top 25 and his top 2 were Congo Gorilla Forest and Arctic Ring of Life.
 
BlackRhino said:
What exactly was Jon's main criteria? BCF was in his top 25 and his top 2 were Congo Gorilla Forest and Arctic Ring of Life.
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He's big into "Exhibit Design" -- that is looking at what the exhibit looks like empty, without the animals in it. He wants to be a zoo exhibit designer in his "next life".
 
@ANyhuis: I know that Jon wants to be a zoo exhibit designer, and so it's no wonder your co-author is in love with zoos that have naturalistic exhibits (Woodland Park, Bronx, etc), and he rates "Big Cat Falls" quite highly in Philadelphia. You've both got some great choices and I've seen 15 on your list and 18 on Jon's. I've actually been to 12 of your top 14 and 12 of Jon's top 15, but there are a handful that I'm still missing. Maybe on another road trip...:)

@BlackRhino: should we really include aquariums? I think that I'd leave them off of my list as they are quite different from zoos. However the "Ocean Voyager" tank at Georgia Aquarium, "Amazon Rising" and "Wild Reef" at Shedd Aquarium, and "Kelp Forest" at Monterey Bay Aquarium are all outstanding.
 
I don't think we should include aquariums. I was thinking more along the lines of exhibits that might be found under Allen and Jon's top 25 exhibit list in ABZ.
 
FSBlue said:
4. Sharks/Manatees (SeaWorld Orlando)- Sharks would've made my list on it's own had SeaWorld not turned the walking part of the exhibit into a restaurant. The Manatee exhibit is here because of it's conversational efforts.
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Just to add some humor, I think you meant "conservational" efforts, right? If it has "conversational" efforts, that would give it a whole new meaning -- like they're trying to teach the manatees how to talk! LOL!
 
@ANyhuis

It looks like I'm going to be heading down to Miami soon and I'm planning on heading to the MetroZoo. I was looking at their website and reading about Amazon and Beyond. On paper, it would seem that it would be far better than Range of the Jaguar, yet it didn't even crack your top 10 while ROJ did. I'm just curious as to what you saw in each.
 
@FSBlue: The brilliant book "America's Best Zoos" was released in early 2008, while "Amazon and Beyond" didn't open to the public until December 6th, 2008 (I was there on opening day). The $50 million set of exhibits was completed after the book was published.
 
@SL

Ah, I didn't know it had opened that recently. What are your opinions of the two exhibits then?
 
Overall I really like Amazon & Beyond and it has some great exhibits for jaguars, giant otters, anteaters, crocodiles, etc. I'll be visiting MetroZoo next week and I hope the foliage will be more full than my last visit.
 
@FSBlue: I have seen the exhibit 4 times so I am pretty familiar with it. All the exhibits are pretty good although its not much of an immersion experience as holding buildings are in plain view of visitors. All the animal habitats are excellent, the two bests being the Giant River Otters and the Jaguars. The Giant Otter habitat is perhaps the best in the nation while the jaguar habitat probably is 4th or 5th best in the nation for that species.
 
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