WOW exhibits or ordinary

[jay]

A question that I thought should be discussed as it relates to a number of threads here.
Is it better to have world class, highly expensive, interpretive exhibits that give the WOW factor for visitors. Or are boring, standard exhibits better if they provide all the needs for the animals.
Tarongas chimp exhibit I feel is not a WOW exhibit. That ungly brick wall along the back, the exhibit not naturalistic or great for intepretation but the zoo has hit the jackpot in terms of chimp behaviour, troop size, healthy and long lived, great breeding results and all the chimps needs appear to be well met.

Melbournes Elephnat exhibit on the other hand is to me a WOW exhibit, certainly it provides all the needs (well almost) of the elephants. However there is a lot of wasted space that could have provided more room for the elephants and it cost a fortune.

 

[Zooplantman]

Is it better to have world class, highly expensive, interpretive exhibits that give the WOW factor for visitors. Or are boring, standard exhibits better if they provide all the needs for the animals.

"Is it better".... for what?
For animal retirement facilities...probably not (as you pose the question).
For conservation education of visitors, ...perhaps it is (according to the polls of visitors)

In any case, why do you pose this as an either/or situation rather than demanding that zoos do both with the same exhibit?

 

[jay]

I'm thinking in terms of cost for starters.Using examples of what I know Melbourne zoo spent a fortune on a WOW exhibit for six animals. There isn't a lot of room for expansion when the herd grows and there is a lot of space wasted on interpretive items that are now being under utilzed and really don't have much relevance to the welfare of the animals involved. (eg a few small aviaries without anything in them, a walk that goes past a 'native' food garden,) all of which are neglected. Wouldn't it be better if the money was spent to provide more room for the animals or allow more individuals to be kept.
Another example is that most of the zoos in Australia are designed to hold one pair of tigers. This means it can be hard to hold extra animals that are not wanted for breeding or create a bigger more self sustaining population.
Werribees hippo exhibit is great but can not hold many more animals though there is aneed for them.

 

[PAT]

Melbourne Zoo staff must have been reading this forum because there has been a huge shift in their keeping of birds. All of the aviaries are now full and usually have a theme (e.g. PNG) and now the four asian aviaries are looking good especially the largest one that is now themed as Papua New Guinea and has 7 or 8 species in it. I think the whole asian rainforest area adds up to a WOW exhibit. The tiger, otter and orang-utan exhibits are all first class, and the interpretation throughout is superb and includes a whole asian village.

I can't think of many stand alone exhibits that really have that wow factor for me except Melbourne Zoo's orang-utan sanctuary and even that has three excellent exhibits for two charismatic species.

 

[Simon McGlary]

Does a world class exhibit have to cost mega amounts of money? Surely, depending on the species, if you have sufficient land and the natural geaography and location of the zoo could allow for the construction of a WOW exhibit for a comparitively low sum of money. If all goes well at Highland Wildlife Park it could be that, in my opinion, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland could well end up with just that and examples of both ends of the scale. Most people seem to say Budongo is a WOW at in excess of 5 million pounds Sterling and the polar bear enclosure could well be a WOW at 100,000 (could have been 300,00 without the assistance of the army!)