Missed Collections US version

jusko88

jusko88

Well-Known Member
What good collections have closed in the US that you miss?

Even though I never been to this place and just recently found out about it. I mis the collection that Catskill Game Farm had.
 
I visited the Catskills Game Farm many times in the 1980s. And once more about 10 years ago. It had an amazing hoofed mammal collection.
 
I only visited once, but I recall that Benson's Wild Animal Park in New Hampshire had a pretty good collection as well.
 
TeamTapir223 said:
Bronx Zoo-Proboscis Monkey !

Team Tapir223
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It would have been cool to see the hoatzins there too, which I think were there at the same time as the proboscis monkeys.

I would have loved to have seen an African forest elephant at the Columbus Zoo when it was there in the 1980s. Would have loved to have seen the eastern lowland gorilla at the Houston Zoo, but apparently he was in a horrible exhibit so maybe I didn't want to.
 
As a hardcore ungulate enthusiast, I would have to say I miss Catskill Game Farm also. Another collection I miss is the Hamburg Zoo (the one before Hagenbeck Tierpark), they had some pretty cool species like Javan rhinos and Amazonian manatees. Another one I miss is Catalina Island Bird Park, I walked through the ruins of that park and I heard they had a pretty awesome collection. Another one that I dont know much about but want to say I miss is Bremmen Tierpark another defunct german zoo, the cool thing about them is that they had Chinkara gazelles !!!. I know this facility is not defunct but I miss London Zoo's past collection, check out zootierliste and you will see what I mean. If you guys think West Berlin has a huge collection now, well they at one time had more then 2,000 species all in one place, they had some great rarities like Kashmir stag, Yarkand gazelle, Mountain nyala amongst many others. As an ungulate enthusiast I miss the old deer collection at Woburn Safari Park and the old ungulate collection at Knowsley Safari Park because that had some amazing species like Water chevrotain and Mongolian wild ass, another ungulate collection I really miss is the San Diego Zoo's collection in Horn and Hoof Mesa along with the collection that the San Diego Wild Animal Park once had, they had some pretty cool species like Saiga and Nilgiri thar. Another ungulate collection I miss is the collection that Busch Gardens Tampa had in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, they had Oribi and Hunters hartebeest. Anyways I could go on and on and on....
 
Pleistohorse said:
Bronx Zoo-Rare Animal Range. Believe it was Gaunacos, Pzewalski Horses, and Wisent in the 1980's. ?
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Prewalski's Wild Horse is still at the zoo, just on the monorail. What I believe is the old Guanaco pen has an Alpaca in it. I'm not sure where exactly the area of the zoo this exhibit was but if it was near Birds of Prey then the enclosures are still there, just run down and overgrown, kind of sad really.

~Thylo:cool:
 
An US-collection which I surtainly would visit if it still existed : Life Fellowship / Seffner.
Great collection of Rock iguanas, Amazon parrots and tortoises !
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Prewalski's Wild Horse is still at the zoo, just on the monorail. What I believe is the old Guanaco pen has an Alpaca in it. I'm not sure where exactly the area of the zoo this exhibit was but if it was near Birds of Prey then the enclosures are still there, just run down and overgrown, kind of sad really.

~Thylo:cool:
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I remember seeing the P. Horses on the monorail in 2003. The rare animal range was north of the old Lion House, near the birds.
 
Pleistohorse said:
I remember seeing the P. Horses on the monorail in 2003. The rare animal range was north of the old Lion House, near the birds.
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Yeah then that was the area I'm talking about. I would have taken some pics if I wasn't in the middle of a run.

~Thylo:cool:
 
Some past collections that I miss include the Old world primate collections at San Francisco Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and Louisiana Purchase Zoo and Gardens from back in the 1970s and 1980s. San Diego Zoo had 7 species of langur at one time and at that time with some cool species including Nilgiri langur, East javan silver langur, Southern dusky langur, Thailand banded langur, Indian hanuman langur, East borneo proboscis monkey, and Red-shanked douc langur. at that time San Francisco Zoo had 8 species of macaque, they had Burmese pigtail, Malayan pigtail, Rhesus macaques, Stump tailed macaques, Barbary macaques, Lion tailed macaque, Celebes crested macaque and Moor macaque. The Louisiana Purchase Zoo and Gardens at that time had 6 or 7 species of Guenon, they had Schmidts' spot-nosed guenons, Moustached guenons, DeBrazzas guenons, Diana monkeys, Stuhlman's guenons, and White throated guenons.
 
I understand the park is "highly controversial" to some people, but I really, really, really miss the Sea World that was in Aurora, Ohio from 1970-2001. To think that Northeast Ohio was home to the globally-known park (the second one constructed, with Orlando not opening until '73), giving people in the midwest who couldn't afford to fly across the country the opportunity to see such a wide-array of marine animals was absolutely phenomenal. I've so many fond childhood memories from our annual family visits (...although later in life, I never realized just how small the park actually was!). As a parent today, I am so disheartened I was denied the opportunity to take my own children to experience the diverse collection they had, as well as some of the entertainment options, too.

In addition, I also miss the old Cleveland Aquarium that was located in Gordon Park. While neglected, somewhat-dated and sadly deteriorating at the end, I think I would much rather have had that collection/facility than the recently-opened Greater Cleveland Aquarium that was retrofit into the old Powerhouse Complex. I guess local residents are just supposed to be happy that we have something after going without for so long, but I really wish one of the non-profit groups would have gained a stronger foothold with one of their proposals. I understand we were never going to get something like Chicago or Baltimore or the Georgia Aquarium (although that would've been really cool!), but there is no reason why we couldn't have something as nice/comparable to the Newport, KY facility.
 
One defunct collection that I miss is the Kings island Wild Animal Habitat/Lion Country Safari.

Toward the end of it's existence, the park had a more global collection as opposed to the almost exclusively African theme of it's early years. They had a really nice Asian mixed hoofed stock exhibit along the monorail. In this exhibit was a huge herd of blackbuck, nilgai, axis deer, various vulture species, and even gaur.

I still visit the amusement park once a year, and you can now walk in a lot of the areas that were once part of the field exhibits. The elephant barn is now a building that is used for seasonal attractions.
 
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