As is so often the case, people commenting on something about which they have only half the knowledge leads to misunderstanding!
The introductory article in Zoo Grapevine magazine makes absolutely plain that this is not an attempt to categorically rank the very best zoo exhibits in the world, that it is, really, just an opportunity for a few zoo-ish people to write about the places that, to them, are the ones they like most. Nothing more or less than that.
And in the piece, the contributors do mark as their own the various exhibits that are chosen. So it is wholly possible to see which person was unwise enough to nominate the Alfred Brehm house as his favourite....
There are many zoo nerds on this site who really should fork over the cash to receive a subscription to what is truly an excellent quarterly magazine. The latest issue is 40 large, glossy, all-colour pages and it is as always jam-packed with a multitude of interesting facts and figures. The only criticism that I've heard in regards to Zoo Grapevine is that the "zoo news" section can sometimes be outdated by the time it goes to publication, but that is less than 10% of each issue. There are always many pages of book reviews, zoo reviews and all sorts of other goodies.
The article is titled "The World's 50 Greatest Zoo Exhibits" and naturally that is a presumptuous yet effective way to obtain the attention of the masses. The Chairman Tim Brown is well on his way to visiting 1,000 zoos in his lifetime, and other contributors include the likes of Jonas Livet (more than 1,000 zoos), famous zoo directors and even high school teachers like myself who have nevertheless written more than 500 pages of zoo reviews over the past few years.
I cannot speak to the exact method of how Tim Brown ended up with his list of 50 (most of which are absolutely terrific exhibits) but my contribution was to type up a few paragraphs on about 6 different exhibit complexes and he chose 3 from that total. Each of the exhibits in the magazine has a long write-up and the name of the individual who selected it. For example, the legendary zoo director Dr. Bernhard Blaszkiewitz chose the Bronx Zoo's "Mouse House".
My 3 contributions were "Lost Forest: Monkey Trails" at San Diego Zoo (pygmy hippo, yellow-backed duiker, slender-snouted crocodile and numerous primates in modern habitats seen via a winding boardwalk); Kansas City Zoo's 95-acre "Africa" section that includes arguably one of the world's truly amazing chimpanzee exhibits (3 acres!); and "Kingdoms of the Night" which is the world's largest nocturnal house and is found at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. One could make a valid case that parts of Lost Forest at San Diego Zoo are piecemeal separate enclosures, or that Africa at Kansas City should include either all of the exhibits or perhaps just the chimps, and that Omaha has the biggest of everything but not necessarily the best of everything. Vive la difference in opinion!
The top 50 list could perhaps have been divided up into the top 50 of Europe and then a separate list of the top 50 of North America, and even a third top 50 of the rest of the world. What an incredible 150 exhibits we would have had published! I'm sure that there still would have been individuals exclaiming that specific exhibits had been missed. What is wonderful about the top 50 list that is in Zoo Grapevine is that it is has sparked a tremendous amount of great conversation (may it continue to do so!) and there is a really impressive overview of many great exhibits. A drive-thru section is on there, an amphibian complex, a rock hyrax enclosure, a dolphin pool, a couple of nocturnal houses (both brilliant), a reptile house, a couple of rainforest complexes, a desert house, an aquarium, Arctic/Antarctic zones, immersion habitats, rich zoological history and at least 5 exhibits devoted to great apes. Tim Brown seems to have taken a really neat selection from across the globe and compiled them into 11 pages that offer up explanations and rationale behind every single choice.
