Great pictures - very informative, indeed - from Big Cat Falls, mweb09! Is this a brand new set of exhibits in Philadelphia? By the looks of them I would guess that this is the case. They look very well furnished; brilliant landscape architecture as so often in new exhibits in US zoos. Very interesting!
But, as always, I suspect that the enclosures are smaller than I would want them to be. Could you tell me something with regards to the size of them?
This was built in 2007 and won the best exhibit award as you can see by one of my pics.
Don't know the square footage of these exhibits. The leopared exhibit in this picture is a pretty good size imo for these species. Bigger than the vast majority of ones I've seen. The puma exhibit is the one where I think size is a real problem. The jaguar exhibit is a decent size, but I would like it to be larger. The tiger and lion exhibits are a good size as well imo, but certainly could be larger. I think if you look at all of my photos, you can get a good idea of the size of the exhibits. I still have some more photos to come as well.
Partially off-topic and just a general observation:
Often I am surprised that when I ask for an estimation of an enclosure size, I get answers basically saying "I don´t know" or "I am not good at estimating square meter/feet size".
Is it really that difficult?!!
"Spacial perception", anyone? (Hope that is a proper English expression... ).
"Big Cat Falls" won the AZA Best Exhibit award in 2007, and all of the naturalistic outdoor enclosures are a redevelopment of the old Carnivora Building. There are 5 large yards that all appear to be above average, and while I have not visited myself the only major complaint that I've heard from visitors is that the big cats are occasionally difficult to locate. American zoos (and many other zoos worldwide) have definitely gone towards naturalistic exhibits over the past couple of decades, and the old-style big cat and bear grottoes are simply not acceptable in the 21st century.
Often I am surprised that when I ask for an estimation of an enclosure size, I get answers basically saying "I don´t know" or "I am not good at estimating square meter/feet size".
If one is good at judging square footage, I would think they would be able to look at all the pics I'm posting, then look at the pic of the plan itself, and get a decent estimate.
