In the late 1980s (I believe Jungle World opened in 1985) or early 1990s, as a child, I watched a documentary on the Icelandic television on the role of zoos in conservation (not many such found its way to Iceland I'm afraid) and it was this documentary (the name of which I wish I knew and could see again) that started my interest in zoos along with family visits to the zoos of Aalborg, Hamburg and Rotterdam around the same time.
I recall three zoos being featured; Bronx, Washington and Jersey. Possibly there were others too but I don't remember them at least. I don't remember much of the Jersey scenes but I do remember those from Washington being about their Golden Lion Tamarin work. Back then they were very rare in captivity. Most I remember the Bronx scenes though; in fact the show opened with various scenes from Jungle World, which back then was still state of the art. A Black Panther walking on a branch, Proboscis Monkeys gathering, and Gharials swimming in very realistic jungle settings (remember I was 10 or so). I knew there would be no Proboscic Monkeys before I went there in September, and I assumed that the panther exhibit would not be as big as it looked on TV when I was younger, but at least I expected to see Gharials. It was thus quite a disappointment to see that they were gone.
"The gharials in Jungleworld apparently never did well in the large pools system due to problems regulating the pool temperature. The last one was moved to San Diego in 2003.
@Cat-Man To my knowledge, one of the beaches was replaced with a concrete pad with radiant heating coils (not sure if sand was put on top or not) and a faux branch was installed with a heater for the gharials.
