That is an enormous viewing area, but I suppose that since the park receives over 4.2 million visitors per year that space is badly needed. Geomorph, how do you think this river hippo exhibit compares to the ones in San Diego, Saint Louis, San Antonio, etc?
This is my top-ranked hippo exhibit I have seen; I like this one a little better than San Diego's even though that one is larger. That is followed by the two in Kilimanjaro Safaris in Disney's Animal Kingdom; then St. Louis and San Antonio follow that, in that order; then the one in Pangani Forest Exploration Trail at Disney's Animal Kingdom. I would say that the pygmy hippo exhibit in San Diego is next and is my favorite for that species.
I know all these Hippo exibits in the Usa with the exception of San Antonio. They have excellent viewing areas and they look great to the visitors. Anyway, they are diffrent to each other, but the conection to all them is they all have to small landparts for the Hippos!
Altough they spend most time of they day in the water, they also go outside, walking around and grassing ( if they have opportunities to do that ) Especially in the night, hippos are very actice on land and they need more space, than so many people think !
Thats why I don't like all these new Hippo exhibits, which are first build for the visitors than for the Hippos. But of course, these new exhibts are better han the old hippo bathtubes from the past! But I don't understand why the zoos spend so much money for all these new elephant exhibits, but really good hippo or rhino exhibts are really, really rare in the zoo world. Why ?
But I don't understand why the zoos spend so much money for all these new elephant exhibits, but really good hippo or rhino exhibts are really, really rare in the zoo world. Why ?
That is an excellent question. My guess would be in part it is because hippos and rhinos don't have a large group of advocates breathing down the zoo world's neck for better conditions like elephants do.
Here in California at least the old hippo exhibits are getting torn down as the old hippos pass. This has happened at Sacramento, Fresno, and San Francisco. The LA Zoo still has an older exhibit that was meant as a temporary exhibit while a new one was built, but that project got cancelled because of cost overruns on the new elephant exhibit, so it seems likely that this exhibit will close eventually too. Hopefully there will be some new hippo exhibits at some point. SF has hippos again, but I haven't seen their exhibit. Fresno has announced that they hope to have hippos at some point. Generally it seems like new hippo exhibits are emerging in the US, but their modernization is going to take a looooooong time.
