Ah, yes. The cliffs of the Nile River. Perfectly suitable for 1.1 in an amazing recreation of their natural habitat. Too bad they'll be locked away in an even smaller area for five months depending on weather. Bravo, Cincinnati. Another top-notch waste of money geared towards the visitors. Of course, to make sure when they're on-show, the visitors can't miss the third largest animals on earth! Message received loud and clear. Conservation through compartmentalization.
It's not exactly an original criticism, but I think zoos should be building hippo exhibits designed for herds rather than breeding pairs. Presumably this also lacks grazing?
I was going through some of my zoo maps that I started to make in 2012 and I found my first map of Cincinnati that I never finished and later along to create a new one. I even drew out 'Africa' before it was even half completed. I thought people might find it interesting that this is a close 3D rendering of what the zoo originally had in mind for the last two phases for Africa. Today, in comparison to reality, the painted dog and hippo exhibits are accurately placed, however, what isn't there today is the crocodile exhibit, and instead of a small visitor's yard in between all of this there is a meerkat exhibit. The reason why the crocodiles weren't added is because there is an important service road where the crocodiles would've been exhibited. Plans for Africa were drawn out in approximately 2008 and they do not even compare in almost any way to how the attraction turned out. I was told by one of the designers the reason why the exhibit was altered multiple times in planning is because they measured the area incorrectly, and had to make major changes
