The Rainforest of the Americas site plan

snowleopard said:

Since my tour of the Los Angeles Zoo in 2008 (which left me grumbling that there were at least 40 better American zoos) there has been the opening of the Francois langur exhibit, the $40 million Elephants of Asia complex, LAIR's imminent arrival and the future Rainforest of the Americas. It is time for me to make another visit to this improved establishment! However, I simply cannot stand the 1960's C-shaped roundhouse exhibits and as long as those 20+ structures remain then a good chunk of the zoo's enclosures will still be subpar and worthy of a bulldozer. It seems harsh but I honestly feel as if the zoo would be vastly improved if those C-shaped cages were all demolished sooner rather than later as having 50 year-old outdated exhibits in nearly every part of the zoo is rather disappointing.

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I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad LA Zoo experience. Maybe some of it was that much of the zoo was under construction? I remember that you hated the orangutan exhibit, which I would argue is actually a very good orang exhibit because of the climbing opportunities for the apes and resulting viewing opportunities for visitors. Watching a male orangutan climb is very impressive.

I also have to disagree with your overall assessment of the roundhouses. There are some species like jaguar and gibbons where I agree that these exhibits do not serve their inhabitants well as modern exhibits. However several of these exhibits have now been converted into quite good exhibits for mandrills, fossas, Coquerel's sifakas, and snow leopards. The good roundhouse exhibits I do not see as being inferior to other basic exhibits at other zoos. When you do come back and visit I will be interested in your assessment of the new additions and refurbishments of the LA Zoo (hopefully the LA ZooChat branch can tour the zoo with you). There are still large new additions coming with the new reptile-invertebrate complex (LAIR) (opening soon hopefully) and the rain forest portrayed above (just starting construction).

I think that the LA Zoo compares favorably with the Omaha Zoo in terms of exhibit quality and collection, or at least it will when the LAIR and rain forest exhibits open.

Blackduiker

Well thank you for the post mstickmanp. I've been waiting for years to finally see an updated site plan for the Rainforest. And if the older South American section gets a much needed upgrade in the near future, especially for the Jaguars and Maned Wolves, we could be looking at one of the more outstanding South American sections in North America. I am very pleased that there are still plans to exhibit the Uakaris. I would imagine that the Stilt House & Aquaria will, along with various Amazonian fish species, also exhibit various reptiles, amphibians, and insects as well. Since these are still mentioned on the zoo's website. Even with the omission of Jaguars or any other felines in the site plans, if the proposed Jaguar enclosure upgrade does eventually happen, we're talking only a very short walk across the road from one section to the other.

snowleopard said:

Since my tour of the Los Angeles Zoo in 2008 (which left me grumbling that there were at least 40 better American zoos) there has been the opening of the Francois langur exhibit, the $40 million Elephants of Asia complex, LAIR's imminent arrival and the future Rainforest of the Americas. It is time for me to make another visit to this improved establishment! However, I simply cannot stand the 1960's C-shaped roundhouse exhibits and as long as those 20+ structures remain then a good chunk of the zoo's enclosures will still be subpar and worthy of a bulldozer. It seems harsh but I honestly feel as if the zoo would be vastly improved if those C-shaped cages were all demolished sooner rather than later as having 50 year-old outdated exhibits in nearly every part of the zoo is rather disappointing.

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As the lucky Zoochat member that got to tour the zoo with you, all I have to say is that you will enjoy all the new additions to the zoo. I agree that some C-shaped exhibits are inadequate for their inhabitants, but I would also like to say that some of those exhibits are still larger than and overall better than some other zoos' 100% indoor exhibits. I been inside around 80% of of the round houses at the zoo and they are definitely larger than they look. I would love if they could get updated with photo friendly mesh, but with the way that the LA budget is, I don't see it happening anytime soon unless the zoo becomes private.

mstickmanp said:

As the lucky Zoochat member that got to tour the zoo with you, all I have to say is that you will enjoy all the new additions to the zoo. I agree that some C-shaped exhibits are inadequate for their inhabitants, but I would also like to say that some of those exhibits are still larger than and overall better than some other zoos' 100% indoor exhibits. I been inside around 80% of of the round houses at the zoo and they are definitely larger than they look. I would love if they could get updated with photo friendly mesh, but with the way that the LA budget is, I don't see it happening anytime soon unless the zoo becomes private.

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This raises the point that the LA Zoo has come a GREAT ways towards becoming a first-class zoo, but it still has a lot of work to do. The giraffe, zebra, lion, tiger, hippo, jaguar, Indian rhino, siamang, black bear, Andean condor, and several of the aforementioned roundhouse exhibits are merely adequate, if that. With the current economy there probably won't be another building boom at the zoo for a long time. I suspect that some of these species may disappear before new exhibits are built for them. Hopefully in another decade most of the outdated exhibits will be gone and LA will truly hit its potential as a great zoo. It is a good and getting better zoo.

DavidBrown said:

I wonder what will be in the aquaria? Piranhas or other Amazon fish?

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Regarding the aquaria building, I was reading an old document from January of last year and it says that an ant/frog exhibit was replaced with a Caiman exhibit, and an eel exhibit has been scrapped from the building.

Hopefully more details will be available soon.

LINK: http://eng.lacity.org/projects/zoo/pdf/min_01_26_12_ZBOC.pdf