Of the 3 brand-new exhibits in River's Edge that all opened this summer I'm quite a fan of both Andean Bear Range and Sun Bear Forest. In contrast, Painted Dog Preserve is the weakest of the 3 both in viewing opportunities and the design of the narrow enclosure.
That "termite mound" looks like something out of Ghostbusters.....
In general, it appears the three new Rivers' Edge exhibits have not been designed or built with the same level of quality as the original set of enclosures.
That "termite mound" looks like something out of Ghostbusters.....
In general, it appears the three new Rivers' Edge exhibits have not been designed or built with the same level of quality as the original set of enclosures.
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Overall I might just agree with you that the 3 new exhibits seem to have been squeezed into River's Edge but other than the somewhat disappointing African wild dog enclosure I would point out that there are perhaps not many spectacled bear or sun bear exhibits in North America that are as impressive. They might not be knock-your-socks-off exhibits but the spectacled bear enclosure in particular I found to be quite impressive. The rest of River's Edge is so good (other than the shoddy signage) that perhaps the new trio of exhibits could be viewed as slightly underwhelming. I found the two most popular locations, where I don't have a single photo this time around, were the Nile hippo pool and the huge Mississippi fish tank. The crowds were jammed into those locations even though there are wide pathways in both areas.
On my only visit since they were added, I was quite impressed with both the sun and spectacled bear enclosures, they were by far the best I've seen for their species. The spectacled bear sadly was sleeping, but the one sun bear I saw was putting on a show for quite a larger crowd. By far an improvement from the bear grottos and the red panda habitat.
@kiang It has definitely gotten better with time. You can still see the top of the fence really well unfortunately but the greenery around the fence is nowhere near as sparse as it is here.
