The raptor exhibits at the San Diego Zoo are enormous, much like the netted condor enclosure at the San Diego WAP. I'm not sure if there is a zoo in North America that has bigger or better habitats for raptors than San Diego.
Only those four? i really would have expect them to have many more species, well i guess is because the large room that each exihbit already takes, see i know most of you love big exihbits but i love to see as many species as possible in a Zoo.
I lost count of how many birds of prey Berlin Zoo had when i last visited, but i can imagine that by american standars some of the exihbits would probably need an update. Too bad, i really hope there is enough animals when i visit in april, this is my biggest consern.
In the early 70s when these exhibits were built, they were subdivided and housed many more species. San Diego has wisely combined exhibits into larger units and focused on attempting to breed these 4 rare (and impressive) species. The East Berlin raptor aviary on the side of the Alfred Brehem house is huge, contains many species, but is probably useless as a breeding facility due to the competition and crowding that is inevitable in such a mixed species setup. This is the difference between a 19th century and 21st century approach to what a zoo should be.
I frequently (and justifiably) criticize many things at San Diego, but these raptor exhibits are truly marvelous.
Well i partially agree with you, but there are a lot of modern exihbits in the Berlin Zoological Gardens, i remember the Andean Condor aviary was extremely large, huge really, and the Hippo house look like a futuristic exihbit, it is very large as well.
There is several good things in Berlin for you to see as exihbits with lots of space, there is a mixed south american species exihbits, it was not my favorite, but is larger than anything i have seen for this species so far in over 50 zoos.
But i understand what you mean, that is why i said that for the ones who hold as a priority large space exihbits, this is not your top choice to visit.
But is you love to see rare species and the biggest number of animals species you can in a single zoo visit, then Berlin Zoo is the place for you.
About San Diego Zoo, please don't get me wrong, i have never visited this Zoo, going this April, but it is been in my dreams for years, and there is no way i could come out of there unhappy. I wish i could live near San Diego, the comment was just out of surprice that they did not have more species in this area, but that is ok, i understand why they did it, i have read the books about the reduction of the collection and why.
But i still figured there will be about 4 to 6 species more.
