Though it excites me that they are doing so much to make the zoo look nice I wonder where the walkway will lead, and I hope they fix up the current Jaguar exhibit, yes it may be planted but it is still concrete.
I see everyone in the AZA is deciding that all new mammal exhibits need an overhead bridge. Not sure how I feel about it. Really I do know and here it is. It can be a useful and enriching tool for moving animals to different exhibits. However, as someone who visits zoos primarily to enjoy photography, I would not want the animals to stay on the bridge for long as the possibility for a natural looking photograph is zero.
The reasoning for doing it here and at Philadelphia (which is the only other zoo I've seen it at first hand and spoken to keepers about it) is because they does not have the space to expand the existing enclosures and they want to give the animals more room to roam so they construct these bridges to allow the animals to explore and go to secondary enclosure. If I remember correctly one of the existing enclosure on the other side of the path (maybe spider monkey?) will be turned into a second enclosure for Jaguar.
