Certainly wasn't my intention and hopefully Pachy didn't interpret it that way. I was only summarising what (very small) points of difference I had.
America's 50 Must See Zoos
- Thread starter pachyderm pro
- Start date
Certainly wasn't my intention and hopefully Pachy didn't interpret it that way. I was only summarising what (very small) points of difference I had.
Interesting. I cannot find any record of the center actually exhibiting them at any point in time or holding anything other than rescues. Was that the case for the otters that were exported?The fact that the animals at Brest, Den Blå Planet Aquarium, SeaLife Birmingham and the most recent arrivals at Lisbon Oceanario all came from there, for a start
For instance, the following report from 2014: The Copenhagen Post - Danish News in English
Don’t worry, I didn’t interpret it that way at all. But I do agree it’s best we put a pin in this particular discussion for now. I get it, a lot of people disagree and have stated their reasoning multiple times throughout this thread. If I didn’t include White Oak this thread would probably be two pages shorter, so I think that’s an indication there’s not much more that needs to be said.
As I understand the matter, the sea otters sent to Europe have all been un-releasable rescues which exceeded the existing facilities to hold them at ASLC as further rescues came in, which implies they have some level of capacity for un-releasable animals to begin with.
Thank you @pachyderm pro for being foolish enough to take this project on, you did a great job with a task designed in a way that it is impossible to please anyone. The hoped-for discussion was certainly sparked 
I had made a list beforehand of what I thought would be included and I guessed all but 7 correctly, not bad for someone whose closest experience with the US is McDonalds
. I really had expected the Oregon Zoo (probably instead of Moody Gardens) here and would have hoped Brookfield was not on the list, but who am I . I understand your inclusion of White Oak (though I did not guess it) and I am glad to see so many specialist collections on the list.
There are 5 final spots and given the organizers neutrality I do certainly expect this thread to be there. In fairness it is the best coming out of the US forums this year so far, so I expect many US members to be backing it, which would be more than fair.
I had made a list beforehand of what I thought would be included and I guessed all but 7 correctly, not bad for someone whose closest experience with the US is McDonalds
. I really had expected the Oregon Zoo (probably instead of Moody Gardens) here and would have hoped Brookfield was not on the list, but who am I . I understand your inclusion of White Oak (though I did not guess it) and I am glad to see so many specialist collections on the list. There are 5 final spots and given the organizers neutrality I do certainly expect this thread to be there
. In fairness it is the best coming out of the US forums this year so far, so I expect many US members to be backing it, which would be more than fair.I had made a list beforehand of what I thought would be included and I guessed all but 7 correctly, not bad for someone whose closest experience with the US is McDonalds
I got 44/50. Just sayin'.
I guessed 42/50 of the included zoos correctly at the start of the thread, having been to 13 of them, including Lincoln Park Zoo which I did not guess would be on the list.
An enjoyable and well-written thread, to say the least, @pachyderm pro's dedication and efforts are quite admirable.
An enjoyable and well-written thread, to say the least, @pachyderm pro's dedication and efforts are quite admirable.
Were other future projects for other facilities factored in too, then?
On the other hand wild Sea Otters are almost always in view from the ASLC’s observation deck overlooking Resurrection Bay.
Also let me add to the accolades…this is a fine list and very well done.
@pachyderm pro thank you for this excellent thread. It's just March, but I already have four candidates to the thread of the year competition. This is the content-wise best year of ZooChat ever.
Aardwolf
Well-Known Member
I agree that it was a great undertaking. Like everyone else, there were one or two that I may have disagreed with, but there's a lot of room for differences of opinion based on one's definition of what makes a place "must see," and there was nothing on there that I had a hard time believing could be seen as such. I'm 40/50 at the moment, though I've got 3 more that I plan to check off this year. Perhaps the reason that I wasn't as zeroed in on WOCC as some other readers is that I've already gotten that one checked off.
While you were sharing your list, I was cross-checking it with the lists provided by the two Allen Nyhuis books ("The Zoo Book" and "America's Best Zoos") and Tim Brown and Scott Richardson's "America's Top 100 Zoos and Aquariums." The result is a list of 109 facilities to see, with 23 facilities making all 4 lists (not surprising it's so low, since the Nyhuis books didn't include aquariums in their main lists).
Thanks for sharing your list, it was fun to follow along.
While you were sharing your list, I was cross-checking it with the lists provided by the two Allen Nyhuis books ("The Zoo Book" and "America's Best Zoos") and Tim Brown and Scott Richardson's "America's Top 100 Zoos and Aquariums." The result is a list of 109 facilities to see, with 23 facilities making all 4 lists (not surprising it's so low, since the Nyhuis books didn't include aquariums in their main lists).
Thanks for sharing your list, it was fun to follow along.
Oregon was a zoo I thought would be on the list, until I started writing about it when I realized that there wasn't much entirely distinct about the zoo. No real historic buildings, no standout habitats - not to say there aren't some very good ones, and a collection generally centered around common ABCs. The Borneo pygmy elephant is the one thing that really made me want to include it and the elephant complex as a whole is a highlight, but overall you can see similar animals and similar styles of exhibitry elsewhere, in many cases done better.I had made a list beforehand of what I thought would be included and I guessed all but 7 correctly, not bad for someone whose closest experience with the US is McDonalds
As critical as I've been of the lack of progress at Brookfield in recent years, I don't see how I could have left it off the list. Tropic World is one of the most iconic zoo exhibits of all time that every zoo nerd should see in his or her lifetime and that alone made it a strong contender from the jump. That plus the various historical buildings, large herp and bird collections, pangolins, etc, were more than enough to make it a lock early on.
To an extent, yes. It's obviously not the focus, but highlighting promising future developments such as Houston's Galapagos exhibit or Monterey Bay's Deep Sea exhibit ensure that the zoo in reference will be must-see for years to come. Allowing public access to the largest elephant herd in the western hemisphere is pretty significant and definitely deserves to be given the spotlight.
The two of us have been talking in circles about this topic for this entire thread. I doubt either of us will change our minds so I think it's best we agree to disagree for the time being.
Unfortunatly it has been the better part of 15 years since I was last at Jax, so I cannot give a realistic comparison to Tampa....but I can say that I think my view of Tampa's issues are pretty known if you read any of the ZT threads here. I think it still has a place as a top 50 facility in the USA, but not top 25. That said, there are probably contenders that could knock it out of the top 50 even IMO.One last time, thanks again for all of the accolades everyone! It means more than you will ever know.
Jacksonville was a viable contender for the list, but quite frankly it looks a bit bland. A very good zoo with some standout exhibits like the South American and African Forest areas, but it lacks character and significant rarities being rather ABC focused. Perhaps in a few years when they finish that cool looking manatee tank I'd have a change of heart.
With that said, in between the start of this thread and now Tampa opened its new panther complex which looks so genuinely awful it's enough to make me question if I should have put it on this thread to begin with. Perhaps that seems overly harsh, but it's definitely one of the more interchangeable selections.
It does have a lot to offer, however. None of the habitats are really bad, some a very good, and the animal species held are interesting to impressive, IMO.
Yeah, that all makes sense. I really want to get to Iguanaland in Punta Gorda. It just opened, but the pictures I have seen make it look like one of the best, if not the best, reptile focused zoos in the USA.
It's not just that - it's the fact that it has no unique species and costs $400. If it had a collection like DWA I could understand its inclusion.
I think its inclusion could also be justified it had a much smaller admission price. Like, at least 6 times less.
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Great work on this thread @pachyderm pro. When you reached out to me about a couple of the specialist facilities that made the cut, I was very hopeful that this would be a well-researched project with a broad and diverse base of different facilities... and you did not disappoint! The inclusion of the country's largest bird park, lemur and crane-focused zoos, pyramidal aquariums and multiple safari parks was beyond what I would have guessed this list would have looked like, and it was all the better for it. I think many of us get so caught up in how similar the theming and collections are in most American zoos we forget the diversity of collections we really do have.
I'll try not to do much backseat driving on your selections... I agree the White Oak horse has been beaten enough at this point
I only started my guesses after California, and I found out while going over it again that I had two list versions (one of which had a number different than 50) after haphazard revising and I don't know which one was my "official". The ones I *definitely* didn't guess were White Oak, Tampa, Moody Gardens, and the ICF (mainly because I forgot it existed
). I waffled on Oregon Coast Aquarium after Mystic didn't make the cut - originally had it, then deleted it, only to have it be in the 50 after all. I also wrongly guessed (in at least one of the list versions) that Fossil Rim, Zoo Atlanta, Oregon Zoo, and National Aviary would be in there but I understand the logic on those as well.
The selection I stand most surprised by at the end was Tampa. It makes sense that it was one of the more borderline cases; to be honest, I still struggle to see exactly how distinct it is from that group of other solid but more generic zoos that didn't make the cut. Of course, I haven't been there and I'm willing to acknowledge others may be in a better place to judge that. Of the near-misses in that group I was most surprised by Atlanta: I thought their new reptile complex, notably large gorilla and orangutan population, and handful of rarities like Drill would be enough to fit them in, but I figured it was borderline too.
I originally thought you might include another reptile specialist facility (either Reptile Gardens or Reptiland) but I didn't have either in my list and I'm not surprised you didn't in the end. The US has quite a few herp specialist places, but I'm not sure I'd qualify any as "must-see" myself other than St. Augustine. Honestly, several of the zoos you *did* include are more noteworthy for herps than almost any specialist facility we have!
Unlike some people, I predicted Central Park and (with the caveat that I haven't been) I fully agree it should be in here. It's one of the most famous and iconic American zoos, one of the oldest by any definition you use, and its complete overhaul and modernization is a great example of how much American zoos changed the later decades of the 20th century. It's a prime example of an older, space-constrained zoo that really adapted itself to the new era of zoological design.
Someone mentioned Point Defiance as a near-miss they thought could have been included. I didn't expect it to make the cut; I can see arguing for its inclusion based on the two aquariums and outdoor marine habitats, but I feel like Oregon Coast is similar in that regard and is a better example of that feature. The other parts of PDZ are good, but probably not unique enough to warrant inclusion in this list - the outdoor terrestrial collection is pretty small and standard besides musk ox. I also sort of like the idea of Alaska Sealife being included, but it's a very remote facility for most of us - which could be a consideration as many people clearly think admission cost is.
I'll try not to do much backseat driving on your selections... I agree the White Oak horse has been beaten enough at this point
I only started my guesses after California, and I found out while going over it again that I had two list versions (one of which had a number different than 50) after haphazard revising and I don't know which one was my "official". The ones I *definitely* didn't guess were White Oak, Tampa, Moody Gardens, and the ICF (mainly because I forgot it existed
). I waffled on Oregon Coast Aquarium after Mystic didn't make the cut - originally had it, then deleted it, only to have it be in the 50 after all. I also wrongly guessed (in at least one of the list versions) that Fossil Rim, Zoo Atlanta, Oregon Zoo, and National Aviary would be in there but I understand the logic on those as well.The selection I stand most surprised by at the end was Tampa. It makes sense that it was one of the more borderline cases; to be honest, I still struggle to see exactly how distinct it is from that group of other solid but more generic zoos that didn't make the cut. Of course, I haven't been there and I'm willing to acknowledge others may be in a better place to judge that. Of the near-misses in that group I was most surprised by Atlanta: I thought their new reptile complex, notably large gorilla and orangutan population, and handful of rarities like Drill would be enough to fit them in, but I figured it was borderline too.
I originally thought you might include another reptile specialist facility (either Reptile Gardens or Reptiland) but I didn't have either in my list and I'm not surprised you didn't in the end. The US has quite a few herp specialist places, but I'm not sure I'd qualify any as "must-see" myself other than St. Augustine. Honestly, several of the zoos you *did* include are more noteworthy for herps than almost any specialist facility we have!
Unlike some people, I predicted Central Park and (with the caveat that I haven't been) I fully agree it should be in here. It's one of the most famous and iconic American zoos, one of the oldest by any definition you use, and its complete overhaul and modernization is a great example of how much American zoos changed the later decades of the 20th century. It's a prime example of an older, space-constrained zoo that really adapted itself to the new era of zoological design.
Someone mentioned Point Defiance as a near-miss they thought could have been included. I didn't expect it to make the cut; I can see arguing for its inclusion based on the two aquariums and outdoor marine habitats, but I feel like Oregon Coast is similar in that regard and is a better example of that feature. The other parts of PDZ are good, but probably not unique enough to warrant inclusion in this list - the outdoor terrestrial collection is pretty small and standard besides musk ox. I also sort of like the idea of Alaska Sealife being included, but it's a very remote facility for most of us - which could be a consideration as many people clearly think admission cost is.
You must have missed the post where I went and double-checked my e-mails with them, it's actually $500. I completely agree with you!
I'll let the topic drop, I think I've made my point pretty clear.
Thanks for bringing attention to this, I honestly forgot about it until now. The ICF has now been added although it seems Woodland Park is still missing.
Thanks for bringing attention to this, I honestly forgot about it until now. The ICF has now been added although it seems Woodland Park is still missing.
Fixed
TheChulloChampion
Member
I went to the Cincinnati Zoo not too long ago but because of Ohio's erratic weather, most of the animals were inside of their dens because it was freezing. In March. 
After diving into geoguessr map making and did one for the Europe 50 must see zoos thread, I figure I'd do one for all the Americans as well, as such here you go!:
GeoGuessr - America's 50 Must See Zoos -the map
Also it's very enjoyable to just reading back this thread, it's really well done.
GeoGuessr - America's 50 Must See Zoos -the map
Also it's very enjoyable to just reading back this thread, it's really well done.