Any zoos with exhibits representing all seven continents?

elefante

elefante

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15+ year member
Curious if there is any zoo anywhere that has exhibits representing all seven continents? I'm not aware of any zoo in the USA having European themed exhibits, for example. Are there any zoos anywhere else that have exhibits representing all of the continents?
 
elefante said:
Curious if there is any zoo anywhere that has exhibits representing all seven continents? I'm not aware of any zoo in the USA having European themed exhibits, for example. Are there any zoos anywhere else that have exhibits representing all of the continents?
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Should be fairly easy to figure out, since you have to start with penguins. There's three truly Antarctic species that can be found in the USA. The Emperor is only at SeaWorld San Diego, Adelie at SeaWorlds San Diego and Orlando, and Chinstrap at the SeaWorlds, Moody Gardens, Newport Aquarium, and Central Park Zoo.

Gentoo, King, and the Rockhoppers are debatable, since they're sub-Antarctic. These are a little more common in zoos, however.

So Moody Gardens and Central Park are the best bets. Moody Gardens has limited mammal species, but they have several from south america (sloth, marmoset, giant otter, etc), north america (CA sea lion, harbor seal), and africa (serval, duiker, bat, etc). Someone more familiar with their other species would have to cover europe, asia, and oceania.
For Central Park, they've got north america (sea lion), south america (tamarin), africa (lemur), and asia (snow leopard). I don't think they currently have any macropods, but they do have victoria crowned pigeon for oceania. They have domestics that could count for europe, but that's a bit of a cop out, so that would have to be a bird, fish, or herp.
 
I’ll try to cover zoos from Europe using ZooTierListe. Beginning with the hardest, Antarctica, as @TinoPup did, the only holder of Adélie penguins is Faunia Madrid.

The Antarctic subspecies of Gentoo is kept in The Deep, Belfast, Edinburgh, Odense and Blijdorp.

There are no chinstraps or emperors here, so the last group of zoos are holders of king penguins. (I am using the king penguins although they are subantarctic, as I incorrectly assumed they were when I started writing this up. Oops :oops:)
They are:
- Schönbrunn
- Antwerp
- Odense
- Marineland
- Oceanopolis
- Sealife Val d’Europe
- Berlin Zoo
- Hagenbeck
- Hellabrunn
- Wuppertal
- Blijdorp
- Selwo Marina Delfinarium
- Faunia Madrid
- Loro Parque
- Basel
- Zurich
- Birdland
- Edinburgh
- Taipei
- Jurong Bird Park
- Kelly Tarlton’s Sealife

You may have noticed the last three aren’t in Europe, but they are on ZTL so I’m doing them anyway :D.

Quite a few of the 23 eligible zoos (and that’s just from penguins) have a good chance of representing the 7 continents, but I don’t have the time or attention span to go through them all so I picked 3 that seemed most likely to meet the criteria (to me). They are Berlin Zoo, Tierpark Hellabrunn and Tierpark Hagenbeck.

Starting with Berlin, I used the excellent european rarities thread made by @amur leopard as an (admittedly shrunken) list of Berlin inhabitants.
From that I found coruro for South America,
Ansell’s mole rat for Africa,
Bengal slow loris for Asia,
Blue grosbeak for North America,
Tuatara for Oceania.

Nothing popped out to me as european when I skim-read the post, but a quick check on ZTL confirms that they hold European bison as I had suspected.

The European bison for Europe and king penguin for Antarctica complete Berlin Zoo.

Moving on to Hellabrunn, it has a much smaller list of rarities than the other two, but there is still:
Agile wallaby for Oceania
Apennine chamois for Europe
Fat sand rat for Asia
Eastern vasa parrot for Africa
South american green iguana for South America
and they also hold wood bison, representing North America and king penguin for Antarctica.

Finally, Tierpark Hagenbeck’s roster.

Rocky Mountain wapiti for North America
Shield-nosed snake for Africa
Schokari sand racer for Asia
Variable poison dart frog for South America
Red kangaroo for Oceania
Razorbill for Europe
King penguin for Antarctica.

There are probably quite a few more zoos in Europe that represent all 7 continents.
 
Strix said:
- Schönbrunn
- Antwerp
- Odense
- Marineland
- Oceanopolis
- Sealife Val d’Europe
- Berlin Zoo
- Hagenbeck
- Hellabrunn
- Wuppertal
- Blijdorp
- Selwo Marina Delfinarium
- Faunia Madrid
- Loro Parque
- Basel
- Zurich
- Birdland
- Edinburgh
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Of the zoos above, I've bolded those that have species from all seven continents :)
 
The Seas of the World exhibit at Tokyo Sea Life Park has tanks representing six continents, but doesn't have Antarctica. The Antarctic species are in a separate exhibit.
 
Chlidonias said:
I feel like the OP was asking which zoos have actual exhibits for the purpose of representing the seven continents, not just a zoo which happens to keep an animal from each continent.
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I think you could still make an argument for Berlin Zoo here. The two bison exhibits have European and North American themed houses respectively. On the Part of the zoo on the other side of Landwehkanal there are three eclosures with mixed animals from South America, Africa and Australia. Asia I would say is best represented by the blackbuck/crane enclosure next to the entrance or the Panda Garden. With the opening of the new rhino house the representation will be even clearer, And the penguin house could definetely count as an Antarctic exhibit
 
I think all zoo with sections for of the continents would have to be in Europe, because I don’t think any North American zoos have European sections.
 
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As others have indicated, when focused on exhibits (not species), North American zoos have very little for Antarctica or Europe. The penguin exhibits at Detroit and SeaWorld could reasonably be called Antarctic exhibits. That would give Detroit 6 of 7, still missing Europe.

The only European exhibits I can recall seeing in US zoos are one-off mixed enclosures in taxonomic exhibit complexes. San Diego has a mixed outdoor herp exhibit holding several species of lizard and turtle on Reptile Mesa, and formerly had a mixed Wisent/European Wild Boar exhibit in one of the hoofstock areas. At certain time points Polar Bear Plunge has been somewhat European in character when the bird list has featured species like Ruff, European Goldfinch, and Smew. Bronx has (had?) a European aviary in World of Birds where Capercallie were the featured species mixed with some songbirds. Even if these exhibits "counted" as European exhibits, neither San Diego nor Bronx has Antarctic penguins.

In Toronto, the Eurasia exhibit has a strong European component, and formerly had an even stronger one with Chamois, Tur, Mouflon, Reindeer, Wisent, and Barbary Macaque (if allowed to count). Overall Toronto is definitely the most comprehensive North American zoo organized along biogeographic lines with exhibit zones devoted to most biogeographic realms. However, Toronto doesn't exhibit Antarctic species.
 
Back when Taronga Zoo had leopard seals that could constitute an Antarctica exhibit. They had Asian, African, and South American animal exhibits also. Did they have North American and European animal exhibits also when they had leopard seals?
 
As far as actual exhibits or zones representing continents, I don't know of any that represent all seven. Most zoos I've been to have the standard South America and Africa exhibits, and so few have Australian, Asian or Indonesian ones, but I've never seen a Europe, North America or Antarctica exhibits at any of these. It is a pretty good idea though.
 
Well, there are 3 zoos that I would like to suggest as candidates.
First, Planckendael, which has an African, Asian, Oceanic, European, South American and North American section. They don't have an Antarctic section, and also no species from there, so this one is 'out' (if you put it in a competition format:p:D)
Another good guess would be Pairi Daiza, which has the continents Africa, Asia (even 2 areas dedicated to this), North America and Oceania (although they call it Australia)+the seas and to a lesser extent the oceans. However, they do not have a South American or European section, but they do have species from these continents but their enclosures are scattered throughout the park.
But to answer @elefante 's question: there is at least one zoo with areas dedicated to all continents: namely the Rotterdam Zoo. It has areas for Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Europe, Oceania (Australia), South America, North America and even the world's seas and oceans. In the future they will also make an Islands area:).
 
Jambi said:
As far as actual exhibits or zones representing continents, I don't know of any that represent all seven. Most zoos I've been to have the standard South America and Africa exhibits, and so few have Australian, Asian or Indonesian ones, but I've never seen a Europe, North America or Antarctica exhibits at any of these. It is a pretty good idea though.
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It's interesting you consider South American zones to be common and Asian zones to be rarer, off the top of my head I can only recall ever seeing one major South American zone in a zoo, while I have seen lots of Asian-themed areas.
 
Auckland Zoo come close. They have an extensive African precinct; they’ve almost completed their South East Asian precinct and also have exhibits from other areas of Asia e.g. Nepalese red panda.

They have an America’s precinct with several South American species linked to an exhibit for American alligator.

They have extensive New Zealand and Australian precincts (Australasia); and at an absolute stretch, they have a Sub Antarctic fur seal exhibit representing Antartica (a very very loose connection I acknowledge considering their typical geographic range does not make this a true Antarctic species).

Still working on Europe...they have a petting zoo/farmyard exhibit that probably has a rabbit or a goat (both were introduced to New Zealand by European settlers).

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Jambi said:
As far as actual exhibits or zones representing continents, I don't know of any that represent all seven. Most zoos I've been to have the standard South America and Africa exhibits, and so few have Australian, Asian or Indonesian ones, but I've never seen a Europe, North America or Antarctica exhibits at any of these. It is a pretty good idea though.
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Most zoos in the USA seem to have a North American exhibit but I have never seen a European one. Africa is pretty much obligatory it seems. I have seen quite a few Asian ones in the US as well. Curious if Antarctica could be counted since there don't seem to be species from there in zoos. Unless of course the definition were fudged a bit and could include sub-Antarctic like various penguins and any seabirds that might be present.
 
birdsandbats said:
It's interesting you consider South American zones to be common and Asian zones to be rarer, off the top of my head I can only recall ever seeing one major South American zone in a zoo, while I have seen lots of Asian-themed areas.
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Here in the UK at least, South America areas are quite common, and they usually have the same couple of secies in them: tapirs, capybaras, rheas, giant anteaters, a selection of monkeys (usually tamarins and squirrel monkeys), and occasionally something less common like a maned wolf.
As for Asia areas, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the Indonesian Islands zone at Chester Zoo, the Asia portion of Whipsnade Zoo, and a couple of separate ones at London Zoo. They're not something you see everywhere. Australia areas, when you do see them, just tend to be really underwhelming emu and wallaby walkthroughs.
 
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