AZA 2008 Exhibit Award submittals

Zooplantman

Zooplantman

Well-Known Member
The exhibits so far submitted for the AZA's exhibit award (to be awarded at the annual meeting in Milwaukee in September) are:

Cheetah Exhibit - Fundacion Temaiken-Argentina

The African Savanna - Granby Zoo

Penguin Coast - Rosamund Gifford Zoo

Oklahoma Trails Exhibit - Oklahoma City Zoo

Water's Edge - Pittsburgh Zoo

Minnesota Trail - Minnesota Zoo

Carl F. Kauffeld Reptile Wing - Staten Island Zoo

Northwest Passage - Memphis Zoo

Animal Planet Australia Wild Extremes - National Aquarium in Baltimore
 
Interesting that the Water's Edge set of habitats in Pittsburgh and the Northwest Passage exhibits in Memphis are extremely similar. Polar bears are the dominant animal in each one, and I actually preferred the Memphis enclosures. The theming at each institution is excellent, with Pittsburgh creating an entire fake town and Memphis with tons of First Nations/Native American artwork.
 
And the winner is....

Just left the Awards Luncheon for the AZA conference.

Significant achievement in Exhibit: Minnesota Trails, Minnesota Zoo

Best Exhibit: Australia, National Aquarium in Baltimore


Bean Awards (propagation) to Brookfield Zoo for Goeldi marmosets and to Disney Animal Kingdom for Carmine Bee eaters
 
Cheers for the update Zooplantman! Were people surprised at the winners?
 
Haven't heard it discussed much.
Minnesota Trails is a great coup because, in part, it was done in house with a very small budget.
Unfortunately, you never hear why one was selected and not another

BTW - Dr. Bill Conway gave a speech urging zoos to place a priority on propagation. As he put it, we are not able to sustain our own collections let alone save vanishing species. That seemed to inspire the crowd
 
Speaking of propagation, it's amazing to think that there are over 600 births a year at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Is there any other zoo that can even come close to those numbers? Between the two San Diego collections it seems as if a good chunk of the captive animals in North America are born and raised in California.

Also, I'm thrilled that the Minnesota Zoo won an exhibit award. That zoo is at the very least in the top 15 in North America, and they seem to finally have a bright future ahead of them now that funding has been attained for further improvements.
 
Sorry, but these awards are a joke. Past history has proven that, as in the year the small Tropical Rainforest building at the Woodland Park Zoo beat out Omaha's world-class Lied Jungle.

Someone asked HOW these awards are determined? I know -- a set of judges evaluates and rates the submitted exhibits in a set of 4-5 categories, giving them ratings from 1-10. IF one of those judges wants to sink one of the exhibits, or wants to help another exhibit win, he/she can just give a bunch of undeserved low scores (1, 2) to the exhibit he/she wants to lose, very similar to the way the French and Russian judges in the Olympics used to sink American and Canadian figure skaters. Remember that?

Again, these exhibits are a joke! Give zero credence to them. This year is another such example. Oklahoma Trails should have won.
 
ANyhuis said:
Sorry, but these awards are a joke. Past history has proven that, as in the year the small Tropical Rainforest building at the Woodland Park Zoo beat out Omaha's world-class Lied Jungle.

Someone asked HOW these awards are determined? I know -- a set of judges evaluates and rates the submitted exhibits in a set of 4-5 categories, giving them ratings from 1-10. IF one of those judges wants to sink one of the exhibits, or wants to help another exhibit win, he/she can just give a bunch of undeserved low scores (1, 2) to the exhibit he/she wants to lose, very similar to the way the French and Russian judges in the Olympics used to sink American and Canadian figure skaters. Remember that?

Again, these exhibits are a joke! Give zero credence to them. This year is another such example. Oklahoma Trails should have won.
Click to expand...

I agree, by the looks of the photos that snowleopard posted, Oklahoma Trails looks amazing.
 
And there is no explaining last year's award to the Philadelphia Zoo's "Big Cat Canyon" unless it was because they hosted the conference.
 
Meaning no disrespect

"Again, these exhibits are a joke! Give zero credence to them. This year is another such example. Oklahoma Trails should have won."

I posted the above last night, and now I want to clarify one thing -- I meant no disrespect to the Minnesota Zoo and their wonderful Minnesota Trail exhibit. It really is very, very good. But my point was that this is a revamp of an already existing exhibit. Oklahoma Trails is a brand new exhibit, thus it should have had priority. It's already been pointed out that there are great photos of Oklahoma Trails on Zoobeat, thanks to Snowleopard. Jon and I, in our new book (America's Best Zoos: A Travel Guide for Fans & Families) BOTH rated Oklahoma Trails as one of the Top 15 exhibits in the entire nation. It's truly THAT good!

Again, these exhibit awards are a joke! Ignore them.
 
I often disagree with the selection (except, of course, when the winner is a project I was involved with, of course :p )
But I think it is inappropriate venom spewing to ascribe motives to the judges without proof or information. Why do they select one and not another? All I know is that
1. The judges do not travel to see the exhibits in person and compare
2. They only have the submittals the zoo prepares for its own exhibit to go by

I have seen the submittals prepared by the Bronx Zoo for exhibits like "Congo". They are BEAUTIFUL, inspiring books! I know that the Bronx Zoo Exhibits & Graphics Dept. put a GREAT deal of time and priority on that document.

If Minnesota Zoo prepared a beautiful presentation, with wonderful shots from perfect angles, clever graphics and educational messages, etc while Oklahoma City slapped together a poor representation of their entry, that would be enough to put MN over OK.
Is that what happened? How do I know? Or you?

This doesn't change your assertion that the awards themselves mean nothing as to which really is the "best" exhibit for the year. (And just what does "best" mean, anyway?)
BTW - I did consult on Oklahoma Trails and was personally disappointed that it did not get even a mention.
 
Wow, I am now in shock that "Oklahoma Trails" did not win the coveted prize at the AZA Conference. I scrolled through this thread to the beginning to see the nominees, and that set of exhibits should have been the hands-down winner. I'm now beginning to truly see how bizarre some of the selections have been over the years! The Minnesota Zoo's "Russia's Grizzly Coast" now stands a wonderful chance of giving that zoo back-to-back best exhibit awards, but do they deserve it? A revamping of the "Minnesota Trails" set of habitats, while excellent, is nowhere near as impressive as the 8-acre, 800-animal "Oklahoma Trails" area that perfectly showcases North American animals. My photos in the gallery show large, expansive exhibits with some of the best signage of any zoo on the continent. There are numerous terrific smaller signs, and 11 huge Native American signs that I posted in the gallery. I actually really enjoyed that zoo overall, and with the big cat forest, great ape habitats and the rest of the above average zoo I surprised a few people and listed the Oklahoma City Zoo as one of North America's top 10 zoos. If only they had won the AZA exhibit award then perhaps the zoo would have received a boost in terms of prestige and integrity within the industry.
 
snowleopard said:
Wow, I am now in shock that "Oklahoma Trails" did not win the coveted prize at the AZA Conference. I scrolled through this thread to the beginning to see the nominees, and that set of exhibits should have been the hands-down winner. I'm now beginning to truly see how bizarre some of the selections have been over the years! The Minnesota Zoo's "Russia's Grizzly Coast" now stands a wonderful chance of giving that zoo back-to-back best exhibit awards, but do they deserve it? A revamping of the "Minnesota Trails" set of habitats, while excellent, is nowhere near as impressive as the 8-acre, 800-animal "Oklahoma Trails" area that perfectly showcases North American animals. My photos in the gallery show large, expansive exhibits with some of the best signage of any zoo on the continent. There are numerous terrific smaller signs, and 11 huge Native American signs that I posted in the gallery. I actually really enjoyed that zoo overall, and with the big cat forest, great ape habitats and the rest of the above average zoo I surprised a few people and listed the Oklahoma City Zoo as one of North America's top 10 zoos. If only they had won the AZA exhibit award then perhaps the zoo would have received a boost in terms of prestige and integrity within the industry.
Click to expand...

Two points:
1. Next year "Russia's Grizzly Coast" will be up against "Madagascar!"
2. From snowleopard's pictures of OK Trails, the elk yard looks barren and sad and many scenes are hard to differentiate from other OK City exhibits including the gorillas. The wonderful concept of OK Trails was a celebration of the amazing geological and biological diversity of that state. If you can't tell from the picture if its the alligator exhibit or the gorilla exhibit, then in my book the exhibit failed (I should point out, I haven't seen it completed myself)
 
The French judge Scandal

If you look at my post about (#8), I referred to the famous "French judge scandal" in which a pair of Canadian figure skaters were cheated out of their rightfully-earned gold medal. This happened in the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the story can be read about at Wikipedia:
2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't mean to "spew venom", as you've said Zooplantman, but merely point out that the AZA Exhibit of the Year award voting has in the past been subject to a similar "French judge"-type voting scandal. This happened specifically when Omaha's Lied Jungle was cheated out of the award. This really happened! I cannot reveal my source on this, however. For this reason, I will forever consider this award as a total joke. Many zoos no longer even submit their new exhibits for this award, as they too view it as a silly joke.

Again, I didn't mean anything negative against Minnesota's excellent Minnesota Trail exhibit. My only contention is that is was a revamp, not a new exhibit. It was already (before the revamp) an excellent exhibit. The revamp took it from and A-minus exhibit up to a solid A. Oklahoma Trails went from nothing to an A. Thus Oklahoma Trails should have won, hands down.
 
Well, I feel better about the accusation if you have info behind it. Many of us have access to info we cannot ethically post here.

Still, that was some time ago and a different group voting, so perhaps you can grant that the present decision - which neither of us agree with - was made by people of honor...unless you know differently. Accusing or even implicating these zoo directors of such a scandal is unfair without proof.
 
It just occurred to me that perhaps it was not clear:

The Best Exhibit award went to Animal Planet Australia Wild Extremes

Minnesota got a Significant Achievement Award (not Best)
 
AZA should make it a requirement for the judges to actually travel to the exhibit so they could experience it themselves. Are the directors the judges?
 
mstickmanp said:
AZA should make it a requirement for the judges to actually travel to the exhibit so they could experience it themselves. Are the directors the judges?
Click to expand...

Not all are Directors.
Here is the Committee:

Honors and Awards Committee Membership
Chair: Lee Ehmke (who recused himself from voting on Minn. Trails exhibit)
Minnesota Zoological Garden

Vice-Chair: Rick Barongi
Houston Zoo

Members

Buz Bireline
Santa Fe Community College Teaching Zoo

Jon Brangan
Brevard Zoo

Mike Coker
Topeka Zoo

Gregg Dancho
Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo

John Davis
Riverbanks Zoo and Garden

Ryan Gulker
San Antonio Zoo

Perry Hampton
Aquarium of the Pacific

Rich Hendron
Utah's Hogle Zoo

Roger Hoppes
San Francisco Zoological Gardens

Maureen Horrigan
Louisville Zoological Garden

Kristi Newland
Lee Richardson Zoo

Kirsten Perez
Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Bill Tuttle
Miami Metrozoo

Reid Withrow
Aquarium of the Bay

Board Liaison

Jackson Andrews
Tennessee Aquarium
 
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