Roger Williams Park Zoo:
Best: African Elephants: The African Elephant exhibit is one of the most spectacular elephant exhibits I have seen so far. The elephants have a lot of space and a lot of enrichment. And, the distance you can be between the elephants is so close, you can really see their true size and how much of an amazing creature they are.
Worst: Zebra/Wildebeest/Watusi: I don't think it is a terrible enclosure, but it's not really that pleasing. It's pretty barren with no grass for them to graze, and there was no enrichment that I was able to see
Those are definitely interesting selections you chose, and I can understand your reasoning for them despite disagreeing. As someone else who considers RWPZ one of their home zoos, I can think of a number of exhibits that I'd consider better and worse than those two. I see you opted for specific exhibits, not exhibit complexes, so I'll do the same.
Best: while there are a number of great exhibits at Roger Williams, I think there is a clear top three from both visitor and animal welfare perspectives. Ignoring what it replaced, one of these three habitats is the Bald Eagle exhibit. It's a very gorgeously designed habitat, both with the stream in front and the rock work behind it. Furthermore, it uses the space really well and is a good-sized home for the rescued eagles, with plenty of opportunities to locomote, etc. While I have recently seen a larger (and in my opinion better) bald eagle exhibit at the Utica Zoo, RWPZ remains one of the few places that does justice, in my opinion, to an exhibit for these magnificent birds. My other two top exhibits at the zoo I'm going to address in conjunction because I find there to be a lot in common between them (perhaps as a result to them being constructed at the same time). These two habitats are the Asiatic Black Bear and Snow Leopard habitats (the latter of which is the true best habitat in the zoo, in my opinion). Both of these habitats are of a great size for the species being displayed, and use rock work extraordinarily well, enabling the animals to display a good deal of natural behavior. These habitats really lean into the natural history of the inhabitants in their design, which is really great for the animals, but they also are great exhibits from a visitor perspective, as each of them offers multiple vantage points to spot these gorgeous animals.
The worst exhibit at the zoo, in my opinion, is a tougher argument to make, and varies depending on whether you are looking at it from an animal welfare or a visitor's perspective. From a visitor's perspective, I'd argue the three worst exhibits are the South American primate exhibit, red panda exhibit, and red-crowned crane exhibit. The primate exhibit, which I'd consider the worst exhibit in the zoo for visitors, suffers from really only one big issue- glare. The glare on the glass is really bad, which makes it rather difficult to see the primates depending on where they are in the habitat. While not the most naturalistic aesthetically, this exhibit does however still do a good job of providing a great home for the primates, as it has lots of climbing opportunities and an overall solid design (plus added enrichment in the form of being a multi-species exhibit). Red pandas, similarly to the monkeys, suffer from visibility issues. While decent for the animals, unfortunately the exhibit doesn't take into account the low heat tolerance of red pandas, meaning for much of the summer the red pandas stay indoors their climate controlled holding. This is fine for the pandas, however for it being a species that the zoo markets a lot and considers a major attraction, it's a shame for visitors that during the busiest months the red pandas are often out of view. The crane exhibit is one of the worst for visitors, in my opinion, due to the elevation difference between exhibit and guests. For birds that tend to be flighty/neophobic animals, this could be argued as a positive for the animals, however this does mean the habitat often gets overlooked by visitors.
From an animal welfare perspective, it becomes even harder to consider the three worst exhibits, as all three I named above as having visibility issues or other visitor challenges, are great for the inhabitants themselves. There's truly no exhibit at RWPZ that, at an easy glance, sticks out as being weakest. A few that I'd offer up, however, are the red river hog exhibit- due to the size, simplicity of exhibit, and small holding, the raven exhibit- which could be considered one of the best if it wasn't for how noisy the treehouse gets, and the blackspot piranha aquarium- for seeming slightly small for how large the fish are (however, I'm far from an expert in fish welfare, so if someone has reasons this exhibit isn't too small/is actually great welfare, I'd be glad to hear it.)
