I said Cincinnati aesthetics wise. The savannah exhibits are spacious but when you look at the Hyena, Wild Dog and Zebra exhibits just to name a few are they comparable to any exhibit in Congo? No. Congo is beautifully done. All the exhibit needs is a facelift. The zoo guests every time I go say it isn’t pretty. A comment I heard was “This is crappy compared to animal kingdom because it doesn’t look like Africa”. I understand the zoo isn’t in Florida or have the same budget as Disney, but they can at least make the exhibit modernized for the general public. Their is easily enough space to have the carnivores in large exhibits and the hoof stock with even more space. A lot of the animals separated right now naturally share the same space in the savannah. Their is room by the Former World of Darkness to expand this section of the zoo.
What's wrong with any of these enclosures? They are very large, and naturally vegetated. The
hyena,
wild dog, and
zebra enclosures all have a lot of non-grass vegetation growing within them. On the visitor side they even have glass viewing. The enclosures are simply, yes, but what's wrong with them? I've also never once heard a visitor complain about Congo not being pretty, at least not during the warmer months. Of course it doesn't look like Africa (not that I expect people making these comments to know what an African rainforest actually looks like), tropical plants wouldn't survive outdoors year-round. I think it's fantastic that the exhibit is located within an actual forest, even if it's a temperate one. I really don't understand what you mean by modernized... all of the enclosures are large and very naturalistic. The
Lion enclosure is probably the worst in the entire Africa complex, and even then it's not too shabby and they currently only keep a couple bachelor males. As for World of Darkness, the massive building is still there. I highly doubt they would would want to do through all the trouble and expense to demolish the structure when they could save it for future use down the line. Also the exhibit is built on a very steep hill, which makes exhibiting anything there both difficult and rather impractical. Finally, there is also that weird balancing rock formation thing near the entrance to the building that the zoo is not going to want to demolish either.
I also enjoyed the Aquatic Bird House, yes it’s ugly and the exhibits aren’t amazing but it’s a unique building with a tremendous collection and adequate exhibits. Add in the excellent Penguin/Tern aviary next door and this is a thoroughly enjoyable section of the zoo.
It's unfair of me to comment when I haven't visited, but as someone pointed out to me recently this kind of remark is basically forumspeak for poor exhibits
I wouldn't even agree with that... Some of them are on the smaller side but they hold smaller species like crakes, passerines, and kingfishers. Even then those smaller ones look something like either
this or
this (the kingfishers moved from the latter to the former, but these show the two main styles of the smaller habitats well. And then you have the main larger mixed aviaries like those for
ibis,
puffin,
spoonbill, and
penguin among others. Older? Yes. But what's wrong with them exactly? Also remember most of the indoor bird enclosures at Bronx either extend above or below the line of sight the viewing windows give visitors.
Are you talking about the Cincinnati zoo? Henry the male hippo was not shipped out before Fiona was born. He was there before and after her birth, even on exhibit with both females, before he passed away that year.
Sorry, wires crossed. Iirc he was to be shipped out before Fiona was born, but wasn't she born prematurely? And then he died, that's right (sorry, I don't follow the zoo all too closely anymore). My point is I do know that the zoo was going to have to move him on before Fiona began to grow due to spatial restrictions within the exhibit. My point is a brand new hippo exhibit should not have a spatial limit of two adults, and this is not the kind of exhibit design I'd ever want to see brought to the Bronx.
~Thylo
I'd likely get dropped at entrances while my dad went and found parking, so I could get a head start.
