Brookfield Zoo Brookfield Zoo News 2021

Here is a brief interview with the zoos new director, Dr. Micheal Adkesson.

5 questions with Michael Adkesson, Decatur native and director of Brookfield Zoo

This little anecdote in particular caught my attention.

"The zoo is in the middle of a master planning process that will start to shape how the habitats and parts of the zoo will come together over the next decade. We’ve got a lot of great ideas and a pretty bold vision of where we want to see redevelopment of the zoo to add animal habitats, add additional spaces, improve guest amenities and build out a lot of our conservation programs and centers."

We all knew this would happen, but just to here it straight from an official public source is exactly what I needed to here. The anticipation is rising :D.
 
This is the best news I have heard in what seems like forever, I can only imagine what changes their going to make to secure their reputation as one of North Americas greatest zoos. Hopefully a redo of Tropical world, and some outdoor exhibits, and connecting the Giraffe yard with the hoofstock yards and rhino yards to create a large savannah exhibit. And maybe welcoming back hippos and elephants (Highly unlikely but I would love to see elephants come back due to my very close encounter with either Joyce or Affie).

I would also love to see Wort hogs, Aardvark, Mountain Bongo, Mountain Lion, Babirusa, Pronghorn antelope, Elk, Ostrich, Cheetah, Roan Antelope and Blesbox be added to the collection
 
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First thing to do, kill the bloody Pachyderm House. Other than the Tropic World, this is one exhibit that arguably aged the worst of the entire zoo.

I guess the tortoises and capybara can be moved to another hypothetical exhibit while they hold the rhinos for a revamped African exhibit. Mr. Ivory has the right idea on combining them all.
 
This is the best news I have heard in what seems like forever, I can only imagine what changes their going to make to secure their reputation as one of North Americas greatest zoos. Hopefully a redo of Tropical world, and some outdoor exhibits, and connecting the Giraffe yard with the hoofstock yards and rhino yards to create a large savannah exhibit. And maybe welcoming back hippos and elephants (Highly unlikely but I would love to see elephants come back due to my very close encounter with either Joyce or Affie).

I would also love to see Wort hogs, Aardvark, Mountain Bongo, Mountain Lion, Babirusa, Pronghorn antelope, Elk, Ostrich, Cheetah, Roan Antelope and Blesbox be added to the collection
Blesbok is only held by a handful of private holders in North America at the moment, so the chances of Brookfield getting them is very slim.

One would hope that the aging Pachyderm House would finally be demolished, as it has been mentioned menu, many times how much money is sucks up trying to keep it operating. It’d probably be less expensive to just demolish it than it would be to keep it open!
 
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Blesbok is only held by a handful of private holders in North America at the moment, so the chances of Brookfield getting them is very slim.

One would hope that the aging Pachyderm House would finally be demolished, as it has been mentioned menu, many times how much money is sucks up trying to keep it operating. It’d probably be less expensive to just demolish it than it would be to keep it open!

Exactly, the house has been more trouble than it’s worth. It’s not even a pachyderm house anymore when the likes of tortoises, anteaters, and capybara were there. It has long overstayed its welcome and needs to be demolished for a brand new exhibit.
 
The problem may be it's more cost to demolish than reuse. Memphis zoos pachyderm house is a good example of that. This was about 8 years back, I was talking to the elephant manager about the zoos plans to elaborate the elephant/rhino area, especially since they had potential elephant breeding. He told me that ut was more expensive to demolish due to the fact the entire building and outdoor exhibits were intertwined with re-bar, steel and concrete. Even commenting that he had seen one of the elephants almost lift itself off the ground by using its trunk to pull up on the shade structure. I do hope that's not the case for Brookfield but over engineering can be costly to deconstruct.
 
Blesbok is only held by a handful of private holders in North America at the moment, so the chances of Brookfield getting them is very slim.

One would hope that the aging Pachyderm House would finally be demolished, as it has been mentioned menu, many times how much money is sucks up trying to keep it operating. It’d probably be less expensive to just demolish it than it would be to keep it open!

Cleveland's Metroparks Zoo Has Blesbok, and they have been having offspring too!
 
Pygmy hippos, at the very least, will most likely return in the near future.




Aardvarks will not be returning to the zoo in the foreseeable future, but you never know. They weren’t a big enough hit with zoo guests from what I’ve been told by zoo staff.

This upsets me. I understand that they weren't popular, but I think it had more to do with the fact that the average zoo visitor probably didn't even know that they had aardvark. They had them in a really weird out of the way location that didn't have very good signage. I honestly don't remember there being ANY real signage except for a sandwich board type sign that was sometimes out aside from the information signage on the outside of the building. I think that if they found a way to exhibit them properly and not hide them from the general public they would have been a much bigger "hit" than they made them out to be. Or I could just be biased as aardvarks are one of my favorite species aside from amphibians. I do think they were more a product of poor signage than actually being an unpopular species.
 
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