FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Is there a good example of a successful ground up build that was an instant heavy hitter?
CGSwans flies north for the winter
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Probably not, now I think about it. Maybe Singapore, but I don't know enough about the history.
Dudley Zoo, but that was some time ago.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park was a heavy hitter in terms of appeal to the public and large visitor numbers (though not so much in terms of species/being a large zoo).
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Haha, good one!Dudley Zoo, but that was some time ago.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park was a heavy hitter in terms of appeal to the public and large visitor numbers (though not so much in terms of species/being a large zoo).
I can think of several examples of zoos that were very good from the beginning: Singapore Night Safari, Zoom Gelsenkirchen, Vinpearl Safari (on the Asia scale), but none that really could claim to be heavy-hitters, at least in the sense that CGSwans is using.
Okay, but even if 'heavy hitter' was too much to ask, would it be so much to expect that it might make the upper mid-table? Top half, perhaps? Even without putting any expectations on it on the basis of age or resources, I'd sit it behind Barcelona, Planckendael, Basel, Zurich, Attica, Prague, Wroclaw, Copenhagen, Hanover, Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Duisburg, Burgers, London and Edinburgh among the zoos I visited, along with the nine I've listed so far. That puts it at about 26th out of 48, and that's without factoring in 'character' as an admittedly undefinable variable, but which I'd suggest puts the Jardin, Antwerp, Zagreb, Helsinki, Hamburg and Amsterdam ahead of it too. It's fair-to-middlin' when it could have been so much more.
Maybe I should have stuck to straight-forward assessment of outright quality, shorn of context, which would probably mean that spot goes to one of Moscow or Bucharest. For Moscow that might actually be fair, on reflection, but it'd be desperately unkind to Bucharest, given how little it has to work with.
Maybe I should have stuck to straight-forward assessment of outright quality, shorn of context, which would probably mean that spot goes to one of Moscow or Bucharest. For Moscow that might actually be fair, on reflection, but it'd be desperately unkind to Bucharest, given how little it has to work with.
Given your glowing review of the place I have to say I am surprised you rank Chester lower than all those collections
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Given your glowing review of the place I have to say I am surprised you rank Chester lower than all those collections
I think it's safe to say Chester is somewhere in the top six......but where?
Indeed
I was being facecious based on the fact that the proposed position of 26th place for Paris relies on Chester being omitted, given the collections cited, and that CGSwans had presumably forgotten to include it in the list.Given your glowing review of the place I have to say I am surprised you rank Chester lower than all those collections
Indeed
No, no, Chester is one of the also-rans. Somewhere between Rome and Lubljana.
6. Tierpark Hellabrunn. Of all my zoo visits it's the Munich one I most want to repeat. Not because it's the best - though I hope it'll settle for sixth - but because I wasn't able to make the best of it. I had a bit of a down-swing in my trip that unfortunately coincided with Germany, where I was starting to appreciate that my trip was heading towards its end and, worse, that I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I felt a little off-colour physically, too, in Munich. So I headed straight to the zoo - unfortunately on a public holiday - in case I found myself bed-ridden, and covered it entirely in less than four hours. So I gave it much shorter thrift than one of the most well-composed zoos in Europe deserves. For a long time I had it in my top five, but I've finally dropped it down one notch because there's no one broad category that it truly owns, unlike the zoos above it. Instead there is an immensely satisfying evenness to Munich, with so few nits to pick. It has some delightful field exhibits, such as the chamois and the Pampas, a wonderful flight aviary saved from the usual bin chicken-themed wastefulness by a few macaws, and some stunning carnivore exhibits for wolves, bears and tigers. The Heck breeds are a unique asset, too. Luckily my girlfriend wants desperately to visit Munich, so I'll get a second chance here. One day.
5. Prague Zoo. Aside from free zoos, which are kinda cheating, it's hard to imagine a better value for money pick than Prague, whose entry fee comes out to less than £7, $9 in the US or $13 in Australia. You get an awful lot of zoo for that price, and a lot of it is great. It's true to say that Prague's inconsistent: the tropical house disappointed, it has a very poor polar bear exhibit, and I liked the reptile exhibits in the carnivore house rather more than I liked the carnivore exhibits. The strengths far exceed the weaknesses, though. The Savannah exhibit was runner-up for my Golden Swan: only its limited viewing from one end cost it the win, but I'm hopeful that the path to the new gorilla exhibit will fix that. The lower half of the zoo stars some gorgeous primate islands, a seemingly endless set of generous wetland aviaries and more laughing-thrushes than anyone can reasonably hope for. Topping it all off are those cliff faces for mountain-hopping bovids, which are perhaps the best example of adapting the existing landscape for display that I've ever seen. Prague is the European zoo that most reminds me of San Diego. How's that for praise?
4. Berlin Zoo. Remember how I said in my previous post that the top four had been easy to settle on? I tell a lie, because right at the last moment I compared Prague, which had held that fourth spot, and Berlin, which had had to fight off Rotterdam, Munich and its proletarian sister for a spot in the top five. And Berlin won.
It's the complicated relationship with the Tierpark that made it so hard to settle on where Berlin Zoo fits. Perfectly pleasant - and in occasional cases genuinely delightful - large mammal exhibits suffer from the comparison, because they can't match the sweeping expanses on what was once the other side of the Wall. After my two respective visits I said to FunkyGibbon that the Tierpark was the better of the two, but obviously I've reassessed and changed my mind. The tie-breakers - with both Prague and the Tierpark - are the Zoo's sumptuous Aquarium and bird houses, which make up for any deficiency with a couple of the facilities for larger mammals. The reptile exhibits and some of the habitat fish tanks in the Aquarium are a match for anything else in the continent, including that gorgeous reef tank. The bird collection took up too much of my time, and would have been more delaying still if I hadn't so recently been to Walsrode. I still think, as I said in August, that the Zoo would benefit from taking advantage of the Tierpark's proximity to decrease its collection somewhat, but I don't begrudge its ambition, I only question its necessity. Berlin is one of the very best urban zoos in the world.
5. Prague Zoo. Aside from free zoos, which are kinda cheating, it's hard to imagine a better value for money pick than Prague, whose entry fee comes out to less than £7, $9 in the US or $13 in Australia. You get an awful lot of zoo for that price, and a lot of it is great. It's true to say that Prague's inconsistent: the tropical house disappointed, it has a very poor polar bear exhibit, and I liked the reptile exhibits in the carnivore house rather more than I liked the carnivore exhibits. The strengths far exceed the weaknesses, though. The Savannah exhibit was runner-up for my Golden Swan: only its limited viewing from one end cost it the win, but I'm hopeful that the path to the new gorilla exhibit will fix that. The lower half of the zoo stars some gorgeous primate islands, a seemingly endless set of generous wetland aviaries and more laughing-thrushes than anyone can reasonably hope for. Topping it all off are those cliff faces for mountain-hopping bovids, which are perhaps the best example of adapting the existing landscape for display that I've ever seen. Prague is the European zoo that most reminds me of San Diego. How's that for praise?
4. Berlin Zoo. Remember how I said in my previous post that the top four had been easy to settle on? I tell a lie, because right at the last moment I compared Prague, which had held that fourth spot, and Berlin, which had had to fight off Rotterdam, Munich and its proletarian sister for a spot in the top five. And Berlin won.
It's the complicated relationship with the Tierpark that made it so hard to settle on where Berlin Zoo fits. Perfectly pleasant - and in occasional cases genuinely delightful - large mammal exhibits suffer from the comparison, because they can't match the sweeping expanses on what was once the other side of the Wall. After my two respective visits I said to FunkyGibbon that the Tierpark was the better of the two, but obviously I've reassessed and changed my mind. The tie-breakers - with both Prague and the Tierpark - are the Zoo's sumptuous Aquarium and bird houses, which make up for any deficiency with a couple of the facilities for larger mammals. The reptile exhibits and some of the habitat fish tanks in the Aquarium are a match for anything else in the continent, including that gorgeous reef tank. The bird collection took up too much of my time, and would have been more delaying still if I hadn't so recently been to Walsrode. I still think, as I said in August, that the Zoo would benefit from taking advantage of the Tierpark's proximity to decrease its collection somewhat, but I don't begrudge its ambition, I only question its necessity. Berlin is one of the very best urban zoos in the world.
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I reckon it'll be Zurich in 3rd, because of the ape house, followed by Burger's, with Chester taking top spot. And that isn't local pride, just based on the reviews themselves.
I don't think they know what "also-ran" means.
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Judging by recent Olympic sprinting finals I'm not sure most Aussies know what a 'ran' is
I didn't mean to start a sports discussion. I can fall asleep well enough already thanks.
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Well I'm sure ONE-DAY I'll get over it.