GodzillaLover04
Active Member
What about Tallahassee, Florida and Shreveport, Louisiana? I know Shreveport has an Aquarium apparently.
Cities in need of zoos
- Thread starter elefante
- Start date
Tallahassee has a native species zoo: The Tallahassee Museum. You can see pictures taken there in the ZooChat photo gallery.
GodzillaLover04
Active Member
If that's the case, I think they should've called it the Tallahassee Museum and Zoo, I just saw the map.
Paul.Haerle
Well-Known Member
Kiel, Lübeck, Flensburg, Potsdam (but Zoo and Tierpark Berlin are very close), Bonn, Paderborn, Kassel, Mainz, Trier, Reutlingen and Heilbronn would be some bigger German cities that don't have a (big) zoo, though some of them have enclosures with Pygmy Goats, Cameroon Sheep, Fallow and Red Deer and aviaries with Ring-necked, Lady Amherst's, Reeve's, Silver or Golden Pheasant, Japanese Quails, Budgeriars, Cockatiels, Zebra Finches or Domesticated Canaries.
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The Horse Boy
Well-Known Member
I feel Las Vegas could use a world class attraction too.
GodzillaLover04
Active Member
I've heard of this zoo that a group planned that would've been very world class from the map I remember seeing online. There was even gonna have Giant Pandas. Idk the current status of it but I hope Las Vegas gets a zoo too.
Nile Hippo Expert
Well-Known Member
Yes there were plans for pandas and even Polar bears at the concept Las Vegas Zoo.
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GodzillaLover04
Active Member
This is one insane zoo plan, and I like it as long as they keep certain animals like the Polar Bears cool because Nevada is a hot one, surprise surprise.
HumanLandfill
Active Member
Portland, Maine.
GodzillaLover04
Active Member
Barre Town, Vermont looks like it would be a beautiful place for a smaller, cozy zoo.
a small town like that would have to get by on the bear necessities
CMTM
Well-Known Member
Portland has a law that bans the keeping of certain species of wildlife for entertainment or display purposes.
https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/b6826bd1-9438-4869-a084-a6821c0cce1e?cache=1800
I'm really not sure I could see any small towns in Vermont wanting a zoo, much less being able to afford one.
MOG2012
Well-Known Member
Doesn't it only ban travelling circuses/exhibitions? A zoo could legally be there but I doubt there's enough funding and public interest needed
Maine Game Farm and York’s Wild Kingdom are nearby and Portland is day trip away from Boston, or Providence, or Southwick’s. Portland might be a great location for a Mystic sized Aquarium.
Wouldn't the same argument of Portland being such a day trip away from Boston apply to an aquarium too? Because it's Maine, I can see the argument of them needing a good aquarium over a zoo, but if "being to close to Boston" disqualifies a zoo, it likely does an aquarium as well.
I think (not to me though) Aquariums seem more popular than zoos. Portland being a seaside town with seaside attractions…an Aquarium just makes sense…and there are again two “zoos” within 45 minutes of Portland. Just my thoughts…I really can’t support the more popular than zoos comment. But an aquarium in Portland is roughly equidistant to Boston as is Mystic. Portland would pick up a lot of tourists from both southern New England and Quebec. Maybe it could support a small zoo as well…but we do have two already in the “metro area”.
CMTM
Well-Known Member
Going to peel back the curtain a bit here and confess that I am a resident of Portland and that I work in zoo and aquarium consulting. This statute has in fact stalled at least one project and caused caused another to move out of the city limits.
I am aware of 4 separate "aquarium attempts" that have happened in the past 25 years in Portland, with me working on 2 of them personally. You are correct that as a city Portland does seem more interested in an aquarium rather than a zoo (people from Maine in general seem less interested in zoos than other paces I have lived, just a personal observation). However, the money is just not there unfortunately. During the winter Portland's economy simply cannot support something like an aquarium.
Out of the 4 that I am aware of, 1 (a Sealife) was rejected due to proximity to another project that was already underway, the second was moved out to Westbrook and scaled back repeatedly in an attempt to make in financially viable, to no avail.
The third (and probably largest) was the Gulf of Maine Aquarium that was in development during the late 90s and very early 2000s (the same time New England Aquarium was working on the failed east wing expansion). It was planned to be a very large facility focused on local species and environments, I recall seeing plans for a beaver pond, a fenced in cove for seals, and a large pelagic exhibit for sharks, sunfish, and tuna that had access to a dock so boats could essentially drop off specimens right at the back of the exhibit. It was very heavily influenced by Monterey but in the end was also scaled back greatly. It exists today as The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, on the same wharf that was originally to house the aquarium. They're not open to the general public but they host field trips and the work they have done for the gulf cannot be overstated. An aquarium of that scale would've been incredible, but what we got is nearly as good in my eyes.
The fourth, which was the reason for sealife's rejection and is also the only one that happened is "From the Mountains to the Sea", an aquarium gallery at the children's museum in town. It's modest in scale with only 7 tanks all focused on native species, but in my biased opinion it is really good for it's size and location. 43 species currently in residence with several more planned in the future, including a few relative rarities such as Radiated Shanny and Mink Frog.
On zoos, I am not aware of any traditional zoos that were ever planned for Portland. However, when the Westbrook project was in it's "grandest" planning stages, the species list included a lot of non traditional aquarium species including flamingos, common hippopotamus, false gharial, and polar bear. None of which came even close to happening.
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DCzootripper
Well-Known Member
Not really a city, but I think margate should have something similar to the now defunct living coasts in Torquay.
Strathmorezoo
Well-Known Member
Margate ,has had zoos in the past. First one was started 1874 by George Sanger. I think that some of the old menagerie cages were found underneath undergrowth. During a holiday with my parents I visited Dreamland zoo. I remember lions, tigers giraffes birds and monkeys . It opened in 1969 but closed in 1976.