Dumbest One star zoo reviews

There's this doozy about the North Carolina Zoo:

"Advertised as camping and tour the zoo at night. "Fun activities". Well, the very first activity is a lecture that starts "Animals Die. Then Vultures come down and eat them". Nice opening act. But it gets worse. "Poacher poison the dead animal so the vultures will die.: " OK..that was the first lecture.

Second and last lecture - "Ok we have an app that park rangers use. As they walk around they can touch the screen and mark the location of animals and poachers. Let's do a game." Each child is given a clipboard. They are sent in the field to find markers that indicate animals or poachers. Kids mark the spots in Green and Red. When done, the lecturer holds up a good example showing red and green marks. "What does this show. Yes! Groups of animals here and two groups of poachers here! What can the Rangers do? Yes! Send people out to get the poachers!"

I didn't pay $50 a person to have my kids trained to hunt poachers and parents to be lectured about the evils of poachers in Africa. OH! Someone brought that up. "Sir, poachers are not just in Africa. If you are a hunter in Cary, North Carolina (nice suburb town) and you hunt out of season, YOU ARE A POACHER." Nice a suburban Dad is the moral equivalent of someone killing Elephants for it's ivory.

I paid for cute animals and a tour of the zoo at night. Yes, poaching is a serious problem. Dead animals being eaten by vultures is a fact. But all totally inappropriate for this type of kids event. This is really an accurate portal of this event.

The camping was fun and the dinner was great barbequed burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Perfect kid food. (BUT WAIT! Hamburgers? Are we eating Bessie? OH, so inappropriate!)

I was saddened by the whole event and will be dropping my Zoo Membership when it runs out."
 
There's this doozy about the North Carolina Zoo:

"Advertised as camping and tour the zoo at night. "Fun activities". Well, the very first activity is a lecture that starts "Animals Die. Then Vultures come down and eat them". Nice opening act. But it gets worse. "Poacher poison the dead animal so the vultures will die.: " OK..that was the first lecture.

Second and last lecture - "Ok we have an app that park rangers use. As they walk around they can touch the screen and mark the location of animals and poachers. Let's do a game." Each child is given a clipboard. They are sent in the field to find markers that indicate animals or poachers. Kids mark the spots in Green and Red. When done, the lecturer holds up a good example showing red and green marks. "What does this show. Yes! Groups of animals here and two groups of poachers here! What can the Rangers do? Yes! Send people out to get the poachers!"

I didn't pay $50 a person to have my kids trained to hunt poachers and parents to be lectured about the evils of poachers in Africa. OH! Someone brought that up. "Sir, poachers are not just in Africa. If you are a hunter in Cary, North Carolina (nice suburb town) and you hunt out of season, YOU ARE A POACHER." Nice a suburban Dad is the moral equivalent of someone killing Elephants for it's ivory.

I paid for cute animals and a tour of the zoo at night. Yes, poaching is a serious problem. Dead animals being eaten by vultures is a fact. But all totally inappropriate for this type of kids event. This is really an accurate portal of this event.

The camping was fun and the dinner was great barbequed burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Perfect kid food. (BUT WAIT! Hamburgers? Are we eating Bessie? OH, so inappropriate!)

I was saddened by the whole event and will be dropping my Zoo Membership when it runs out."
Attack of the low IQ parent!!!
 
From Scovill:

1. Ghetto
2.This is by far the most depressing zoo I have ever been to! The animals look completely miserable and some of the cages/exhibits looked too small for some of the animals. The animals such as the camels and zebras seemed fine, being that it is close to their normal environment; but almost all of animals were near the gate wanting to get out of their exhibit. Left us completely heartbroken.
The wolf looked thin and I didn’t see another one in there, which they are pack animals and need to have companionship. The eagles had just a gated area and probably had their wings clipped to avoid them flying off, which wing clipping is common for pet birds, but it would probably be nicer for an enclosed cage so they can still fly. Didn’t see a perch either. The tuffed deer was curled up in the corner against the door in the back of the the exhibit, because it was the only bit of shade it had and it’s housing was shut with bricks to prevent it from opening! Probably because there are barely any animals here. It’s incredibly hot today. I feel so bad for the penguins too. Some, if not all, of the small animals you can actually have as pets. The flamingos and what I think were pelicans had a COMPLETELY bone dry pool with only totes of water randomly placed around that the pelican struggled to get water from. If I could post pictures of what I saw I would. I’m so furious I could cry!

The food is not only bad, but so were their drinks. The sodas were flat so they gave me a lemonade, which tasted like water with a shots worth of actual lemonade. We had nachos, chili cheese dog, hotdog and slushes. Slushes weren’t bad though.

The gift shop was crowded and had nothing really appealing. The cashier was nice and professional despite kids throwing fits. Train ride and carousel were okay. The only thing that looked great was the playground in the front.

In conclusion this place either needs to be completely redone or closed permanently and have the animals go into caring sanctuaries or zoos. I saw a sign that the zoo was closing soon for the season (I think). I have no doubt that the lack of business, large animals and the condition of the zoo has everything to do with it. Please close it down. The animals are suffering.
3.I took my kids today and it was the WORST the wolf's was not out the other animals are hiding or something else. It was a complete waste of money. I will NEVER recomend this place everAll the animals are not active any at all. They are being treated poorly all the spider webs everywhere this has been the worst place I have brought my family to. I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO GO HERE. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY.

Scovill actually responded to 2 and 3 with very good reasons for everything. Here they are:
Response to 2: thank you for coming to Scovill Zoo and taking time to post your opinions. I do want to give you a few bits of information that you may have missed. Our eagles are rescue birds from Alaska. They are unable to fly which is why we provide them a chance at life here at our zoo. We do not clip their wings. The same is true for the pelicans, red tail hawk, and turkey vulture. We have three wolves. I'm guessing you viewed Tilly our nine year old female. She is at a good weight for a wolf, around 90 pounds. The two year old boys weight about the same. Wolves are built for distance running. You mentioned you were here on a warm day so the boys were most likely in a cool burrow. They are most active in the morning and early afternoon for daily enrichment sessions. The tufted deer also has a covered shelter near the indoor shelter, which he doesn't use when it is open except in the winter. There were two pools in the flamingo exhibit and you are correct, the west pool is dry and under repair. There is water in the similar sized east pool. The small totes you mentioned were for drinking water. As a side note two of the flamingos were sitting on nests. Egg production would not happen if the birds were stressed. The Humboldt penguin pool is cooled to below 60 degrees during the summer, being temperate birds they are used to this climate and will take dips in the pool when they get too hot. The are native to a South America climate comparable to Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta. All our penguins were hatched in the U.S. As for the concession, I will definitely check out the items you mentioned. I will say that I did fix the soda machine early this afternoon so it is not serving flat pop at this time. We do take the welfare of our animals seriously and work hard to give each animal every opportunity possible to thrive.
Response to 3: Zoo. Due to the train track extension project the wolves have access to the viewing window portion of their north exhibit and the entire south side of their exhibit which extends over to the petting zoo and down to the lake. They choose when to nap and when to come up to the viewing window. We take the welfare of our animals very seriously as we give the animals in our collection choices within their exhibit to sunlight, shade, heat or cooling (depending on the time of year), as well as the choice not to be seen. Along with their daily diet and fresh water our keepers work hard to provide enrichment to our animals several times a week to heighten their sense of smell, sight, taste, smell, and touch. That being said, all our animals were out on exhibit today. I will agree that this has been a good season for spider webs. I personally knocked down a few hundred of them yesterday and today they were all back in place catching a wonderful crop of midges that come in from the lake. The not-biting midges are thick for a few weeks in August and so, the spiders eat well, along with our chickens and peafowl. We do offer free admission days that run on Thursdays through October 4th if would like to come back when the insects are not as prolific. Sorry you didn't enjoy your visit but I do appreciate you giving us a try. Enjoy your weekend!
 
Found this gem on tripadvisor for Helsinki zoo

I really don't recommend to visit this zoo in the winter and time of pandemic. I paid 12€ for visiting 5 outside animals. Everything inside is closed, even you can have a mask and you are vaccinated. This zoo is scam !

Most other one star reviews also mention how they saw very few animals which just isn't the zoos or the animals fault.
 
Here are some of the dumbest 1-star reviews I could find for some zoos in Belgium.
Zoo Antwerp:
"Entertainment level has become nil if you don't include special attraction days like light festival.
E.g. Butterfly garden closed because of no butterflies. Reason given at entry: too expensive in winter to heat. Bears,leopards,wild animals...been under construction for months and months. But clearly not being worked on."
1st, a zoo has a different 'entertainment content' than an amusement park.
By simple searching on the internet you can find out that it would also be totally useless to heat the Butterfly Garden in the winter because the butterflies are only kept in the period from Easter to the beginning of autumn.
Bears and leopards are first of all wild animals. To rebuild the whole building (I don't think that the animals are under construction as this person writes but the building where they live in) where the bears and leopards, among other animals live in is needed a little more than a few months and the works were at a standstill due to a logical reason called corona.
Planckendael:
"Reception was good....walk past the animals okay....with me everyone is welcome....but if you need to do your prayer for Allah...stay home....I don't live in a MOSLIM COUNTRY"
First of all, this review is very offensive and certainly not a reason to give a 1-star response. First of all, you are not forced to pray for any God. I think this person is referring to the BOEDDHA statue in the Indian village at the entrance to the Asia area. You are not forced to do a prayer for this statue and it's not a statue of Allah but just thematization.
Pakawi Park:
The dumbest thing I could find was from a person who was angry because there was a dead rabbit in a bird of prey enclosure. Think for a moment or look on the information board what birds of prey eat and it will already make much more sense to you.
Pairi Daiza:
"Super definitely going to come and stay again".
I don't know why this is a 1-star response.
"The original walkway at the authentic staircase is gone to make way for a cage with children's play area.... Beautiful structures are shipped from all over the world, but what belonged to the estate is allowed to disappear! Too bad!"
'A cage with a children's playground', very interesting.
This person seems to have no respect or idea of value for history or ancient artifacts, as these parts that belonged to the domain are often hundreds of years old.
Le Monde Sauvage:
"In my opinion, the entrance fee of 22 euros is far too expensive compared to "real" safari parks or zoos."
So what are "real" safari parks or zoos?
I also found another too-long review where the person in question was kicked out for bringing dogs to the park and that they knew nothing about it. The park website literally states that dogs are prohibited in the park.
 
There's this doozy about the North Carolina Zoo:

"Advertised as camping and tour the zoo at night. "Fun activities". Well, the very first activity is a lecture that starts "Animals Die. Then Vultures come down and eat them". Nice opening act. But it gets worse. "Poacher poison the dead animal so the vultures will die.: " OK..that was the first lecture.

Second and last lecture - "Ok we have an app that park rangers use. As they walk around they can touch the screen and mark the location of animals and poachers. Let's do a game." Each child is given a clipboard. They are sent in the field to find markers that indicate animals or poachers. Kids mark the spots in Green and Red. When done, the lecturer holds up a good example showing red and green marks. "What does this show. Yes! Groups of animals here and two groups of poachers here! What can the Rangers do? Yes! Send people out to get the poachers!"

I didn't pay $50 a person to have my kids trained to hunt poachers and parents to be lectured about the evils of poachers in Africa. OH! Someone brought that up. "Sir, poachers are not just in Africa. If you are a hunter in Cary, North Carolina (nice suburb town) and you hunt out of season, YOU ARE A POACHER." Nice a suburban Dad is the moral equivalent of someone killing Elephants for it's ivory.

I paid for cute animals and a tour of the zoo at night. Yes, poaching is a serious problem. Dead animals being eaten by vultures is a fact. But all totally inappropriate for this type of kids event. This is really an accurate portal of this event.

The camping was fun and the dinner was great barbequed burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Perfect kid food. (BUT WAIT! Hamburgers? Are we eating Bessie? OH, so inappropriate!)

I was saddened by the whole event and will be dropping my Zoo Membership when it runs out."
Oh no! They're teaching the kids about nature! They're teaching kids about conservation issues! How awful and horrible!
 
"Super definitely going to come and stay again".
I don't know why this is a 1-star response.
I suspect this person was just confused as to how star rankings work, perhaps they thought 1-star was the highest and 5-star was the lowest?
 
Some about the Greensboro Science Center:

"I cannot support an establishment that keeps animals in tiny cages. I wish I knew what to do about this situation. The animals deserve better than to live like that. Please, if you want to support a place where animals actually have space go to the nc zoo not here. It will break your heart to see them."

"My child got rammed in the head by a goat at the petting zoo. I know they can’t control the animals but my son literally did nothing to provoke the goat. The man working the petting zoo saw what happened and had no response. My son was crying and had a big red streak across his head, ear and face from the goat’s horn. (Photos are two hours after incident)"


"I would give zero stars if I could. If you are a 19 yr old college student do NOT go to the children's museum on your spring break day. BIG MISTAKE! The wind chamber was LAME, and I wish the penguins were a bigger part of it! I miss who I used to be...."

^Having a midlife crisis before 20

"Everything was great, except for one terrible, terrible thing. This poor, beautiful, exotic macaw was being kept in a tiny, tiny cage! The thing had no where to fly around! The cage was about 5 feet tall and 7 feet wide, which is unacceptable! Not to mention the fact that the macaw was screeching in anger throughout the course of our entire visit. It made our trip very, very difficult to enjoy. They were clearly screeches of anger. I do not want to support an establishment, that would treat its animals like this. I hope that they change their ways, and I hope that the cage was only a temporary shelter."

"This place is a prison for animals for our amusement. Why don't we see that? I'm never happy here."

"I feel as if your a chaperone for your child's school you shouldn't have to pay."

"No animals"

"I look at the fish"

"Greensboro Science Center"

These two are actually 2 stars:
"Came from out of town to visit this place and was highly disappointed. Even the animals didn't seem to care. Literally, about 95% of the animals had their backs turned or were tucked off in the corner somewhere. Is like they were on strike and I honestly felt bad for them. The flamingos were beautful though. And the peacock's display was short-lived but beautiful. The whole experience was blah. Maybe this place is best suited for children under 8. Having been to a few other aquariums and enjoyed them, my children were bored and wanted to leave."

"Definitely just a zoo rather than a science center. Then there’s your normal rip off prices for zoos and museums. The place was mainly targeted towards kids unless you’re just there for the animals. The mini horses are absolutely sad and have no grass in their enclosure. The best part was probably the aquarium."
 
This absolute gem of a review of the Georgia Aquarium

I hate hearing about the bulga whales doing the same circle out of complete bordeom... and a 30ft tank for an endangered whale shark that can dive to depths over 6000ft. I hate the same briefing every animal exhibit gives, "animals live longer in captivity due to vet care they receive" yeah right.. what else do they pay them to say? We rescued a "juvenile" whale shark from a fish market? More like stole it to put on display to sink to the bottom of a 30ft fish tank. I'm definitely NOT an advocate for these places. Learn to Scuba Dive and go see them and other sea life where they actually thrive and live and I bet your minds would change drastically on putting any animal on display saying it's for educational reasons. For such experts you would think they would know that just because they are shallow water feeders (sometimes) does not mean that they don't dive to depths no human could ever reach. #shouldbeillegal #usinganimalsasmoneybrackets #teachrealfacts

God, where do I even start on this one. One, if you hate aquariums so much, why did you visit one. Two, is it really such a big surprise that animals live longer in an environment where there is no risk of predation, diseases and parasites can be treated and there is a constant supply of food? Sounds like someone learned all they know about nature from the Lion King. Three, if Georgia Aquarium didn't take in those Whale Sharks, they would have been filleted and served with chips. The aquarium sounds like a pretty sweet deal compared to that. Three, there is genuine educational value in having captive animals. Four, what's the deal with the hashtags???

There are also way too many people complaining about the vIoLaTiOn Of HuMaN rIgHtS of the aquarium staff asking them to wear a mask. Seriously people.
 
Buttonwood Park Zoo:
"Only 32 animals and some fish tanks"

Capron Park Zoo:
"There were only TWO animals out. A loin and a emu"
Loin of pork? Loin of beef?

Franklin Park Zoo:
"Make sure to call ahead if this is your first time going, we went last month for the first time and practically all the animals were off display, so we took an expensive walk that we could have done for free. Barely any animals on display at all! Complete waste of money and will never return."

EcoTarium:
"This is where the stupid people in Worcester go with their kids to spend their money. $14 dollars entrance to see two eagles that are sick, shot the sign says, a pacing porcupine, used to have two otters and some water, now down to one otter and no water except the dirty stuff in his tank. Just a sad place. The $3 train ride is like, I can walk through these trees for free. Want to check out the planetarium" projection? Oops, sorry, extra $13 tickets required. The whole place is just for small children to blow some bubbles, look at some turtles and go home. Insult to the intelligence."

Roger Williams Park Zoo:
"Real small zoo. Prices to pricey for what you get for your buck. Need to lower price for visitors!!"

New England Aquarium:
"my friend and I had not been in many years. We were extremely disappointed! Expensive, no sharks, not many fish in big tank, (had built up coral thing in middle to fill the void) ,no shows.and one sickly octopus that sadly died a week later.. go to mystic!!"

Beardsley Zoo:
"No zebra, no giraffe, no elephants"
 
and one sickly octopus that sadly died a week later.
It's quite possible that this octopus had laid eggs, and was undergoing senescence. after reproducing, octopuses begin to quickly lose body tone and simply waste away and fall apart. really nothing the aquarium could have done about this, other than possibly euthanizing the octopus. its sadly just a natural thing that happens to octopuses.
 
Some recent ones from the NC Zoo:

"The animals look veryyyy sad, many were alone with no companion, saw not one zoo worker interacting with animals. The animals were pretty pitiful and sick looking."

"Go to Lazy 5 Ranch or another zoo before giving this one a try. Africa had 3 visible elephants, 1 Lion, 1 lioness, 2 zebras, 1 giraffe, a huge amount of antelopes, 4 small gorillas, 1 chimpanzee…..North America was a waste of my time. Polar bear wasn’t present but a bunch of doors leading to an inside “ice box” to make you believe you will see one. Bears are non existent. Today was 68 degrees in October there is no reason my child didn’t get to see what a normal zoo should have. It wasn’t worth the $15 per person, nor the time, nor all the walking. Wish we could’ve got a refund. Save yourself a lot of time and walking and go to Lazy 5 Ranch."

"More aptly called a park with some occasional views of animals. Some of these were difficult for small children to see. No indication that they are trying to educate the public about importance of diversity, saving habitat, saving species, etc. Just place for greasy lunch and visit occasional crowded viewing space. Major tip for the wise: allow about 2 to 3 HOURS to get a ride on the tram or shuttle bus back to your gate and parking lot. TERRIBLY disorganized transportation system that must cover huge territory. Be sure to ride with someone in a wheelchair - they and their 10 or so companions are seated as soon as they walk up, ahead of those waiting in line for hours. Rare to see any staff helping in any way. But the animals, though bored, seemed healthy."

How do you go through the entire zoo and get the impression that they're not doing anything to educate about conservation?

"The last time we had been there was more than 15 years ago, it was great then, now..it is a wonder it has not been shut down. One lone grizzly bear in isolation, how horrible, got up when he heard the keeper's truck bring food. One lone polar bear, dirty sitting on a mound of dirt, no water for him/her to swim in. I remember years ago a very nice polar bear area where THEY more than 1, had a spacious pool and you could watch them swim. Too expensive for what you saw which was pathetic."

It's almost like bears are solitary animals or something...

"I have been to zoos in 4 dif states and this is by far the worst. There are not enough animals to match the expanse of the property. One would expect to see more big cats than just four lions. Where are the leopards, cheetahs, and tigers? They had several rhinos, but only 2 elephants, and no hippos. Overall very disappointing. I would suggest going elsewhere. We saw more bears at the Biltmore Estate."

Why do so many people get so mad at zoos for not having one of the ABC animals? Imagine if Zoochatters got as mad at zoos for not having an Aardwolf or Kakapo?
 
"There were only TWO animals out. A loin and a emu"
Were they at the cafeteria?

On a related note I found this person who was complaining about how exhibits were closed due to COVID.

My mom and I were here last Thursday and were very disappointed. After spending $100 between two tickets and parking, we were expecting to see animals. We barley saw any animals and a lot of things were closed because of Covid. Our zoos in MI have things opened in the zoos that they don't and it's going fine for us. Needless to say we will not be coming back. We see more animals at our tiny zoos close to home than we saw here. Don't waste your money as they shouldn't be charging full price for tickets when half of the things there are SHUT down. Again, our zoos in MI are doing perfectly okay with limiting how many people are in an exhibit at a time so they don't need to shut down a majority of the attractions. Not to even mention that barley any guests wore masks and most of the staff weren't wearing their masks right. I hate masks but I still wear mine correctly in public. I recommend taking your money to the aquarium. We saw more animals at the aquarium in the first five minutes than we saw in the two hours we were at the zoo.


Barley??? We grow corn here in IL!!! Also, why are they surprised that there are more (smaller) animals inside the GIANT tank in Shedd as opposed to Brookfield's outdoor enclosures which house much larger creatures? Of course I found an anti-zoo guy, but what surprised me is how so many people were complaining about how areas were closed. I get them being upset about having to pay the full price, but couldn't they just look up what exhibits are open on the zoo website? Also, why are people mad that animals don't want to go outside during the fall and winter?

Shedd just had a bunch of people complaining about the website. There were also some complaints about vaccination cards. One guy was made about how the staff had jobs to do.

The Aquarium overall is geared towards smaller children (8 years and under). Maybe not a good enough place for teenagers. The exhibits are small and doesn’t seem to be enough room for the animals. Felt that the aquarium left much to be desired. I wasted my money, point blank. If you’ve ever been to the World Aquarium in Dallas,TX, the Shedd is a major step down.

Small!? Define small!!!

there was a dead turtle in one of the exhibits, who knows how long it had been there. the animals are set up like displays, many of them are just sitting there motionless just staring at you, its heartbreaking. there is not adequate space for these animals and they are not being cared for properly. chicago has lots of cool experiences to offer and this isn't one of them, spend your money somewhere else.

If he is talking about the fly river turtle, I agree that the exhibit is too small, but it wasn't dead, animals are allowed to rest, right?

All of it is weird, just weird...
 
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Got another one, this time about the...

WNC Nature Center:


"Disappointed! There aren’t very many animals. The ones they do have can be seen at home (wolves, foxes, deer, owls, donkey, goats, chickens, birds, otters). Most of the animals were hiding or asleep!! The bears were pretty cool! The animals were very spaced out, long walks. I thought there would be more animals. The reptile house was closed. We drove 50 mins to be highly disappointed. We walked through the whole park within about 40 mins."

Gee, it's almost like it's a nature center that focuses on local native wildlife.

"Hardly any animals there except bears otters donkeys and goats. They definitely need to add more"


Again. Native wildlife.

"May have good intentions... But still a sad place with caged animals."

"WNC Nature Center"

True poet laureate right here.

"Very sad place. Bored, lonely animals with no enrichment, no stories about the animals and why they're caged instead of released into the wild. One of the bears paces in a small oval, touching his face to the gate over and over and over. I watched for a half hour. That is a mentally broken animal. Heartbreaking."
 
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