Mega-Budget American Zoo Exhibits

It is interesting to note what American zoos have spent millions of dollars on over the past decade or so. Elephants and polar bears have already been discussed on this thread and certainly those are marquee species that require substantial, expensive housing and have been the two front-runners in terms of splashy new zoo habitats. Looking through the long list that I compiled it is intriguing to note the common occurrences of animals that require underwater viewing and costly pools (penguins, pinnipeds) but also the fact that jaguars, lions and tigers have been prominent within larger continental zones. Here is a breakdown of the most popular additions:

Elephant exhibits - 16 exhibits that have cost a minimum of $10 million since 2004
Polar bears - 12 exhibits
Lions - 11 exhibits
Sea lions/seals - 10 exhibits
Jaguars - 9 exhibits
Penguins - 9 exhibits
Tigers - 6 exhibits
Gorillas - 5 exhibits
 
girafee1985 said:
surprised the Bronx zoo's children's zoo renovation or island giants didn't make the list.Can't believe the cost of Madagascar as the exhibit is not overly large.
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The children's zoo renovation number I've seen was $5 million, which isn't enough for this list. The current quoted price tag on the new shark exhibit at Coney Island is $157 million. Madagascar was expensive for a number of reasons. One was that they had to preserve the outside since it is landmarked, and decided to refurbish the whole outside, and another is that they wanted to maximize its eco-friendliness, so it has geothermal wells and dynamic skylights to drive the temperature control systems.
 
temp said:
Unfortunately I have been unable relocate it, but a few years ago I saw an article that had looked at zoo spendings and involvement in in-situ conservation related projects. A very rough summary was that North American and West European zoos overall were comparable and most medium and large zoos were involved in multiple projects, but the Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx+Central Park+Prospect Park+Queens Zoos, and NY Aquarium) were in a league of their own. They far surpassed everybody else, at least from an economic standpoint.
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Since 2000, through mid-2014, the WCS has spent over $340 million in capital expenditures, according to its annual reports.

There have been a couple of individual projects that perhaps should have made this list, but the WCS never announced their cost. The Center for Global Conservation is 40,000 square feet, and the brand new LaMattina Animal Ambassador Center is 10,000 square feet, and both were probably over ten million dollar projects.
 
There are some interesting points in relation to taxonomic structures, as the era of zoos opening brand-new Bird Houses, Cat Houses, Pachyderm Houses, etc., have been over for quite some time. There does seem to be life in the notion of a Reptile House, as in the past 7 years there have been 5 of those that made their debut in the U.S.

2008 – Zoo Miami: Amazon & Beyond - $50 million
2010 - El Paso Zoo: Reptile House
2010 – Fort Worth Zoo: MOLA - $19 million
2012 – Los Angeles Zoo: LAIR - $14 million
2015 – Zoo Atlanta: Scaly Slimy Spectacular - $18 million

Zoo Miami's Amazon & Beyond has its reptiles and amphibians scattered throughout a larger complex, but there are approximately 60 terrariums in that part of the zoo and that is a significant amount by any standards.

El Paso Zoo has a tortoise-shelled Reptile House that has 21 terrariums. Interestingly enough visitors do not actually enter into the small building but walk around it looking at the exhibits in a similar fashion to the Reptile House found at San Diego Zoo.

Fort Worth Zoo has one of the world's truly great Reptile Houses, with 100+ terrariums and many floor-to-ceiling exhibits.

Los Angeles Zoo has LAIR with its approximately 50 exhibits and two buildings.

Zoo Atlanta just opened its ridiculously named Reptile House with approximately 65 exhibits.

Fort Worth = 100+ terrariums
Dallas = 100+ terrariums*
Atlanta = 65
Miami = 60
Los Angeles = 50
El Paso = 21

*Of note is that in recent years Dallas Zoo renovated its Reptile House and eliminated all of the bird exhibits that had previously taken up a great deal of space. Now the building has at least 100 terrariums and rivals Fort Worth in terms of species on show.
 
snowleopard said:
2008 – Zoo Miami: Amazon & Beyond - $50 million
2010 - El Paso Zoo: Reptile House
2010 – Fort Worth Zoo: MOLA - $19 million
2012 – Los Angeles Zoo: LAIR - $14 million
2015 – Zoo Atlanta: Scaly Slimy Spectacular - $18 million
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San Diego Zoo also built a new reptile house complex in 2012.
 
Here is another one for the list:

2015 - Brookfield Zoo: Hamill Family Wild Encounters - $17.5 million
 
snowleopard said:
It is interesting to note what American zoos have spent millions of dollars on over the past decade or so. Elephants and polar bears have already been discussed on this thread and certainly those are marquee species that require substantial, expensive housing and have been the two front-runners in terms of splashy new zoo habitats. Looking through the long list that I compiled it is intriguing to note the common occurrences of animals that require underwater viewing and costly pools (penguins, pinnipeds) but also the fact that jaguars, lions and tigers have been prominent within larger continental zones. Here is a breakdown of the most popular additions:

Elephant exhibits - 16 exhibits that have cost a minimum of $10 million since 2004
Polar bears - 12 exhibits
Lions - 11 exhibits
Sea lions/seals - 10 exhibits
Jaguars - 9 exhibits
Penguins - 9 exhibits
Tigers - 6 exhibits
Gorillas - 5 exhibits
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Excellent work, and I for one do appreciate your extensive time investment.

It is not surprising that zoos are spending their money on these exhibits. If you were to poll zoo visitors as to what they came to see, I would suspect most of the answers would be on this list. As much as we don't want to admit it sometimes, a zoo (in the US at least) is first and foremost an entertainment venue and operated as an entertainment business. The main goal of renovating or adding these exhibits is to bring in more paying customers (visitors). There may be an additional goal of improving the quality of life for the animals in hopes of improving chances for reproduction. There is nothing that brings in more people than baby lion/tiger cubs, a baby gorilla, or elephant. As far as sea lions/seals being added, zoos have realized that people will pay an extra $3 - $5 to see a sea lion show (at least in the middle of the country, away from the coasts), and they see this as a funding source. Don't get me wrong, I think the zoological societies in conjunction with the zoos do some amazing work in education, conservation, research, etc., but it all relies on people willing to pay whether by donation, paid admissions, or through their tax dollars for it to succeed. This, in my opinion is why all this major spending is happening mainly on the big exhibits. There are a lot of bear grottos in this country that are just terrible, but those don't seem to be a high priority for renovation because very few people go to the zoo to see bears.
 
RetiredToTheZoo said:
There are a lot of bear grottos in this country that are just terrible, but those don't seem to be a high priority for renovation because very few people go to the zoo to see bears.
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I would have to disagree with this statement at least with polar bears. The reason why some are still in horrible grottoes is probably because some bears are older and the zoo will most likely phase out the species when they die. Although I love it's becoming popular and a lot of zoos now are renovating their polar bear exhibits, unless we get a decent amount of cubs in the next couple of years, there's going to be a couple zoos that may have new/renovated polar bear exhibits that are empty. However, if we're talking about other bear species, I do wish some would get upgraded exhibits. Unfortunately it seems some species may be phased out in a few decades. One example I can think of would be Asian black bears.
 
One omission is Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which opened in 2005, and cost $74.6 million.
 
This is indeed very interesting, and some excellent work done by SnowLeopard!

The statistician in me (which is my natural job) says that I'd love to see some adjusting of these costs for both time (inflation) and location (cost-of-living). I looked up the USA inflation rates for the last 10 years and did some calculations, and thus the overall 10-year inflation from 2005 to 2015 is approximately 19.3%. Thus an exhibit that cost $10,000 in 2005 would now cost about $11,932 in today's dollars.

Even more important, as SnowLeopard pointed out, is the huge difference in construction costs between the expensive East and West Coasts versus the much more affordable middle of the country. No two exhibits illustrate this more than the two Madagascar exhibits in NYC (Bronx) and Nebraska (Omaha). While I've seen the Bronx's Madagascar building and can attest that it is excellent, I haven't yet seen Omaha's Expedition Madagascar -- yet I've heard it's every bit as good as Bronx's exhibit! But look at the comparison in prices: $62M (Bronx) versus $10.5 (Omaha). Some of this difference is due, as ZooPlantMan said, to Bronx restoring an historic building. But much of this huge difference is due to NYC being unbelievably expensive with severe labor laws, which Omaha is among the more affordable places in the nation!
 
There are almost 100 American zoo exhibits that have cost $10 million or more between 2004 and 2017 and here is the latest entry:

2017 - Tulsa Zoo: Lost Kingdom - $17 million
 
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