Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo News 2014

[baboon123]

Lion Gorge is no where near as bad as what people are saying here. I visited today and have posted some pics, for people who have visited MZ before the exhibit enclosures are similar to the tiger exhibit at. MZ.
In a couple of years all vegetation will have matured and it will look very different to what we see today just as the tiger exhibit evolved when first built as the vegetation hid the fencing.

 

[CGSwans]

Lion Gorge is no where near as bad as what people are saying here. I visited today and have posted some pics, for people who have visited MZ before the exhibit enclosures are similar to the tiger exhibit at. MZ.
In a couple of years all vegetation will have matured and it will look very different to what we see today just as the tiger exhibit evolved when first built as the vegetation hid the fencing.

I'm not sure I said it was bad, per se, only that it's boring and disappointing. In context with other development TW around the zoo it has contributed to a diminished zoo though.

 

[tetrapod]

Zoos should be about the animals, not flashy, grandiose exhibits. Taronga, unfortunately, is going a bit that way also. It seems to me that often the animals are just an excuse for impressive architectural efforts.

Keep the enclosures as unobtrusive as possible, concentrate on the animals and you will have a good zoo...

Why is it that ZooChat does not have a Like button function? I'm right with you about the enclosure should be unobtrusive with the focus on the animals. This is where good exhibit design merges the areas of the animal with the visitor. Not rocket science, but so easily done badly. And MZ used to do pretty well.

 

[snowleopard]

Another interesting aspect of Zoos Victoria is the focus on families and young children during the past few years. Healesville Sanctuary built a natural-looking, hands-on playground for kids and the facility is advertising its two new parents' rooms (nursing rooms?) in the quarterly magazine for 2014. Werribee Open Range Zoo now has Village Kids and Ranger Kids that I understand are both fairly recent developments. Melbourne Zoo has the Growing Wild "precinct", which appears to be aimed directly at young children. I have relatives in Australia that speak very highly of ALL those new additions but I realize that for many ZooChatters the kid stuff is just unnecessary clutter. At the end of the day it still makes sense for zoos to cater specifically to families as probably only 15% of visitors do not have children with them during a zoo tour.