I have not seen anything about a new master plan, so thank you
@Gondwana for this information. I've searched for something on multiple occasions because I'm desperately hoping that my home zoo isn't becoming stagnant. The new zoo director that replaced Ehmke seems to have put the focus on maintaining what they have, which isn't a bad thing.
That being said, I don't believe zoochat truly understands the lay of the land here in MN with the Minnesota Zoo and Como Zoo. The public here supports Como it seems to a much greater extent than Minnesota has ever been supported. Part of this just comes down to history, but a lot of this I think is due to the MN Zoo being a budget item for the state where Como isn't (at least to the same extent). A lot more people have an opinion on it because the entire state's taxes go towards it instead of the city or county that it is in.
The other part that goes into this, is something I hear pretty regularly, that "Como Zoo is better than MN anyways." Largely, this seems to be due to two reasons. First, compared to MN, Como has far more megafauna/ABC zoo animals than MN does. Como has lions, tigers, polar bears, gorillas, orangutans, snow leopards, seals/sea lions, penguins, giraffes, etc. For MN, they have far more species, but not nearly the number of the animals people come to the zoo to see.
This has been felt even more by the dolphins leaving. The zoo told the legislature when they were seeking money for updates to the tank that the dolpins would be coming back, which obviously didn't happen. As great as the Monk seals are, they are old and really fairly boring animals to watch, which is compunded by the fact they have a terrible exhibit for seals. The public just doesn't appreciate that this is the only place you can see them outside of Hawaii.
Como is also on a much smaller site so a lot less walking to see, at least in the publics view "better animals." As much as us zoo nerds love the unglate paddocks in Northern Trail, for the general public, this is often viewed as a lot of walking for not much reward. I had students tell me "the animals are so far apart" when we went on a field trip to MN last May. The other part of it is Como has all these animals and it is free, where as MNs fees keep going up.
I'm not sure what the best option is for MN personally. I thought a major new exhibit, such as Africa was a great idea as not having one was often the biggest complaint any zoochatter could lodge against the place. That being said others hated the idea because of the MN weather. I think it was a great idea as it would get a lot more ABC animals into the zoo that the public wants to see, without getting rid of what is already there.
My biggest complaint about the master plan was, that in my opinion, I think the MN Zoo and Como compliment each other pretty well. Yes, they carry a few of the same animals, but overall there isn't a ton of overlap. The new master plan would have changed this. For example, the previous master plan called for orangutans at the zoo, a species Como has had quite a bit of success with, because of this I would have preferred Chimpanzees or Bonobos, the great ape species Como doesn't have.
