Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia Zoo 2010-2012

I think because its expensive. The only parking garages i have seen are at malls or places like disneyland.
 
uszoo said:
I think because its expensive. The only parking garages i have seen are at malls or places like disneyland.
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Yep, so it is.
However, it remains an almost unsung possibility to free up space for animal exhibits and sundry zoo buildings / options!!!
 
i know this is old news but never was annouced the zoo has 3 Red River Hogs on display right by the okapi. A male from Memphis zoo. And sisters from Denver zoo. they arrived February 17,2012.
 
They're working on "Great Ape Trail," which will be similar to Treetop Trail, and will give an additional home to the orangutans and gibbons.
 
mweb08 said:
They're working on "Great Ape Trail," which will be similar to Treetop Trail, and will give an additional home to the orangutans and gibbons.
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Where did you hear about this? I couldn't find anything on the zoo's website.
 
Could you explain more about it? What additional space will it give to the orangutans and gibbons?
 
This is a very interesting way to make animals enriched in captivty and is a good way to conserve space. The orangutan trail looks very nice for them and future trails for gorillas and cats look very good. What most interests me is the trail for rhinos,giraffes,hippos and zebras.
 
Does anyone know if the trail is more like an excercise loop or is it a public transfer shoot from one exhibit to another. If the latter, I wonder how holding buildings come into play? Would you have one holding building but just has several "trails" to choose from to take them to the intended exhibit (most likely)? Or would the tigers have two seperate holding buildings (not likely)? Or maybe the tigers and bears switch buildings (which I would think is not likely because of disease, ect.) on a roatational basis?

It would be really interesting to have a number of habitats (i.e.-forest, wetland, mountain, savanna) for an animal to rotate to daily/weekly. I imagine it as a few main trails that have a series of exits for each exhibit.......(in best train conductors voice) next stop deciduous forest exit 304. They would then take the trail back to thier holding building at the end of the day. Interested minds want to know!

Bravo Philadelphia, very interesting and unique to make the animal shifting part of the public experience on a large scale.
 
Drew said:
Does anyone know if the trail is more like an excercise loop or is it a public transfer shoot from one exhibit to another. If the latter, I wonder how holding buildings come into play? Would you have one holding building but just has several "trails" to choose from to take them to the intended exhibit (most likely)? Or would the tigers have two seperate holding buildings (not likely)? Or maybe the tigers and bears switch buildings (which I would think is not likely because of disease, ect.) on a roatational basis?

It would be really interesting to have a number of habitats (i.e.-forest, wetland, mountain, savanna) for an animal to rotate to daily/weekly. I imagine it as a few main trails that have a series of exits for each exhibit.......(in best train conductors voice) next stop deciduous forest exit 304. They would then take the trail back to thier holding building at the end of the day. Interested minds want to know!

Bravo Philadelphia, very interesting and unique to make the animal shifting part of the public experience on a large scale.
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Drew,

The first Trail was for small primates and allowed them to roam from their holding in the small primate building out over the grounds, into trees, and back.
Philadelphia Zoo Treetop Trail- YouTube
TreetopTrail - YouTube

CLR worked out a plan with the zoo to create more or less similar trails for other animal groups allowing more variety of experience for them. (They did a presentation on it at AZA last year)The zoo is, of course, pretty small, completely developed, and not wealthy so they have, in effect, added a layer over the existing facilities that gives both visitor and animal more to experience with out great cost or requiring new space (they simply went Up.)

So it is brilliant. Not immersive as we know it and not to everyone's taste
 
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Zooplantman said:
CLR worked out a plan with the zoo to create more or less similar trails for other animal groups allowing more variety of experience for them. (They did a presentation on it at AZA last year)
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I wasn't able to go to the conferance last year, unfortunately. They also don't have that presentation shown available for download on AZA's website like many of the others. Do you know if the trail for the tigers/bears ect. is essentially the same concept in which it is more or less a loop trail from thier holding building and does not necessarily connect to differant habitats? Thanks,

I do really like the look of the small primate trail.

-Drew
 
Drew said:
I wasn't able to go to the conferance last year, unfortunately. They also don't have that presentation shown available for download on AZA's website like many of the others. Do you know if the trail for the tigers/bears ect. is essentially the same concept in which it is more or less a loop trail from thier holding building and does not necessarily connect to differant habitats? Thanks,

-Drew
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No, sadly I don't. I believe the intention is to take CLR's previous efforts at letting different animals rotate through exhibits and expand it to an existing campus. I expect it will offer the same promise and limitations of the earlier efforts (exhibits reduced to lowest common landscape denominator).
 
What do you guys think of going to an exhibit for a popular animal without knowing if the animal will be there or elsewhere on their given trail.

The random encounters will be cool, but I can see how it may be frustrating to go to the orangutan exhibit expecting to see them when they're on their trail.
 
mweb08 said:
What do you guys think of going to an exhibit for a popular animal without knowing if the animal will be there or elsewhere on their given trail.

The random encounters will be cool, but I can see how it may be frustrating to go to the orangutan exhibit expecting to see them when they're on their trail.
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Well yes, but wouldn't it be even cooler to then see them "out and about"?
 
Zooplantman said:
Well yes, but wouldn't it be even cooler to then see them "out and about"?
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It's cool either way; I'm just saying that it has the potential to both excite and frustrate visitors.

It works best imo when they use animals that don't completely leave the home exhibit empty. In the case of the original trail, there are so many exhibits side by side and the trail is right outside the building, that it doesn't cause any issues as there are tons of primates to see, only one real star primate, and the ability to easily find the ones that aren't inside.

So I think it's best for them to use animals in mixed species enclosures or use animals that are plentiful enough to have some in the trail and some still in the main exhibit. Big Cat Falls already has a trail system that connects the enclosures, but if they want to expand that, it would work well since they always have cats that aren't on exhibit due to not having enough exhibits for all of them.
 
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