Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia Zoo Futures

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Kifaru Bwana

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I have been a regular reader of US zoo newsrooms in the forums. Lately, with more than a glancing interest in Philadelphia Zoo. Correct me if I am wrong, but it is one of the oldest zoos ever established in the US and has a fine tradition in exhibiting primates. The new Avian Center and the Big Cat Falls have been welcome additions to more modern outlook zoo perspective.

Now, I see the William Penn Foundation has recently donated 6 mio. and the Philadelphia Zoo is currently expanding its Treetrail system (innovative …, true ..).

I wonder what our forumsters feel is needed / required for the Philadelphia Zoo to meet the challenges of the Future.

I myself would advocate: - renovation and redesign of the African Safari area and the Bear Pits? They have quite a lot of unused space … too? I wonder more and better new animal exhibits … is that possible?

What do you all think?
What is realistic (various people have mentioned a cash strapped situation .. - I cannot judge for a minute whether that is true or not .. -) to expect?
 
Well the zoo has said that the elephants are coming back most likely. There is so much open space in the southern portion of the zoo. The children's zoo and the surrounding area could make a nice 3-5 acre exhibit. The zoo is going to work on trails for the rest of the decade. This zoo has more of a direction than most. The zoo just spent a lot of money on a parking garage and children's zoo. Now the zoo will build a large big cat trail this year.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but it is one of the oldest zoos ever established in the US and has a fine tradition in exhibiting primates.
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I went here once in the 1980's.;) I was shocked at the tiny little cages in the old Ape/Monkey House where the famous early breeding Orangutans and the male Gorillas 'Bamboo' and 'Massa' once lived -Massa was still there in fact. There was also a newer Primate building(Large Mammal House) too- I presume this is the one they had a big fire in and lost some of the animals in it- or it may have been a still more modern replacement?

At Oklahoma Zoo I also saw the worst caging for Orangs and (some of the) Gorillas I had seen to date. Truly awful. These experiences completely revised my thinking about US Zoos and how their enclosures would all be very modern. Some photos on the US galleries demonstrate that some of the Primate housing in some US Zoos is still amazingly basic even today.
 
@Pertinax, how much I value and respect your judgement cannot be conveyed in words quite rightly. However, a visit in the 1980's is hardly a good starting point for a Futures discussion starting from 2014. :)

As this is more or less officially the earliest proper zoo on record (1874), it has a lot of listed buildings not unlike some European inner city zoos. Yet it has acres of greenery and open spaces. Unusual that in most traditionalist historical zoos in Europe (f.i. Paris Jardin des Plantes).

I am open still for more comments on what the future holds for this zoo from in particular our US forumsters.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
I have been a regular reader of US zoo newsrooms in the forums. Lately, with more than a glancing interest in Philadelphia Zoo. Correct me if I am wrong, but it is one of the oldest zoos ever established in the US and has a fine tradition in exhibiting primates. The new Avian Center and the Big Cat Falls have been welcome additions to more modern outlook zoo perspective.

Now, I see the William Penn Foundation has recently donated 6 mio. and the Philadelphia Zoo is currently expanding its Treetrail system (innovative …, true ..).

I wonder what our forumsters feel is needed / required for the Philadelphia Zoo to meet the challenges of the Future.

I myself would advocate: - renovation and redesign of the African Safari area and the Bear Pits? They have quite a lot of unused space … too? I wonder more and better new animal exhibits … is that possible?

What do you all think?
What is realistic (various people have mentioned a cash strapped situation .. - I cannot judge for a minute whether that is true or not .. -) to expect?
Click to expand...

They no longer have bear pits, those disappeared long ago. A redesign of the zoo's southern end is incorporated into the treetops expansion. Essentially, the entire zoo is being redesigned to allow trail use for most of its mammal collection. The trails concept engineered at Philly has excited a lot of investors. I doubt that the zoo will be anywhere near cash strapped for the foreseeable future.
 
gerenuk said:
They no longer have bear pits, those disappeared long ago. A redesign of the zoo's southern end is incorporated into the treetops expansion. Essentially, the entire zoo is being redesigned to allow trail use for most of its mammal collection. The trails concept engineered at Philly has excited a lot of investors. I doubt that the zoo will be anywhere near cash strapped for the foreseeable future.
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And with that the parking garage will solve the problem of getting visitors to come. Public transportation to the zoo is awkward in many ways and the existing parking lots are amazingly small.
 
gerenuk said:
They no longer have bear pits, those disappeared long ago. A redesign of the zoo's southern end is incorporated into the treetops expansion. Essentially, the entire zoo is being redesigned to allow trail use for most of its mammal collection. The trails concept engineered at Philly has excited a lot of investors. I doubt that the zoo will be anywhere near cash strapped for the foreseeable future.
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Have they permanently shelved plans to return elephants to the zoo now that they have the trails concept mapped out?
 
So are they using the garage for parking while converting the lots into usable space for exhibits, buildings, facilities, etc?
 
Gulo gulo said:
So are they using the garage for parking while converting the lots into usable space for exhibits, buildings, facilities, etc?
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No, they need those lots! I went on a busy Saturday last Autumn and the parking garage and all the lots were packed and still a line of people to park.
 
What an interesting concept. At least for the elephants and African hoofstock it appears to be a massive version of the Toyota elephant passage (formerly Asian tropics)...

Can anyone estimate how much space will actually be allotted to the elephants in the above plan?
 
uszoo said:
I have found the plan for the zoo's expansion. I have summarized it on my new blog in the link. Zoo and Aquarium: News Now | A blog about anything Zoo related
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Thanks for posting the graphics and for your interpretation of them, uszoo. That is a fascinating plan. The hippo "swimway" looks like it could be really interesting, as are all of the large animal trackways. It will be really genius if they can make this all work - kind of like the "O-line" for African megafauna.
 
DavidBrown said:
Thanks for posting the graphics and for your interpretation of them, uszoo. That is a fascinating plan. The hippo "swimway" looks like it could be really interesting, as are all of the large animal trackways. It will be really genius if they can make this all work - kind of like the "O-line" for African megafauna.
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- Well the zoo seems set on its plans. The trails are being spread out over several years and make america's first zoo, also america's most unique zoo. It reinforces the theme that the zoo is for its animals not its visitors. I hope other zoos catch onto this trend of campus wide trails. It would work well in many other smaller zoos.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
However, a visit in the 1980's is hardly a good starting point for a Futures discussion starting from 2014. :)
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True enough.:) I was really only drawing attention to your comment about Philly's 'fine history of exhibiting Primates' which hasn't always been the case, though of course the same could be said about all the older Zoos around the world, with Listed or antiquated buildings. That visit was a bit of an eye-opener though.
 
@Pertinax, fair enough! I know in focus primates were a threading a delicate line. We are losing far to many Cercopithecinae from zoos lately …! At that is under current phase out policies, if zoo breeding programs are failing we should strive to improve them in order to successfully breed the species with "issues", not phase them out.

On the other had, you are right … many an older zoo with a wee bit of history to it had exhibits we would not like to see in today's zoos. But we can only learn and hope to improve upon what has gone before (and that is yet a challenge … even in the current mode of visitor "friendly" zoo immersion exhibits .., are we responding / listening or failing?).

Having said that our forumster @uszoo did give a bit of a view to what the future for Philadelphia zoo has in store.

In this respect some of my ideas: 1. extend the African savannah over the trajectory pathway. Create multiple exhibits from the ones that are presently there … and build a walkway over the exhibit for people to pass over.
2. the hippo in the Lake seems an excellent idea, however I would use some of the upper area which is to be Ele III / II for an hippo area out there extending into the lake. This would free up the current hippo area for giraffe and zebra and rhino. Creating a larger exhibit would also enable larger groups to be presented, which certainly in case of giraffe, rhino and zebra and some or other antelope would be really nice. The main exhibit and some giraffe and rhino only areas to enable other species to go across. Would that not be a nice option.

The elephant habitat destined for 2017 (am I correct is absolutely huge).
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
In this respect some of my ideas: 1. extend the African savannah over the trajectory pathway. Create multiple exhibits from the ones that are presently there … and build a walkway over the exhibit for people to pass over.
2. the hippo in the Lake seems an excellent idea, however I would use some of the upper area which is to be Ele III / II for an hippo area out there extending into the lake. This would free up the current hippo area for giraffe and zebra and rhino. Creating a larger exhibit would also enable larger groups to be presented, which certainly in case of giraffe, rhino and zebra and some or other antelope would be really nice. The main exhibit and some giraffe and rhino only areas to enable other species to go across. Would that not be a nice option.
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So, in the future, exhibits at the zoo won't be as black & white as normal zoos (i.e. giraffe exhibit, next to rhinos, next to zebras). Their exhibits will be displayed as carnivores, ungulates, meso-primate, large primate. Species will constantly be found in different exhibits for regular visitors. The names you see on the master plan associate the species with their holding areas and where the animals will be found most of the time. Basically each species connected to a trail or adjacent to another enclosure can/will be rotated into other enclosures.

I see your point in having larger enclosures to house larger groups of mixed species enclosures. But I believe that the zoo's management are creating these trails and addt'l flex enclosures as a compromise to their current situation/existing infrastructure and provide more space for its animals.
 
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