Indeed it’s an older photo, it’s by @Moebelle and taken in 2019. The closest I can find more recent media with a bit of a look at the exhibit is a video posted by Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, they’re by the viewing window. Posted during fall 2020. I’ll attach the link for anyone to see.
Agreed that the National Zoo exhibit is great- there was simply a lot of exhibits to choose from with sloths, which makes sense given how common they are. I heard that about sloth sleep cycles from a zoo professional I knew, in a discussion about species selection and exhibit design. Granted, both species sleep a lot so I suppose an irregular sleep cycle could be a more accurate way to word it, even if one species leans slightly more diurnal/nocturnal than the other.Another really good sloth exhibit (which might have been missed, given how I labeled my photo below) is the one in Smithsonian National Zoo's Small Mammal House; in recent years they've had a pair of sloths mixed with a variable combo of Golden Lion Tamarin, Green Aracari, and Red-rumped Agouti. It's one of the two largest enclosures in the building, and has lots of climbing opportunities and multiple nest spots:
Large Tropical Exhibit - ZooChat
Out of curiosity where did you hear/read this? I was under the impression that sloths generally were irregular in their sleep cycles and could be active at any time, rather than specifically diurnal or nocturnal.
It's entirely possible it may reach that status, but I really feel like we should wait to discuss it until it's actually open.
Surprised Houston didn't make the listWe're going ape for today's post, which will be dedicated to the best zoo exhibits for chimpanzees! These apes, one of our closest living relatives, were once an extremely common sight in zoos, however in recent years have seen a decline in the number of major zoos holding the species.
The criteria I selected for chimpanzees were modified from the orangutan criteria:
The exhibits I selected for chimpanzees are:
- Climbing Opportunities: Chimps may not live the entirely arboreal lifestyles of orangutans, but they still warrant exhibits with a wide variety of climbing opportunities, whether that be from live trees, artificial climbing structures, or a combination thereof.
- Space: Apes live over large swaths of land in the wild, and this should be replicated in zoos by giving adequate space to these large animals. There's no such thing as too much space (from the chimp's perspective), but there is such thing as too little.
- Exhibit Complexity: Apes are intelligent beings. As such, it's important to design an exhibit that contains a high variety of climbing opportunities and enrichment opportunities to keep the apes engaged and active.
- Social Structure: Chimpanzees live in complex, fission-fusion societies in the wild, and zoos should do their best to replicate this in captivity by housing large, multi-male, multi-female groups of chimpanzees.
- Easily the best chimpanzee exhibit in the country, and the one that changed Jane Goodall's opinion on zoos, is the chimpanzee exhibit at Kansas City Zoo. A large group of ten chimpanzees share this massive three-acre enclosure, designed to be extremely naturalistic with a variety of live trees for the chimpanzees to climb. It's no surprise @pachyderm pro chose to highlight this as one of America's must-see zoo exhibits, as it could very well be the best exhibit not just for chimpanzees, but for any species of great ape:
Photo By: @KCZooFan
Photo By: @mweb08
Photo By: @DesertTortoise
Photo By: @DesertTortoise
- While more balanced between naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements than Kansas City's exhibit, another excellent home for chimpanzees is the Regenstein Center for African Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo. This indoor-outdoor complex is home to ten chimpanzees, and both the indoor and outdoor components of these exhibits have plenty of climbing opportunities. The indoor components to this exhibit highlight how indoor exhibits for apes should be done, featuring deep layers of natural substrate and plenty of natural sunlight, meaning that even in the cold Chicago winters these chimpanzees are still in a top-tier home with some naturalistic elements, unlike some other northern zoos that primarily invest in the outdoor habitats. Lincoln Park Zoo has also been a hotspot for research on great apes in captivity, furthering the importance of this already excellent exhibit complex:
Photo By: @Milwaukee Man
Photo By: @ZooNerd1234
Photo By: @Moebelle
Photo By: @geomorph
- While not as large as Kansas City's exhibit, another zoo to take a very naturalistic route in building a chimpanzee exhibit is the North Carolina Zoo. This exhibit is home to a very large troop of sixteen individuals, the second most of any AZA zoo. This exhibit contains a good mix of naturalistic and artificial climbing structures, and while not as large as Kansas City's exhibit remains a very sizeable habitat for these apes:
Photo By: @Pleistohorse
Photo By: @Breckenridge
Photo By: @Moebelle
Photo By: @Coelacanth18
- A large troop of nine chimpanzees share an impressive exhibit at the Dallas Zoo. This exhibit provides a good balance between naturalistic and artificial climbing structures, and is similarly a very large habitat for its group of chimpanzees. There are many excellent chimpanzee exhibits that could've easily made this post, but the balance between incorporating live trees alongside artificial climbing structures made me place Dallas slightly above the rest:
Photo By: @Moebelle
Photo By: @TinoPup
Photo By: @snowleopard
Photo By: @geomorph
- Kansas City is not the only zoo in Missouri with an excellent chimpanzee exhibit, as the Saint Louis Zoo is also home to an impressive habitat. Saint Louis is likely the best zoo in the country to see all three great ape genera, as it also made the thread for orangutans and has a very respectable home for a bachelor gorilla troop as well. Nine chimpanzees share this large habitat, which does a great job of balancing naturalism and functionality, housing gorillas in a large and complex habitat with both live plants and a number of artificial climbing structures:
Photo By: @pachyderm pro
Photo By: @Grizzly Hound
Photo By: @Moebelle
Photo By: @Coelacanth18
I will say this was a species where there were a lot of exhibits of very similar quality. Kansas City and North Carolina were no-brainer inclusions, but after that there are a lot of very good exhibits that all could've equally been included. John Ball and Houston both easily could've been selected over Saint Louis and Dallas, but I also could've easily included Sedgwick County Zoo or Busch Gardens (I almost included the latter if it wasn't for social structure). Oregon Zoo has a fairly new chimpanzee exhibit that's also quite good. Unlike orangutans, US zoos have no shortage of good chimpanzee exhibits, however unlike gorillas relatively few of them are genuinely incredible.
Busch is really good, and the new climbing structure is really nice. I think it gets overlooked due to the theme park atmosphere in most of the park. The chimps are all geriatrics, IIRC.
Busch only has two chimpanzees right now, and since social structure is one of the main criteria I used, I prioritized zoos with larger groups of chimps:
When originally planning for this thread I included Detroit for chimpanzees... and then I visited the Detroit Zoo. The chimpanzee (and even more so the gorilla) exhibit was very much a disappointment. While yes, the outdoor area was large (unfortunately it was too cold on my day for the apes), there was a severe lack of shade, despite shade being an important component of any ape habitat. The indoor area was also overly dated- in particular the lack of natural substrate (or any sort of soft substrate, for that matter) was concerning, and all in all I found the ape section of Detroit to be the weakest section of the (otherwise incredible) zoo.
