Ive been a member for several years. My problem is ive seen so many improvements for the people who visit the zoo. I think the animals may be in need of more attention than the people. Please help me understand what i have wrong.
So I literally just visited the zoo yesterday, and to an extent I think you make an excellent point. The zoo to me came off as heavily commercialized, more so than any other zoo I have ever visited. Other than perhaps SeaWorld and Disney's Animal Kingdom. The tour buses, roads going through a large chunk of the zoo, the gigantic bridge, Skyfari Ride, gift shops and restaurants all over the place, along with many other things, see to this. Honestly, all of this was truly a huge turn off for me. That being said, do I think San Diego has started prioritizing humans over the welfare of their animals?
Absolutely not! The zoo has tremendous success with many of its animals in terms of breeding and care. I think the way to look at it is that all the commercialization and emphasis on the human amenities allows them to do what they want and accomplish their goals when it comes to the animal side of things, both at the zoo and in terms of conservation work. I think Africa Rocks is a terrific example of this! A huge complex with large, impressive exhibits for almost every animal involved. This led to some highly active animals when I visited, even in the middle of the day. Where you can truly escape from the commercialization, such as in Lost Forest, the Reptile Walk, and parts of Africa Rocks, the zoo is truly outstanding!
The last thing I'll say here is that I think the zoo has been forced to go this commercialization route. Having visited SeaWorld today, I think to be able to compete for tourists (and locals for that matter) they need to have these human "gimmicks" in order to convince people to come, because the name recognition of the "San Diego Zoo" isn't enough as SeaWorld has that same level of name recognition as well, if not more so. In this same vein, with the Giant Pandas gone, I don't believe the zoo has the same draw power as it used to, because "a zoo is a zoo no matter where you are", for many zoo guests. Even with pandas, I'm sure this motto still applied for many. I know when my family (I wasn't with them) visited San Diego a few years ago they chose to go to SeaWorld and not the zoo and I believe are a good example of this. The rarities like the birds of paradise, birds in general, the many different crocodile and other reptiles, and large variety of monkey species is just not enough to get an average visitor in the door anymore.
On the flip side of this SeaWorld has "Orcas!" and they are just as hard to come by as giant pandas are and dolphins are becoming increasingly hard to find as well. With SeaWorld, along with all the other tourist attractions (Legoland, which even has an aquarium itself, I'm looking at you) in the area for people to visit, the zoo has been forced to come up with something to get people through the door. All that being said, I much prefer the way the zoo does it versus SeaWorld. My entire time at SeaWorld I felt like the animals took a back seat to the "theme park", where as I think the zoo has found a way to make the animals "the stars", while catering to what humans want. It can be a huge turn off for us zoo nerds, as it was for me, but I think it is probably going to be a necessary evil as we see many zoos trying to incorporate experiences and zip lines, among other things, to become self sufficient. I think San Diego has maybe just realized this sooner than many other zoos and have steered into it rather than try to fight it.
