Ok, let’s talk about the weather!
There are a good few people here who take the climate a zoo is set in as a major factor when determining the quality of a zoo, some even appear to flat-out disqualify any colder climate zoos from the discussion for “best zoo” on their geographic location alone. I understand the points made thus far, but personally I think that’s totally unfair and, if anything, really solid zoos that find themselves in harsher climates should be in the discussion all that much more.
Let’s look at it from a visitor perspective first:
SDZ is lucky enough to have clear and sunny skies year-round and their exhibit design reflects that, with there not really being any indoor exhibit space apart from the Reptile House, which is only sort of indoors. Being in a hot, sunny climate can be a disadvantage, though, when you give people no escape from the heat unless they go to a restaurant or gift shop. Bronx has to deal with winter and because of that a little under half of the zoo’s exhibits are mainly indoors, which is a plus any time of year because whether it's nearly 85 degrees out or 25 degrees out I can get cooled off/warmed up in World of Birds or the Mouse House and still be able to view many, many fantastic animals. Sure 100 degrees in Southern California can be much better than 100 degrees in New York due to humidity, but hot is still hot. At SDZ your only option if you’re getting really hot is to go inside an animal-less building until you’re done over-heating. This was not a huge problem when I visited in January, but there were still a couple of times when I found myself wishing there was a real indoor exhibit to cool off in.
Weather is central to what makes one zoo better than another.
A million bucks goes a lot farther to exhibit a species in San Diego that it will
in say New York- there is just no way around that.
Ignoring the fact that this is fundamentally not true as there are a hundred other factors at play here such as building costs, type of exhibit, etc., if we follow this statement and say that San Diego has near-perfect weather year-round, this gives them even less of an excuse for having poor quality habitats for many of their species. If this is the case then there’s no reason why SDZ’s outdoor giraffe and bear enclosures are horrendous while Bronx’s are of excellent quality. Additionally, it’s been stated very clearly in prior discussion that SDZ receives a lot more funding than most other zoos, and if we are to believe that a million dollars goes significantly further there than in, say, New York, then there’s even less of an excuse for the zoo having newer exhibits met with division while a zoo who has to stretch every last penny is keeping an exhibit over 70 years old in better shape than most others around. As a side, does the fact that one zoo can bring in more money and donors than another really make it the better zoo? To me it seems like a rather pointless fact if they’re blowing it on ugly Lion statues and goes back to that whole “popularity ≠ quality” conversation.
Going back to the weather, I think people are also forgetting that many animals are much hardier in cold weather than might be expected. I’ve seen big cats, zebras, antelopes, Asian Elephants, rhinos, and even giant tortoises and alligators out during the winter months and sometimes even with snow on the ground. Sure when the weather drops to below freezing the story might change for many of these animals (according to Google, there’s no month where the average temperature for New York City actually drops below freezing, but obviously it happens) but it’s definitely an exaggeration to say that these animals are locked indoors for half of the year as some have stated. I think the AZA regulation is 40 degrees for how cold it can be when exhibiting giraffes outdoors, and according to Google there are four months where the low in NYC is under 40 (one of those months is March, though, which is very weird weather-wise and it doesn’t get that cold very often), but only one month where the high is under 40, and even then by just one degree. There’s also that whole Global Warming thing and as such Northeast winters are really weird. I remember two years ago it was in the mid-70s on Christmas up here, and I’m pretty sure this past year was in the 60s. All that considered Bronx’s giraffes would have likely only spent maybe 1-2 months max completely indoors over the course of this entire past winter season. Yeah that’s still not as good as being able to be outside year round, but it definitely isn’t as bad as the 4-6 months I think a lot of people are imagining it is.
Additionally, adapting to climate plays a huge role in the collection set-up itself. Whether or not you think it’s the superior zoo, I don’t think any of us would scoff at Bronx’s collection, and when you really think about it there aren’t that many species exhibited outdoors that can’t be outside for at least the vast majority of the year. As far as ungulates go, Bronx actually keeps two more species than San Diego does, but Bronx simply keeps species that are mostly better suited for all of the temperature extremes of the Northeast. SDZ keeps mainly African hoofstock, which do well in their climate, and while Bronx does keep a fair few of these, they also keep a lot of Asian deer species native to more temperate ecosystems. As for the African hoofstock, species like Southern White Rhinoceros, Grévy’s Zebra, Thomson’s Gazelle, Nubian Ibex, and Red River Hog are all pretty cold-weather tolerant. Probably the ungulate enclosure at Bronx that gets complained about the most is the one for Malayan Tapir as it’s on the smaller side and completely indoors but, while I agree with those criticisms, I’m fairly certain it’s about the same size, if not larger than SDZ’s outdoor enclosure and is much, much more naturalistic. Another added benefit of the animal being kept indoors is that the humidity of the enclosure is able to be kept much closer to that of a Southeast Asian rainforest than the arid heat of Southern California is. For primates, SDZ may be considered one of the best zoos around, but both zoos keep the same number of species. The difference is that Bronx keeps mostly smaller species from Strepsirrhini and Platyrrhini that can be exhibited very well indoors, with most of their lemur enclosures being larger and taller than many outdoor enclosures. Several of the New World Monkeys have sizeable seasonal outdoor habitats as well. The all-indoor gibbon, langur, and guenon enclosures are also pretty huge and very tall and all allow for natural light to be filtered through the ceilings. As discussed before the zoo’s gorilla habitat is arguably the best in the world and their indoor accommodations are better than most zoos’. The seldom talked about Mandrill enclosure is also on-par with SDZ’s in terms of size and height. I’m not going to go all that in-depth with carnivores, but to my knowledge all the species Bronx exhibits outdoors can remain outdoors year-round and the ones kept solely indoors are all smaller species.
When it comes to birds, all bar a few of the more tropical species at Bronx are kept indoors, mainly in the world-class World of Birds, the Aquatic Bird House, or world-class JungleWorld, with the more winter hardy species being kept outdoors in various aviaries and ponds spread around the zoo. I know some might want to jump on that and, fairly, state how SDZ can keep all of their birds outdoors year-round but how much better is that really? Of course the magnificence that are the Scripps and Owen Aviaries are extremely tough to beat but the vast majority of SDZ’s birds are kept in rows of bird cages along the Aviary Trail or dotted around the zoo. Almost every single one of Bronx’s indoor bird enclosures is larger- and more importantly taller- than these. The only added benefit is the more natural lighting, though most of Bronx’s enclosures feature glass ceilings that filter in natural light anyhow. As for the aviary giants at SDZ, I found that Scripps is roughly 9,200sqft in size and Owen is roughly 11,100sqft, and
@nczoofan has helpfully estimated the new African Rocks aviary to be in the 10,500sqft range. In comparison, Bronx’s only outdoor walk-through aviary, the Atkin’s SeaBird Aviary, is roughly 10,250sqft in size so it’ss smaller than Owen, around the same size as AR, and larger than Scripps. Of course the Atkin’s may not have the same height as the three SDZ aviaries, but at 60 feet tall and lacking an abundance of thick foliage the birds here still have plenty of space to soar. This aviary also follows my earlier statement about the zoo’s outdoor exhibits featuring species better suited for New York’s climate as the exhibit focuses on the Argentinian coast and is home to species perfectly comfortable outdoors year-round. Moving the conversation away from just Bronx, let’s look at another more northern zoo that’s been mentioned a lot on this thread: Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. Their Simmon’s Aviary is roughly 174,000sqft(!) in size and features mainly cold-weather tolerant species. While they do have to remove some of the species from the aviary during the winter, the zoo still has huge indoor free-flight aviaries for more warm-weather species in the Desert Dome (~42,000sqft) and Lied Jungle (~65,340sqft). Going back to Bronx, if we follow @nczoofan’s estimations, the main free-flight room in JungleWorld is somewhere around 20,000sqft. All of these completely indoor aviaries offer their birds significantly more space than any of SDZ’s outdoor aviaries and all have glass ceilings filtering in natural light so I must ask again, how much better off are birds kept solely outdoors really?
As for herptiles, I think a lot of people here are assuming Bronx has no outdoor herp displays but they actually have 12 (and they have three Komodo Dragon yards and two giant tortoise yards, but I’m counting them all as just two displays), only
three less than SDZ. Two of them display native species. As for the others, yes they have to be brought indoors when it gets too cold (though I’ve seen giant tortoises out in the high 40s so I think some reptiles’ tolerance is another thing people sometimes assume is much lower than it is) but that’s why the zoo makes sure it has top notch indoor enclosures. The zoo has one of the best indoor Komodo Dragon enclosures in the country (miles ahead of SDZ’s indoor habitat in size and design; I did not see an outdoor one), and imo their indoor Indian Gharial enclosure beats SDZ’s outdoor enclosure in almost every way- including in size, design with an underwater viewing window, a more impressive mixed species list, and the animals have to climb up and down rock structures if they want to get to the lower pools and as such they get the added benefit of more than just a flat beach area (something seldom found in crocodile exhibits)- other than the benefit of natural heat. Obviously that does matter a great deal with reptiles and outdoors will almost always be better, but remember that the vast, vast majority of SDZ’s reptiles are kept indoors year-round and, for the most part, Bronx’s enclosures are either on-par or much better. Not to mention that SDZ also has to bring their outdoor reptiles inside sometimes as well. I’ve heard that the majority of the species kept outdoors are completely off-exhibit during parts of December and January. What are their indoor accommodations like? I personally managed to see most of them on my visit at the end of the latter month, but there were still a couple enclosures that sat empty (yes I counted those in my total earlier).
Another aspect of all-indoor exhibits is that it gives zoos more opportunities to house more odd species, let’s not forget that. I found out that SDZ no longer has any tree-kangaroos so they currently keep only 18 mammals in the ‘other’ category, this group mainly consisting of smaller mammals. None of those 18 species, however, are all that small, and a fair few of them are strictly kept off-exhibit (many solely indoors might I add). Bronx, on the other hand,
exhibits 41 species under this category! Most of these are small rodents, elephant-shrews, pikas, bats, etc. and are exhibited almost solely indoors. This number does not even include all of the smaller carnivores such as the spotted skunks, smaller ungulates such as chevrotain, and smaller primates such as bushbaby that Bronx also exhibits indoors. Smaller species like these are significantly more difficult to exhibit outdoors, and as such SDZ has none. To use some zoos that haven’t really been featured on this thread thus far, the Los Angeles Zoo exhibits 14 mammals in the ‘other’ category, meanwhile the Smithsonian National Zoo exhibits 21. While these numbers may be a lot closer, most of LA’s are larger species such as wallabies and anteaters, with the smaller species all being kept within their few small indoor exhibits. In fact, 8 out of their 14 species are kept solely indoors regardless of size. Meanwhile SNZ keeps various smaller mammals such as tenrecs and armadillos and 16 out of their 21 species are held solely indoors. As far as actual exhibit space goes, these animals often don’t really need that much space to be kept healthy and well anyway so the general smaller size of indoor enclosures can still be great for them. In fact, sometimes being exhibited indoors will give them even more space than they’d get in an outdoor enclosure. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel be given more space than in Bronx’s JungleWorld and the flying foxes both in JW and in Omaha’s Lied Jungle have more space to fly than in any outdoor enclosure I’ve heard of.
Yet another benefit of indoor exhibitry comes when displaying nocturnal species. SDZ keeps two species of wombat outdoors in very good enclosures, but since they’re nocturnal most visitors will never see them outside of their burrows. LA on the other hand exhibits their wombat in a very large nocturnal enclosure that actually gives them more space than SDZ does, and as such they’re much more active. While Bronx may not currently have an actual nocturnal house anymore, there are still many nocturnal displays across the zoo in JungleWorld, the Mouse House, Madagascar!, the Carter Giraffe Building, Congo Gorilla Forest, and the Aquatic Bird House. This enables them to much more effectively exhibit dozens of nocturnal species such as cloud rat, jerboa, loris, mouse lemur, armadillo, and Aardvark as well as birds such as kiwi and owl, and even some herps such as python and tomato frog. Meanwhile, possibly the most famous nocturnal species at SDZ is the Aye-Aye, and we’ve talked in detail about the quality of their set-up already. We could go off on a whole debate about the morals of nocturnal exhibits and whether or not they even make that much of a difference, but purely from a visitor’s perspective a zoo being able to actually present a unique animal to us that we probably wouldn’t be able to see otherwise is a major benefit.
Now if one wants to talk purely in collection sizes, I found that the Bronx Zoo keeps ~117 mammal species (41 misc., 32 ungulates, 25 primates, and 19 carnivores) while the San Diego Zoo keeps ~98 (30 ungulates, 25 carnivores, 25 primates, and 18 misc.). I estimated these numbers myself using my extensive notes I take while visiting zoos as well as my knowledge of what they keep off-exhibit. Of course since these are my own rough estimates the numbers may be larger depending on what’s off-show that I don’t know about. I’d imagine at least Bronx keeps some smaller mammals bts that I don’t know about. These numbers are also at species-level only so don’t account for SDZ’s two Asian Elephant subspecies or Bronx’s two tiger and two Brown Bear subspecies. Thankfully for both birds and herps,
@snowleopard has been so kind as to share the International Zoo Yearbook stats with us so we can have much more definite numbers here. For birds SDZ holds the greatest number of any collection in the US (that’s listed on IZY anyhow) with ~330 species while Bronx sits in second place at ~300 species. Due to some zoos tying with one another there are 14 zoos in the top 10 list by bird collection size. Of these, seven are northern zoos. For herps Bronx also sits in a close second place with ~220 species while San Diego is tied for fifth at exactly 190 species. Omaha is the zoo in first place with ~240 species, Nashville is in third with ~210, Dallas and St. Louis are tied for fourth with ~200, and Houston ties with SDZ in fifth with ~190 species. Note that four out of the five zoos that beat SDZ in collection size are all northern zoos. Expanding to the top 10 again, 9 out of the 17 zoos (again, due to several tied spots) are all found with the “worse” climate. In terms of total collection size, these estimates put Bronx ahead of SDZ at ~637 species compared to ~618. I’m not going to bother trying to work out fish and invert collection sizes as my notes for those are a lot less complete and zoos tend to leave a lot of these unlabeled so it’s hard to get an accurate estimate. At any rate I’m almost certain Bronx and SDZ are about tied for inverts and Bronx has a good amount more fishes unless SDZ has a lot off-exhibit. Regardless, I think it is very clearly shown here that having the “better” climate does not automatically mean a zoo has a superior collection size or exhibit list.
(continued...)
~Thylo
