I don't think I have ever heard it outside of movies. I understand why the name was picked, but something like africa trail would have been better. Yet this zoo has an area with Sun Bear and Orangutan named Lianas Forest. Then the elephant, giraffe and hippo barn is "Animals and Man. So they seem to have a theme of names that fail to describe what is actually on exhibit.
I'm going to address the individual points made in this post.
-Originally this complex was going to be called "Gary Clarke's Africa", but the problem was that the education center they had was already named after him. To quote Clarke in his 2017 Zoophoria interview, “You’d be the only zoo in the world to have two buildings named after a guy and he’s not even dead yet...”. This is also named after the safari company Gary Clarke ran, called Cowabunga Safaris.
-Originally this building was called "Discovering Apes", which featured Orangutans in an indoor treetop environment and Gorillas in a unique walk-through tunnel environment. When Tiffany, their last gorilla passed away in 2017, they had the exhibit empty for a while (funnily enough calling the building Disappearing Apes). Then they got the sun bears from Omaha. Personally, I'd prefer they call it "Discovering Asia", and add several exhibits with Bornean reptiles, and long term exhibit clouded leopards in the old gorilla exhibit.
-The "Animals and Man" building was once called the Large Mammal Building, given that it had large mammals such as elephants, hippos, giraffes, orangutans, gorillas, etc. Once they moved the apes to the new Discovering Apes building, they renamed it Animals and Man to emphasize the interconnected relationships and enchantment man has with animals. (Personally, they could call it the African Giants building, add some immersive elements while still keeping some of the 1960s charm, and send the lemurs and lizards out, replacing them with hyrax, guenon, etc.)
