Happy New Year! I’m kidding. I’m well aware that we’re all well into the year, but I’ve been itching at this thread idea for a bit now, and decided it was now or never. So here’s the deal- I’m sure we all visited a few zoos, some maybe more than others. I know I did, and I also know I love making statistics and crunching numbers... So why not share what we all saw throughout the year!
I’m aware there’s some other threads that ask about your year and its zoo visits in review here and there around the forum, but I feel that this thread here is different and unique from the others.
My inspiration behind this thread was the format of Spotify Wrapped and a few similar trends that floated around social media where users would recap their years in various categories (romance, travels, even Starbucks drinks!, etc.). Seeing this, a version for zoos on ZooChat seemed only necessary to me
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To participate, structure your post in the following manner:
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How many zoos did you visit?
- How many states/provinces/countries did your zoo visits take you to?
- How many of these collections were zoos? Aquariums? Other facilities?
- How many of these zoos were new to you in twenty-twenty-two? (I can rhyme
)
- Choose your three favorite/most memorable visits of the year
- Choose and share three of your best memories from the year, could be from any zoo visit! And on the inverse, three of your worst.
What species did you see (this is where the bulk of the number crunching comes in 
?
I’m sure this goes without saying…but please don’t provide a list of all the species you saw this year…I don’t think many of us would want to scroll through that .
- How many species did you see? Share some of your favorites!
- Of these species, how many were mammals, birds, etc.? How did this affect your total- if you keep track?
- How many lifers did you see in 2022? Share some notable ones.
- Any gut punch misses? Share your stories here.
Make your mini TwentyTwentyZoo gallery here, share two or three of your favorite or most memorable pictures (if you took any) here, and provide some context if you’d like .
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Now, even though I typed out and provided a pretty structured outline of what your post could/should look like, I’m aware that some of these things may not apply to everyone. For example, if you don’t keep track of what species you see and have a lifelist or whatnot, you’re obviously not going to be able to tell us exactly how many species you saw. Modify your post where you see fit, there’s no pressure involved
. I’ll provide my TwentyTwentyZoo Wrapped in a post tonight, and hopefully that’ll guide anyone who needs any ideas. Now, let’s all share our fun!
Zoos Visited in 2022: 16
States/Provinces: 6 U.S States, plus 1 Canadian Province- which was my first ever zoo outside the United States.
Types of Facilities: Out of these 16 facilities, nine were zoos in the traditional sense, two were aquariums, one was a science museum, one was a theme park, one was an aviary, and two were specialist facilities that don't easily fit any categories.
Zoos New to Me: I started to keep track of which zoos I visit in 2020. As such, eleven of these sixteen zoos were new to my lifelist. However, I have visited some of these facilities before I started to keep track, and only six of these zoos were completely new.
Three Favorite Zoos Visited:
1. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
2. Roger Williams Park Zoo (a local zoo I've visited hundreds of times, and yet it still ranks amongst my favorites despite visits to many more facilities)
3. Rosamond Gifford Zoo
Three Best Memories:
1. Rosamond Gifford Zoo- Asian Elephant Twins, need I say more?
2. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo- re-connecting with an old (feathery) friend. Stanley, the red-crested turaco at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, used to be at one of my local zoos back home in Massachusetts, and he was a very sociable bird, often coming right up to visitors in the walk-through aviary and even landing on peoples' heads on occasion. He was a personal favorite of mine due to his personality, and even when he was moved out of the walk-through aviary into an exhibit he would often come right down in front of the glass and interact with visitors. He was never a good fit for my local zoo though since he was too gregarious in the aviary, so he sadly was sent to Cleveland- where this year I saw Stanley again!
3. Utica Zoo- seeing striped hyenas for the first time. First time I walked past the exhibit, the hyenas were indoors their holding. However, on my second time around the hyenas were outside and rather active, which made an exciting and interesting display of a beautiful species I've never seen before. It's also rewarding anytime I see active large carnivores since usually they are either asleep or pacing, so seeing active carnivores- especially a species as beautiful as the striped hyena, is a real treat!
Honorable Mention: Franklin Park Zoo- Gorillas outside, and finding the abandoned Bear Pits. In 2022, the Franklin Park Zoo opened Gorilla Grove, an outdoor exhibit for its gorillas, who were indoors only for my entire lifetime due to a series of escapes in the old outdoor enclosure. Bringing the gorillas back outside was a long-awaited project for the zoo, and it was rewarding to finally see this zoo, which has been stagnant for over a decade, finally have a big investment into its animals. On this visit, I also took the time to visit their abandoned bear dens, located slightly outside the zoo, which was a very interesting trek through zoo history to see, and walk into, some old exhibits of a very different style of anything I've seen in use today. While there were obviously no animals in these exhibits, a visit to an abandoned zoo was very much a rewarding experience.
Three Worst Memories:
1. Philadelphia Zoo- an overall disappointing visit. It doesn't help that this was during the avian flu closure, and part of why I was originally excited to see Philadelphia is the large bird collection, but overall this zoo fell flat to me. A lot of the primate exhibits seemed small, outdated, and/or poorly designed, and the big cat exhibits also didn't impress me, especially the lion exhibit was poorly designed and one of the smallest I've ever seen. Furthermore, the Zoo360 that the zoo innovatively built was almost entirely unused during my visit- the only animal I saw utilizing Zoo360 was an amur leopard sleeping in a transfer chute. Due to this lack of use, the Zoo360 system did not impress me, although I'm sure many who have seen it in action have rewarding memories of it. Overall, however, this visit was filled with disappointing exhibits, a lack of birds, and the zoo's most notable aspect (Zoo360) almost entirely unutilized.
2. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo- missing a lifer by a matter of weeks. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo recently sent their last sun bear to Honolulu Zoo, and this was one of the lifers I was really hoping to see during my visit to Cleveland. Unfortunately, that simply didn't work out, and sun bears remain a species I am unsure if I will ever see in a US zoo- as the ones left are quickly dying and most are located out of my geographic reach.
3. Hawk Creek Wildlife Center- a bizarre experience. For a zoo that advertises itself as great for photography, I was surely not expecting every exhibit to be behind either steel bars or chain link. Over half the collection was also off exhibit on my visit, including some notable species I was really hoping to see (Egyptian Vulture, Verreaux's Eagle), which made this a rather disappointing visit to a bizarre specialist facility that is clearly not set up well for their occasional days with visitors (the zoo is only open about a weekend a month).
Honorable Mention: Wild Animal Park- a staff member throwing a chicken. Yes, the chicken was alive. The center of the Wild Animal Park has a large, overcrowded goat exhibit that has to have nearly a hundred goats in it, along with some chickens and other classic farm animals. When I first arrived, there were two staff members holding a chicken near this exhibit, until one of them proceeded to throw it back into this goat exhibit. I seriously did not expect to ever see a zoo staff member throwing a live animal, but that was certainly a surprising occurrence at a facility that left a bad taste in my mouth that only worsened when I read more about its owner.
How Many Species?
I keep track of all the mammals, birds, and reptiles I see in zoos- although as of 2023 I've expanded my lifelist to include amphibians. In 2022, I saw a total of 178 mammals, 191 birds, and 120 reptiles, for a total of 489 species. (Note- numbers are approximate. I do not keep track of every year I see a species, only a running list of facilities, and then my first and most recent times seeing a species, as such for species I've already seen in 2023 I had to estimate what I saw in 2022, and especially for some birds at Rosamond Gifford I'm not 100% certain of accuracy).
How Many Lifers?
76 Mammals I saw in 2022 were new to my lifelist. Some of these were notable rarities, such as Striped Hyena at Utica Zoo, Mhorr Gazelle at Philadelphia Zoo, and Golden-Bellied Mangabey at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. However, a bigger number of these were "filling in the gaps" of common species I've simply yet to see due to the relative newness of my lifelist, such as Prehensile-Tailed Porcupine at Philadelphia Zoo, both species of Orangutan at Philadelphia and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Egyptian Fruit Bats at Bird Kingdom, and Greater Kudu and Asian Small-clawed Otters at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Perhaps my favorite mammal lifer of 2022 was the Aye-Aye- which I saw at both Philadelphia and Cleveland Metroparks Zoos.
89 Birds I saw in 2022 were new to my lifelist. This included rarities as notable as Martial Eagle and Osprey at Hawk Creek, Wedge-Tailed Eagle at Buffalo Zoo, Chestnut-Naped Green Imperial Pigeon at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and Black Collared Starling at Disney's Animal Kingdom. This also included some species that "filled in the gaps" of common species, such as Rainbow Lorikeets at Bird Kingdom, Boat-Billed Herons at Franklin Park Zoo, and Common Raven at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The raven, along with the golden eagle, are the 2022 lifelisters I saw at the most zoos in 2022, as I saw both at a total of three zoos.
48 Reptiles I saw in 2022 were new to my lifelist. This includes the gharial at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Travancore Tortoise at Philadelphia Zoo, and a number of new venemous snake species (especially rattlesnakes) at Philadelphia and Buffalo Zoos.
Overall, this means I added a total of 213 species to my lifelist in 2022. That means a total of 43.5% of the species on the species I saw this year were added to my lifelist, which is a pretty impressive total I doubt will ever be matched again, seeing that many of these lifers were simply filling in gaps of common species I didn't see in 2020 or 2021. The group that had the biggest proportion of lifers was birds, with 46.6% of the bird species I saw being lifers. Reptiles saw the smallest proportion of lifers with 40% of reptile species I saw being lifers. The only lifer I was sad to barely miss in 2022 was Cleveland's Sun Bear.
Caracal being bts at several places, it was the only felid held by more than five total places that I didn't see last year. Ratel at Creation Kingdom. Bontebok at Nashville. Dozens of bird species because of avian flu, and at Ripley because of the lack of rain. That one was expecially hard as the other eiders were in the closed exhibits.
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