Visits to zoos that don't exist anymore

When I was young, my family and I would occasionally go out to Cape Cod, and visit this kinda cute, but kinda dingy place called the ZooQuarium. I still have a stuffed snake from the gift shop, and I wish I'd gotten out there before it closed in 2013, just for old time's sake. The building is a neato pirate museum now, though, so maybe I'll visit that one of these days.

Just wish there were more pictures documenting the place. My own memory is fuzzy, but I wish I could find pictures of the lobby or even an overall layout. The best I know of is a very memorable, if not silly Youtube video.
 
Hammy said:
When I was young, my family and I would occasionally go out to Cape Cod, and visit this kinda cute, but kinda dingy place called the ZooQuarium. I still have a stuffed snake from the gift shop, and I wish I'd gotten out there before it closed in 2013, just for old time's sake. The building is a neato pirate museum now, though, so maybe I'll visit that one of these days.

Just wish there were more pictures documenting the place. My own memory is fuzzy, but I wish I could find pictures of the lobby or even an overall layout. The best I know of is a very memorable, if not silly Youtube video.
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They deserve to have been closed just based on that video
 
Hammy said:
When I was young, my family and I would occasionally go out to Cape Cod, and visit this kinda cute, but kinda dingy place called the ZooQuarium. I still have a stuffed snake from the gift shop, and I wish I'd gotten out there before it closed in 2013, just for old time's sake. The building is a neato pirate museum now, though, so maybe I'll visit that one of these days.

Just wish there were more pictures documenting the place. My own memory is fuzzy, but I wish I could find pictures of the lobby or even an overall layout. The best I know of is a very memorable, if not silly Youtube video.
Click to expand...
“Sheep are the hands of the devil”
Turtle are souls trapped in hell”
?! Am I going mad or does it really say these things!
 
Reikorangi Pottery Park near Waikanae, New Zealand, closed down earlier this year because the owners were getting too old to keep running it. It's a shame; I was toying with the idea of visiting again not long before the plan to close it was publicised. The place wasn't anything spectacular on either of my visits, but it was the only place where I have seen Swinhoe's Pheasant to date, and it was definitely better than Owlcatraz (which I think is only still running because you can't see most of their tiny collection without an overpriced tour, of which little of it involves actually seeing the owls).
 
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Hammy said:
When I was young, my family and I would occasionally go out to Cape Cod, and visit this kinda cute, but kinda dingy place called the ZooQuarium. I still have a stuffed snake from the gift shop, and I wish I'd gotten out there before it closed in 2013, just for old time's sake. The building is a neato pirate museum now, though, so maybe I'll visit that one of these days.

Just wish there were more pictures documenting the place. My own memory is fuzzy, but I wish I could find pictures of the lobby or even an overall layout. The best I know of is a very memorable, if not silly Youtube video.
Click to expand...

So I kinda had the exact same experience. I forget the year, but I had February vacation and my family and I rented out this weird hotel by the beach but it was February so it was cold and I don’t know why we did it in February. Got off track but during that visit, I remember going to ZooQuarium. My memory might be a lot fizzier than yours, but I do remember a big indoor section with fish tanks which lead to the outside portion of the zoo, which had deer and raccoons I think. That’s really all I remember because I think we only went there for like an hour (made my young mind kinda upset cause I didn’t fully explore the place)
 
Brum said:
Closed collections I have visited include :-
Malvern Hills Wildlife Park
Poole Serpentarium
Blackpool Tower Aquarium
Knowle Animal Sanctuary
Cricket St Thomas
Windsor Safari Park
There may be more but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
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Another two recent closures, one more missed than the other.-
Exotic Zoo (Telford)
Living Coasts
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
Reikorangi Pottery Park near Waikanae, New Zealand, closed down earlier this year because the owners were getting too old to keep running it. It's a shame; I was toying with the idea of visiting again not long before the plan to close it was publicised. The place wasn't anything spectacular on either of my visits, but it was the only place where I have seen Swinhoe's Pheasant to date, and it was definitely better than Owlcatraz (which I think is only still running because you can't see most of their tiny collection without an overpriced tour, of which little of it involves actually seeing the owls).
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Owlcatraz has now closed. I loved it when I was very young; mainly because the staff were good with kids (they would give tiny owls made of pottery to kids; possibly for free) and because of the ornaments that were scattered around the guided walk. When I visited for the last time, which was in either 2013 or early 2014, it was for the animals, and so I was very unimpressed.
 
Bezochte dierenparken welke niet meer bestaan:The Netherlands :

Klein Artis Ark, varende dierentuin 50’er jaren Leeuwarden. Small zoo on an Ark.

DierenparkDe Kameleon Appelscha 1982-2000

Beetsterzwaag, Vogelpark bij Restaurant BOSLUST,1982- 1986

Blesdijke (Ned., Frl.), Kleindierentuin “Blesdijke”/ Ank’s kleindierenfokkerij.

Eindhoven, Vogel- en Apenpark Animali 1977

Emmen, Noorder Dierenpark, From 1957-2015 from time to time

Epe-De Wissel,Dierenvreugd, De Achterste Molen. Woesterbergweg 2, Epe (Wissel). 1974-1979-1983-1998-2006-2014

Goïngarijp, It Schildhûs. Vnml. Opvang waterschildpadden maar ook enkele andere dieren. Several times from 2007-2010

.Harderwijk, Het Robarium, zeeleeuwenbassin, voorganger Dolfinarium. 1959

Leeuwarden, Otterpark Aqualutra. Several times from 1993-2001

Leeuwarden, Volière Prinsentuin. Several times in my youth, 50/60 ’s. Aviary in park.

Nijeberkoop, Roofdierenopvangcentrum Pantera.1992- 2010

Norg, Dierenpark “ De Vluchtheuvel “. 1968- 1972-1978

Oisterwijk, Vogelpark Oisterwijk,1977

Oranjewoud,Vogelpark Oranjewoud 1968-1972

Oudemirdum, Sybrandy’s Vogelpark 1972- 1984

Dolfirena 1972 (Ouwehands Dierenpark)

Roswinkel, Kleinvee en Vogelpark “Roswinkel”. 1998

Texel, Mini-zoo “De Mient”, Den Hoorn.1989

Tilburg Zoo 1968

Tinallinge (gem. Baflo), Vogel- en Wandelpark “Abbeweer”, 1976

Dierenpark Wassenaar 1966-1970

Dierenpark “De Brink-Akker“,Bruntingerweg 3, 9418 PN Wijster 2004, Small private zoopark.

Zuiderwending (bij Veendam). Dierenpark fam. Dijkhuizen 1972. Small private zoo.

Zutphen, Stichting Vogelpark. Stadspark.1983

Zwartberg/ Genk (België). Limburgse Zoo, 1977-1989

Coesfeld (Duitsland), Vogelpark Münsterland. 1975

Gelsenkirchen (Duitsland), RUHR-ZOO 1987-2000

Logabirum/Leer, Ostfriesischen Zoo. 1972

Metelen (Duitsland) Vogelpark 1997

Vildsund (Denemarken), Dyrehave 1978
 
I visited Cairns Tropical Zoo before it closed. Don't remember much of it since I was very young when I visited. Wish I had been able to visit again one last time before it closed.
 
KevinB said:
Out of the 50 zoological facilities I have visited so far, there are six that have since been closed - although two of these were connected to other kinds of facilities (nature reserve and museum) that have remained open and continue without the captive animal holdings and displays.

Vogelpark Zwin (Knokke-Heist, Belgium): This was a small and pretty outdated/worn-out bird park with mostly birds native (or previously native) to Belgium and Western Europe, next to a large nature reserve. The bird park has since closed and been demolished to be replaced by a new education center and the "Zwin Nature Park", a nature experience park with small-scale replicas of tidal and dune landscapes. The nature park does still house the European white stork colony that was previously part of the bird park, but all captive birds were moved to other zoological facilities. The nature reserve still exist and has in fact been substantially expanded recently.

Vlindertuin Knokke-Heist (Knokke-Heist, Belgium): Butterfly garden in Knokke-Heist - Het Zoute. I don't remember very much about this place to be honest as the visit happened quite some time ago and there isn't that much information about it that I could find. It was kind of nice, as butterfly gardens usually are, but it wasn't anything more and it was pretty small, so I would say it wasn't all that much to speak about and not really a loss, especially considering butterflies are now sometimes part of the collections of zoos.

Aquatopia (Antwerp, Belgium): Aquatopia was located within the massive Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel Antwerp, which is in fact located on the opposite side of the square (Koningin Astridplein) that also houses the entrances to Zoo Antwerpen and the magnificent Antwerp Central Station. The aquarium was closed because of declining visitor numbers and revenues and disinterest of the new owners of the hotel chain. Aquatopia's former location has now become a chocolate museum/experience center named "Chocolate Nation" (I do like chocolate, but I still think an aquarium was better use of the space).

The aquarium was actually quite nice with a decent collection that also included some herps. But in places it was also rather tacky - I mean, a Maya temple themed area with piranhas, or an escalator passing through a huge mock-up of a great white shark's mouth while the (in)famous music from "Jaws" played, anyone have another term for that than tacky? And while it was nice, a visit there never lasted all that long, even if one tried, and it was quite expensive for what was offered, certainly when one compares it to aquariums within zoos. Some areas of it were also a bit cramped and possibly noisy, especially on busier days.

I do however think it was a loss to Antwerp and the zoological world to see Aquatopia closed and I do slightly regret not paying a final visit before its closure.

Museum Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen (Brussels, Belgium): Museum of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, our national natural history museum, located in the European quarter of Brussels, not far from the European Union and European parliament buildings.

The museum very much still exists, but to my knowledge and research there are no living specimen exhibits currently. It used to house some aquaria and a vivarium room with mostly invertebrates in their entomology and malacology halls, but these have been definitively closed as part of the museum's ongoing renovations and re-developments. With this and the ending of a temporary exhibition on poisonous and venomous animals including living specimens, they don't currently display living specimens, although they likely do have some, somewhere, for research purposes.

The living animal exhibits were small and modest but interesting nonetheless. I'm not sure whether the museum will have any living specimen exhibits in the future after the re-developments, and while living animal exhibits would certainly add something to the museum and be helpful to its educational mission, it could still function very well without.

Dierenpark Emmen - Emmen Zoo (Emmen, the Netherlands): The old Emmen Zoo that was replaced by the controversial Wildlands, which I haven't visited yet. While the old Emmen Zoo had its issues and downsides due to the constraints of being on a relatively small space within city limits, it was still a fairly nice zoo with some pretty nice exhibits that I really did enjoy during my visits. I also had my first visit to a very young baby elephant at Emmen.

I liked the old zoo and hearing what's happened to the location since has been a bit disheartening (decay, vandalism, demolishing of building, new developments lagging). Wildlands is very, very different to the old Emmen Zoo and I think it's kind of regrettable that some of the old flavor and characteristics of the Emmen Zoo went lost in the new concept, which seems to not have worked out all that well so far, or at least not as well as hoped or expected.

Dierenpark Wissel Epe (Epe, the Netherlands): This place was closed after the 2015 bankruptcy of the Zodiac Zoos organization. It was taken over by Libema (owner of Safaripark Beekse Bergen and Dierenrijk that took over Wissel, Zoo Parc Overloon and AquaZoo Leeuwarden after Zodiac Zoos went out of business), but Libema saw too little opportunities to expand the small place and found the size and quality of the exhibits too low to continue, so the animals were moved out and the place closed, while Overloon and Leeuwarden did continue to exist and have substantially developed since.

Wissel did have a nice collection with some interesting and rare species, some of the exhibits were definitely not ideal or great (although some were okay or quite nice too). It's sad that plans to expand and improve the place that once circulated could never be realized, and it's a bit of a loss that the place is no longer there. However, the Dutch zoo landscape is still very well filled and the place as it was isn't missed all that much amongst all that is still there. Even if the place had been given a future, who could say it would actually have worked out in an already very full market?
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I should now add the Serpentarium in Blankenberge, Belgium to this list.

The Serpentarium was a small reptile zoo located in a commercial space on the seawall promenade right behind the beach. It had quite an extensive collection of reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates for the space it had, and admittedly some of the exhibits were a bit cramped and/or crammed into the space. The visitor area was also fairly monotonous with mock rock walls and fake (and perhaps also some real) plants. But nonetheless I liked it. It operated independently from 1998 to 2008, when it was taken over by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp (which also runs Zoo Antwerpen and Zoo Planckendael).

I visited it a total of six times and earlier this year I posted pictures from my three last visits (2009, 2014 and 2017) in the gallery.

The facility was sadly never able to re-open after the Covid-19 crisis started because of its cramped and narrow visitor areas, and in May of this year it was announced it would never reopen and the animals would be transferred to other facilities, including Antwerp, Planckendael and other European zoos, a process that is still ongoing, with some animals already having moved into the reptile house at Antwerp. The Covid-19 crisis was cited as one of the reasons for the closure, as well as upcoming expensive renovations of outdated infrastructure and permit renewals. The future of the facility was already questionable, but Covid unfortunately gave it the final blow.

I used to do trips to Blankenberge during which I visited the (still existing) SeaLife and Serpentarium in one day, but unfortunately there won't be another one of those. I also wished the circumstances would have allowed a goodbye visit.
 
I've been to 33 zoos and aquariums that have subsequently closed.

Australia

Southbank Aquarium
Monbulk Animal World
Arthurs Seat Fauna Park
Sorrento Aquarium
Moorooduc Bird of Prey centre
Ace Hi Fauna Park
Werribee Waterways (frogs)
Zoo, Mt Duneed
Bacchus Marsh Lion Park
White Hills Zoo
Living Wings and Things
Golden River Zoo
Beverage Bird Park
Heathcote Insectarium
Waaia Wildife Park
Wildlife Wonderland / Big Worm
Bullers Bird Park, Rutherglen
Warrawong
Dundee's, Murray Bridge
Manly Oceanarium
Bluegum Farm
Dubbo Municipal Zoo
Ettanogah Wildlife Sanctuary
Silverton Wildlife Park
Mugga Lane Zoo
Gondwana Rainforest Sanctuary
Alma Park Zoo
Talune Wildlife Park
Waterbird Haven Trust

New Zealand

Southern Oceans Aquarium

Singapore

Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom

United Kingdom

Leeds Castle Aviaries

Netherlands

the old Emmen Zoo
 
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