These debates about the cost of exhibits strike me as so... odd!
On the one hand the "too expensive" side cries that it is sinful that so much is spent on exhibitry, and then the argument turns around to "but only the taxpayer-supported US zoos can afford it." Which seems to turn moral indignation into mere envy.
The frugal side bemoans the indecency of zoos spending the funds to make it "look nice for the visitor" and yet we have massive, very expensive tropical palaces being built throughout northern Europe, Asia and now the UK. I have not heard a big outcry against Leipzig or ZooZurich or Bristol or Auckland insisting that they ought to can all current new exhibits and throw up some cheap fences so they can have twenty new species of antelope.
And what's worse, there must be half a dozen threads on ZooChat that sing exactly the same song!
Will someone please concentrate and think of their clear top five reasons why a zoo exhibit ought to cost no more than xxxxxx?
The main frustrations I have with these debates are:
- there is sometimes an impression given that there are those who think an exhibit can't be any good if it
wasn't expensive (not necessarily what they actually think, but that's how it comes across).
- there sometimes seem to be an assumption that anywhere that doesn't build fancy immersion exhibits doesn't do so because they
can't, ignoring the possibility that they might
not want to.
- personally, I don't think there's any way of fixing an absolute limit of how much is reasonable to spend (and if the zoo has the money, why not spend it?). But there is a question of value for money - the thread started off with discussion of London's Gorilla Kingdom, which many would argue does not look like a £5.whatever million pound exhibit. If you're going to spend the money, make it work. One of the first thing you notice is no-one questions how much Zurich's Masoala Hall cost, because on the whole it's considered very successful. Not so Gorilla Kingdom. Expensive exhibits are fine so long as they get the most out of that money.
- there are those of us who genuinely believe that many of these big exhibits do not have enough emphasis on the actual animals. I was amazed to see (via photos, admittedly) the scale of the Texan town at Fort Worth - how many more great animal exhibits could have been built if the scale of the town was halved? Particularly when you then see the porcupine exhibit! I'm sure they could have produced enough visitor services capacity in a much smaller scale area, and then built a much better exhibit for the porkies.
- there is a feeling as well that sometimes the education aspect (often quoted as a reason for extensive theming) is all about conservation - this is admirable, and of course very important, but what always got me excited and interested about animals was
the animals themselves - diversity of form, diversity of behaviour, ecology, feeding mechanisms - all you get from many new exhibits is 'these are from an Asian jungle (or wherever) and they're RARE!'. All these other things can be conveyed without the cash for all the wonky fences and local villages.
Wow - I got to five, even if some weren't
quite what you were asking!
The first two are only really relevant to our discussions on this site, but the last three are among the reasons that all the money spent on these big exhibits always gives me pause for thought - spending that much money, there's almost always things I'd do differently. And in most cases, I'd be happy to take away some of the theming to do them.
EDIT: Just realised I could have saved myself all that typing and just put 'It's not what you spend, it's how you spend it!'
