Why don't Zoo in US, UK or Europe create A Night safari zoo

ZooSGanimallover

ZooSGanimallover

Member
Hi everyone I am from Singapore, my home zoo is jurong bird park, Singapore Zoo and night safari and so on. This three that I mentioned is the longest operating parks compared to others that I have not mentioned. And I notice zoo in US, UK, Europe and etc does not have night zoo. Why is it so???
 
Hello there , Here in the UK night safari's are difficult most safari parks keep animals active during the day to bring in crowds as well as this we don't have many interesting nocturnal species that are not foreign unlike yourself. However in America Disney's Animal Kingdom (Florida) have create a night Safari tour on Kilimanjaro safari's so America has at least one plus in the UK and europe nights are much colder than you'd think
 
Because it is too cold in the winter. Many USA zoos, especially in the southwest (where I live), do open on certain nights in the summer. This is a recent trend and something I like.
 
Singapore sits right on the equator which means it gets dark at the same time (about 7 pm) every day of the year. This makes it very easy to set up with dining options so people can have a night out at the zoo and still get home at a reasonable time every night of the year.

The further away from the equator you get the greater the disparity in the time it gets dark between summer and winter. Also in summer there is a very long twilight. For instance in London in July it does not get really dark till after 10 or 11 pm. In winter it gets dark a lot sooner but it is also a lot colder and wetter.

Melbourne Zoo in Australia has "Zoo Twilights" where people can buy a picnic and listen to a band on the zoo lawns, and view some of the animals if they wish. That has been very popular, but it all winds up before it gets too dark.

Moonlit Sanctuary started with evening tours and still conducts them year round. However it is difficult to get people to understand how good an evening tour is. Today evening tour visitors make up only 4% of Moonlit Sanctuary visitor numbers. Likewise I understand that Singapore Night Safari had a lot of difficulty in attracting locals in it's first years and was mainly patronised by tourists. Today people understand it much better and locals now make up the bulk of visitors.
 
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The Alaska Zoo is open until 2100 on some winter nights. Summer nights as well...but 2100 hours in June in Alaska? Night has a different meaning than it does in more southerly regions.
 
Singapore's Night Safari is not simply the Singapore Zoo staying open late. It is a separate facility designed for night visits. As others in the thread have said, most of North America does not have enough pleasant night weather to make such a venture profitable. In the areas where there are enough mild nights many of them are very humid or even too hot.
Still, some places do so perhaps there will be a night safari some day in San Diego
 
@Zooplantman - San Diego Zoo already stays open until 9pm in summer, an event that draws huge crowds. The Safari Park used to stay open late as well, but they discontinued that a few years ago, presumably due to low attendance. I doubt a dedicated night facility could open. When you get on the coast, as San Diego Zoo is, it is often cold and night and morning, even in summer. And of course winters can be chilly and rainy as well, contrary to what the visitor bureau would lead you to believe.

@ZooSGanimallover - I should add that many USA zoos now do night openings during the Christmas season as well. However this is mainly for light displays and many of the animals are not visible. However these are very popular and for some zoos, such as Reid Park Zoo and Phoenix Zoo in my state of Arizona, they are the biggest money making event of the year.
 
The only places I could see it working in the US are places like Houston or Miami, which are far enough south to have warm enough nights nearly all year and have big enough population centers to make it economically feasible.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
The only places I could see it working in the US are places like Houston or Miami, which are far enough south to have warm enough nights nearly all year and have big enough population centers to make it economically feasible.
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Or perhaps Hawaii.

:p

Hix
 
Hawaii needs to be focusing on preserving its own wildlife seeing as it is one of the global extinction hotspots.
 
Zooplantman said:
Singapore's Night Safari is not simply the Singapore Zoo staying open late. It is a separate facility designed for night visits. As others in the thread have said, most of North America does not have enough pleasant night weather to make such a venture profitable. In the areas where there are enough mild nights many of them are very humid or even too hot.
Still, some places do so perhaps there will be a night safari some day in San Diego
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Yeah I know, Thailand and Malaysia have their night safari too. So am I right to say only country such as South East Asia got the weather and temperature to do night safari???
 
Maybe one of the Caribbean islands. Could be any country, but if you want to have USA resources how about Puerto Rico or US Virgin Islands?
 
Zooplantman said:
Why not Spain. Italy, Greece, Morocco, Mexico?
Maybe it is cultural?
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None of those are as close to the equator as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, which might play some role, moreover all of those are very hilly countries for the most part. The only flat part of Mexico is the Yucatan. But the Yucatan is also one of the poorest parts of Mexico and I doubt local demand could sustain a safari park. The Yucatan is the main tourist destination in Mexico (except possibly Mexico city), but tourists go to the Yucatan to see the Mayan ruins or to get drunk on the beach.
 
For a zoo to stay open into the night here in the US, the zoo will need to essentially double to keeper staff so that they can be fully staffed throughout the day and comply with labor laws. If a zoo opens at 9AM and closes at 10PM, then keepers will need to be on site from roughly 7AM to 12PM - 17 hours. That's double what a normal work day is (8 hours). The cost to a zoo to do this would be exorbitant.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
Hawaii needs to be focusing on preserving its own wildlife seeing as it is one of the global extinction hotspots.
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Maybe so, but they're far enough south and have the population to be able to stay open late.

jbnbsn99 said:
For a zoo to stay open into the night here in the US, the zoo will need to essentially double to keeper staff so that they can be fully staffed throughout the day and comply with labor laws. If a zoo opens at 9AM and closes at 10PM, then keepers will need to be on site from roughly 7AM to 12PM - 17 hours. That's double what a normal work day is (8 hours). The cost to a zoo to do this would be exorbitant.
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A logical assumption, but not entirely accurate. You need more staff, but not double.

For most zoos, the staff focus on cleaning the enclosures first thing in the morning and having that completed before the zoo opens. This is usually combined with an early morning feed. The enclosures won't get cleaned again until the following morning. So the number of staff required in the evenings is less than required during the day, as all you need is a few keepers to do some talks/presentations, and move the animals off-display when the zoo eventually closes.

When I worked at Taronga Zoo and they were running their summer NightZoo, a department of say 10 or 12 staff would only need an extra 3 or 4 keepers working the afternoon/night shift.

:p

Hix
 
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jbnbsn99 said:
For a zoo to stay open into the night here in the US, the zoo will need to essentially double to keeper staff so that they can be fully staffed throughout the day and comply with labor laws. If a zoo opens at 9AM and closes at 10PM, then keepers will need to be on site from roughly 7AM to 12PM - 17 hours. That's double what a normal work day is (8 hours). The cost to a zoo to do this would be exorbitant.
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Not sure about the US, but in Europe it will also mean you will have to pay the staff extra for working out of regular hours. So even if you would have a zoo that opens at 7 pm and closes at 2 or 3 am your staff costs will be a lot higher than that of a normal zoo.
 
Zygodactyl said:
None of those are as close to the equator as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, which might play some role, moreover all of those are very hilly countries for the most part. The only flat part of Mexico is the Yucatan. But the Yucatan is also one of the poorest parts of Mexico and I doubt local demand could sustain a safari park. The Yucatan is the main tourist destination in Mexico (except possibly Mexico city), but tourists go to the Yucatan to see the Mayan ruins or to get drunk on the beach.
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Equatorial location ought not to be a prerequisite, nor is a flat site.
More than anything it would be an economics and marketing issue: can a night zoo be sustained given the number of suitable evenings, operations (labor, energy, etc) costs, and does the populace go out alot in the evenings or stay home (or in the pub)?
 
Zooplantman said:
Equatorial location ought not to be a prerequisite, nor is a flat site.
More than anything it would be an economics and marketing issue: can a night zoo be sustained given the number of suitable evenings, operations (labor, energy, etc) costs, and does the populace go out alot in the evenings or stay home (or in the pub)?
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I think there is some confusion here. The original post was about Singapore Night Safari, which is a Night Zoo, that is it can only be visited after dark. Most of the other posts seem to be about zoos that open later in the day in summer, that is are still opening only in daylight hours.

If you ever get the chance to visit Singapore Night Safari during the day, the thing that is immediately noticeable is that enclosure design is very different from a conventional, daytime zoo. To operate such a zoo successfully it is important that sunset comes at a reasonably early time of day all year round, so in fact equatorial location is pretty much essential for a Night Zoo. The only location in Europe or North America where I think a similar zoo could possibly be located would be southern Florida.

I don't think flatness is very important and thinking about walking around Night Safari I don't think it is particularly flat. Of course a flat location will always be cheaper and easier to build on than a hilly location.
 
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