Working on a Zoo Thesis Project

J

jbx37

New Member
hey everyone, i stumbled across this forum while searching for information about various zoos. i am a 5th year architecture student at cal poly pomona in california and for my thesis project i am proposing a zoo. i was hoping to get some feedback from people here on the issues surrounding zoo designs and what might make them better. here are a few questions that you can respond to. feel free to comment on anything you feel relevant to this topic.

thanks, josh


1. What is your name and your profession? How are you connected to zoo design and planning? How long have you been in this field?


2. What is your definition of a zoo?


3. What issues have past zoo and exhibit designs failed to address? What needs to be done to address these issues?


4. What directions do you see zoo planning and exhibit designing going?


5. What makes the ideal zoo?


6. What would the ideal site be for a zoo? What about climate conditions?


7. I have read about animal behaviors changing in captivity. Do you think this is due to the exhibit design? Could these behaviors be changed through better design? How?


8. Are there any specific codes or guidelines that come with designing zoos?


9. Could you refer me to any projects that you feel are successful or innovative in addressing zoo or exhibit design?


10. Do you have any contacts that could help me further with my research?
 
jbx37 said:
hey everyone, i stumbled across this forum while searching for information about various zoos. i am a 5th year architecture student at cal poly pomona in california and for my thesis project i am proposing a zoo. i was hoping to get some feedback from people here on the issues surrounding zoo designs and what might make them better. here are a few questions that you can respond to. feel free to comment on anything you feel relevant to this topic.

thanks, josh
Click to expand...

I reckon this'll get a fairly good response from forum members...
I have no professional experience at all in this kind of thing, but like everyone here a great deal of enthusiasm. I studied zoo design extensively for A-level coursework..may be able to find you some links etc.

These are quite interesting:-

European Association of Zoos and Aquaria - EAZA
http://www.eaza.net/download/Standards_2006.pdf

This is the minimum standards for animal care for membership to EAZA (European Association for Zoos and Aquaria). The American equivalent would be AZA, but I don't think they have these kinds of documents on the net without getting membership. Minimum standards should be similar.

I know this is very simplistic but may be of interest.:-
Enclosure design

This website is full of examples:-
Gallery



jbx37 said:
What issues have past zoo and exhibit designs failed to address? What needs to be done to address these issues?
Click to expand...

I think one of the things we spend the most time complaining about is when zoos do not change with the times i.e. even when they are building new exhibits they are not taking notice of new ideas.

A prime example I can give is great apes such as Orang-Utans and Gorillas. The traditional way of keeping these animals would be in moated enclosures with grass, and pole and platform style climbing structures. These are fairly well suited to chimpanzees but not their relatives; gorillas or orangs. Despite this a large number of new gorilla and orang-utan enclosures still use this design because its seen as 'standard' and it's quite easy.

jbx37 said:
6. What would the ideal site be for a zoo? What about climate conditions?
Click to expand...

This is quite interesting to me. A zoo in Scotland called the Highland Wildlife Park (Highland Wildlife Park, Kincraig, Kingussie, Inverness-shire, Scotland, UK) has a policy to keep only animals that naturally live in a similar climate to the scottish climate. That means natives, as well as mountain and tundra species from across Europe and Asia. I think this is an interesting, probably very good, idea as it means a natural habitat can be more easily created. Its just important that the zoo still has enough 'big name' animals to attract the public.

In a similar way, a zoo in a hot, dry climate (like the San Diego WAP) is good with mostly savannah animals from India and Africa.


jbx37 said:
7. I have read about animal behaviors changing in captivity. Do you think this is due to the exhibit design? Could these behaviors be changed through better design? How?
Click to expand...

I think it is proven to be related to exhibit design. Better design can help stimulate an animal and prevent repetitive behaviour that characteristic to stress and boredom.
Chester Zoo here in the UK had a bear showing bad stereotypic behaviour due to a small enclosure in its old zoo in Poland. I think the behaviour was eventually stopped though, it had an operation on its tooth then was encouraged to break this behaviour by being made to forage for its food.

Bears seem particularly prone to this kind of behaviour such as rolling their head and walking in circles.

Cats often pace their perimeter fence out of nervousness (in the wild they would walk the perimeter of their territory- obviously this is a lot smaller in a zoo).

Sometimes elephants walk backwards, exactly retracing their steps. This is attributed to boredom.

jbx37 said:
8. Are there any specific codes or guidelines that come with designing zoos?
Click to expand...
See Above

jbx37 said:
9. Could you refer me to any projects that you feel are successful or innovative in addressing zoo or exhibit design?
Click to expand...
The design history of London Zoo is interesting- its sometimes a good example of how not to do something too!

I've not visited it, but Zurich Zoo's Maosala exhibit looks fantastic on Zoolex.
Picture 3

Hope that helps.
 
Hi,
A fella by the name of David Joffe here in Australia might be useful to you. He is resposible for Dreamworld's Tiger Island, Sea World's Polar Bear Shores and a few other animal exhibits here and around the world. His Website is: Natureworks - experts in theming and construction, commercial sculpture, custom building, artificial animals, reproductions, fake rock, rock panel, fountain, fake palms, water feature, mini golf, aboriginal culture, fake trees, museum quality, dinosa
Hope it is of some assistance
 
thanks for the two responses. they both helped me out. i would like to hear what more members have to say. everyone seems to be pretty knowledgeable when it comes to zoos. just so its clear, you dont have to be in the zoology field to respond. you could just be a frequent zoo goer with an opinion
 
1. I am Jonathan Beilby, and I am a 13 year old who is very interested in the function of zoos and their purpose in saving endangered animals throughout the world. I've been interested animals for about 11 years, basically as long as I can remember.

2. I think a zoo is a place that has 4 functions, Conservation, education, research and science. The conservation is very important for keeping animals from becoming extinct. However the Education is next most importrant as we need to educate people about the problems facing animals. Then the research and science are to do with studying animals and, if possible, comparing it with the behaviour of the species in the wild.

3. A very dissopointing exhibit for me was the Gorilla exhibit at London. The pictures I have seen of it, do not offer the animals much climbing space outside. Chester has done very well with their great apes, because one of their chief designers, is a primate specialist, He's just done a PhD on spider monkeys. people are now copying Chester's ideas for the chimp island, in planting it up with plants that are poisonous and/or don't taste good to chimps.

Another idea like this is Twycross's elephants. They refuse to send them to another zoo, or start keeping a bull in the herd. This group of elephants is no very boring, in breeding terms. They are trying AI, but this is not as good as having a bull because when they meet a bull they may not know where in the social structure they come.

4. I see zoo design going to great new levels soon, especially in the UK. Many zoos have adopter SUPER plans or long term ideas that will kepp them going into the very distant future. They all involve great new exhibits, like Budongo at Edinburgh, Realm of the red ape at Chester and Gorilla kingdom at London. There are so many new technologies that can be used to enhance an animals life. Multi species exhibits are very entertaining to watch, and often stimulate animals to use different parts of their body or demonstrate different behaviours, that they wouldn't normally use.

5.the ideal zoo would care for it's animals adequatly, and have very good breeding success with its animals. The exhibits would be interesting for animals and the visitors. To be honest the zoos that come nearest to this in my mind are Chester, Jersey and San Diego.

6. Climate wise, I have basically no Idea. I would imagine climate would affect the choice of species made by a zoo. Singapore zoo keeps mainly tropical species and does very well with them, while Highland wildlife park keeps arctic species and does well with them.

I'll write more soon, I have done lots of research on changes on tarictic hornbills according to their exhibit. I'll post that when I've got time.
 
7. At chester zoo they imported 4.4 visayan tarictic hornbill on the 2nd of June from a breeding centre on Panay in the Philippines. I studied the differences in behaviour between two different male Visayan tarictic hornbills. One pair of hornbills contained my first male. They lived in a relativly small aviary in the zoo's tropical realm inbetween two other bird aviaries. The male was very still and only came down for a piece of apple. After that he just sat on the nestbox and watched the female, who was still quite flighty.
The other male, who has now bred, lives in the old St. Lucia amazon aviary which is very spacious and has a back aviary where the birds can hide to get away from the public. There are two food bowls so that there is no competetion between the male and female. I found at the end of my study (which I hope to put on here soon) that the pair with the larger aviary was a lot more active and were courting each other.

8. there are some guidelines for keeping animals, I think, as London were not allowed to keep Rhinos and elephanyt in their casson pavillon, or penguins in their lubetkin penguin pool.

9. INZ has lots of artilces about how exhibit design can influence breeding success. There is also one article about the nocturnal house at Ponzan which has some fantastic mixed exhibits.

10. Sorry, I don't have any contacts that would help. I'll try to find some people who could help.
 
1. What is your name and your profession? How are you connected to zoo design and planning? How long have you been in this field?

Jan, Zoo enthousiast for a few years now and full-time student accountancy on the university of Groningen, the Netherlands. Always have had an interest in Zoo's and Wildlife


2. What is your definition of a zoo?
First and foremost: A place where the unknowing can come and see animals that life either too far away or are too elusive for the people to see them in their natural habitat.

Worth mentioning is that while zoo's do this, new regulations on imports require them to keep their animal stocks genetically healthy and while they show their animals to the public, some zoo's actually do try and educate the people while they are there...


3. What issues have past zoo and exhibit designs failed to address? What needs to be done to address these issues?
Over 40 years ago zoo design was purely set towards being able to see the animals. They were kept in the smallest and most open possible cages to make them more visable. During the 1970's the public view seemed to shift towards animal wellfare and zoo's started to plan more animal friendly designs.

Ever since, zoo's are struggling to find a balance between what's good for the species at hand, what the public (humans) seems most desirable (like keeping what are primarily solitary animals together, and them being visable) and what has been done in the past by other zoo's. Most new exhibits like to steal idea's from what other big zoo's have done because "that must be the right thing, since they planned it all".

What has failed has been the sharing of idea's and especially the reasoning behind the choices a zoo has made when designing the exhibit (like for instance, scrapping good idea's because they didn't have the money).

4. What directions do you see zoo planning and exhibit designing going?
I believe the World Fair at Hannover brought a large sum of money to it's zoo and as far as i know they were the first to create an "Erlebnis-Zoo". Translated into english this would be "Zoo-of-Experiences", which also went together with the words "Immersion Exhibit". The main component of this design is that not only the animals world is recreated, but also the visitor-area is completely styled in the exhibits way, using as many invisable barriers (moats and glass mostly) as possible to make the visitor think they are in the same area as the animals.

The brand new Zoo at Gelsenkirchen (Zoom-Erlebniswelt) is now completely build by this idea and the new zoo under planning at Emmen will be the same idea. It's term is also used by many other zoo's.

5. What makes the ideal zoo?
There is no ideal zoo since everyone expects something else. For me the idea zoo consist of as many rare species as possible, kept in immersion style exhibits and have them in big numbers. Others would like a good play-area for children or have at least the mega-fauna people go for (gorilla's, elephants, giraffes, rhino's, lions).

6. What would the ideal site be for a zoo? What about climate conditions?
I guess that zoo's would be best clinging to species that would do well in the climate they are in, unless they can build adequate inside-exhibits. Some tropical species still do well in the cold, and sometimes a zoo can build a huge greenhouse and still keep tropical species in there.

7. I have read about animal behaviors changing in captivity. Do you think this is due to the exhibit design? Could these behaviors be changed through better design? How?
It should be possible. The main way would be to make the animals forage for food so that they don't get bored. I don't really think the size of the enclosure matters for most animals, beyond a minimum because most species seem to move only to get food anyways. But good idea's are allready in place, Emmen Zoo's bear exhibit has a few different slingshots that at random launches food into certain parts of the exhibit to make their brown bears forage. Burger's Zoo has a leopard enclosure with a lot of small hatches that randomly open and close revealing the food inside. The animals has to check on them often enough to get the food. Amersfoort installed a water-jet into their pinguin pool to liven up the water for the pinguins, who at first were very scared but afaik now settled in fine.


8. Are there any specific codes or guidelines that come with designing zoos?
As far as i know, country's in Europe are creating their own guidelines for enclosures. The Dutch law is lacking behind some other's, like Germany and Belgium who do have strict regulations. It would depend on the country...

9. Could you refer me to any projects that you feel are successful or innovative in addressing zoo or exhibit design?
Burger's Bush (on ZooLex) was probably one of the first MEGA-Zoo projects and i love those very large greenhouses. The experience you get from them are unequal to anything else. The only things i know who are comparable even to this day are Zürich's Masaola rainforest, Burger's Desert and the desert Dome at Henry Doorly Zoo.

On a smaller scale, a small organisation in the Netherlands running a few smaller parks are showing what you can do with a lot of wits and very little cash. All of their exhibits are fine (since they don't keep large animals), well designed and especially well planted and well-kept.


10. Do you have any contacts that could help me further with my research
Not really, the only people i know are all enthousiast from Germany and the Netherlands. They could answer these questions but i doubt they could do more...
 
I also forgot to mention Chester's okapi exhibit. They have mesh which allows the okapi to stick their nose through and you can he a wave of silence from the visitors watching, It truly is amazing. There is a film of this exhibit, and the Islands in Danger, Elephants of the asian forest and Chester's new spectacular realm of the red ape on the gallery.
 
i just wanted to thank jonathan and jan for their responses to my questions. your answers were both insightful and helpful. if anyone else is interested in responding, feel free to do so. thanks again
 
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