Your worst zoo experience

Screvier20

Screvier20

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
My worst zoo experience was my 5th grade field trip to Bronx Zoo back in 1998 it rained all day plus two members of my group went off on their own spend half the day looking of the two never really got see the animals that day and I got sick because of the rained. This trip was my third to the Bronx Zoo. I been to the zoo four times.

This was only time I did not enjoin a trip to zoo.
 
For me, probably Toronto Zoo's member's opening of the African savannah in 1998. It didn't rain, it poured :( I still wanted to see all the new things since it was years since I've seen the animals in the area. My dad rushed me through everything :/
 
Both times I forgot my camera. Ruined the whole trip for me. Turned a 5+ hour visit into a less than 2 hour visit.
 
Oh I hate when I forget my camera! I did that one time and really regretted it because the hyenas were really active that day. I now leave the case by the door just in case I do almost forget.
 
While I have never actually forgotten my camera, I have genuinely had nightmares (usually the night before a big zoo trip) about forgetting to take my camera, and having to walk around the zoo, seeing lots of amazing photo opportunities, and not being able to take any pictures!:D

My worst zoo experience was probably when I visited Taronga Zoo for the first time, with my family, and we had maybe 2 hours there. I managed to ditch them and head off on my own, but I didn't have anywhere near enough time, and missed so much. It was very frustrating.
 
Worst was visiting Douglas Wildlife Zoo (thankfully now closed) near the Arizona-Mexico border. Just a disgusting backyard assemblage of small cages - I wrote to several local government agencies immediately afterwards to have it shut down.

Ironically, people are mentioning rain, but one of my best times was a light drizzle that developed in the afternoon while I was at France's Le Parc Des Felins last year. Me and another photographer (who I did not know) both ran under a small covered viewing area and put plastic covers on our cameras and Goretex jackets on ourselves and went out in the rain to see a family of white tigers with cubs playing in the rain and mud. The other visitors left and we had the whole place to ourselves - fantastic.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Ironically, people are mentioning rain, but one of my best times was a light drizzle that developed in the afternoon while I was at France's Le Parc Des Felins last year. Me and another photographer (who I did not know) both ran under a small covered viewing area and put plastic covers on our cameras and Goretex jackets on ourselves and went out in the rain to see a family of white tigers with cubs playing in the rain and mud. The other visitors left and we had the whole place to ourselves - fantastic.
Click to expand...

You are quite right about that. I love visiting the zoo in heavy rain, two feet of snow, or (last week) 115 degree weather. That way you prettymuch have the place to yourself.

Also, do you have photos of those tigers?
 
KCZooFan said:
Also, do you have photos of those tigers?
Click to expand...

Yes, but I just checked the Parc Felins gallery and it looks like I did not post any of them. In fact it looks like I only posted a few photos from my 2010 trip, as opposed to my first trip in 2009 when I posted a lot. If I think of it, I will post some the next time I have my portable hard drive plugged in (I do not store any images on my laptop - I just use it for sorting and editing, then they get transferred to two identical removable hard drives).
 
Some of my worst zoo experiences involve looking forward to seeing a particular animal or exhibit in a zoo and the animal doesn't emerge or the exhibit is closed. While I saw a platypus at Taronga, the Nocturnal House was closed and I never managed to see some of the unusual Australian mammals I'd wanted to see. Similarly, despite frequent movements to and from the Nocturnal Lemur House in Paris, I never managed to see the hairy-eared dwarf lemur.

One of the biggest anti-climaxes was at a snake farm in Bangkok. the label said 'flying lemur' and the two Thai guides wondered why I kept returning to the enclosure. Eventually, the animal emerged. It was very attractive, but it was a giant flying squirrel, not a flying lemur at all.

It is also disappointing when I've been to a zoo and other people have visited the same zoo and seen an unusual animal behind the scenes. These include people who were shown the marbled cat and a species of leaf monkey at Howletts Zoo.

I suppose the biggest disappointment was the fact that I was returned to a hotel in Antanarivo in Madagascar, while some people I'd met in Berenty went to the Tsimbazaza Zoo I'd visited a few days before. The next time I met them, I was told that they'd been shown a monkey that had been captured in the wild in Madagascar. This could have been a macaque introduced to Mauritius, but as I didn't see the animal, I can't say if it was a lemur or a monkey. If it were the latter, how did it get to Madagascar?
 
Getting excited for my spring 2003 trip to San Diego Zoo, only to learn that all of the walk-through aviaries were closed due to the outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease in Los Angeles. Fortunately I have good binoculars and was able to see ~50% of the birds in each aviary from right outside the entrances. All was redeemed when I went back in 2004 and got to experience the recently-reopened aviaries. I commend San Diego for closing the aviaries to protect the amazing collections contained within.

In terms of generally bad zoos, I remember Catoctin Mountain Zoo and *especially* the Emperor Valley Zoo in Trinidad being pretty awful. Emperor Valley had a Yellow-headed Caracara in a wire cage with a cement floor.
 
Sad Seoul Zoo Experience

Hi,

I'm a Canadian currently living in Seoul, South Korea. I've gone to the Seoul Zoo a few times, and have normally enjoyed my experience. But the last time I went, I left feeling very depressed.

While walking around the zoo, my girlfriend and I came across a building housing an elephant. The elephant had obviously gone insane by the way it just stood in one corner, swaying for over 10 minutes. The pen that it was in was completely deplorable. It honestly looked like a solitary confinement prison. You could see where the elephant had worn away parts of the wall from rubbing against it. There was virtually no grass in the pen, and little food. It was terrible to see the elephant living in those conditions.

There was also a Zebra which was in its own area. At the Seoul Zoo, they have two pens for zebras. One pen has about 5 zebras in it. This pen is fine. The zebras have shade, water, and room to move. The other pen has only one zebra and a goat. This pen is sort of on the slope of a hill and is rocky. The zebra in this pen has trouble walking. When taking a picture, I saw a very large wart (or maybe mole) on the hip (it is very very large).

I left the zoo feeling very depressed. I realize that the elephant was probably not fit to be around the other elephants, but to be held up in that terrible pen is unacceptable. I am curious if there are any agencies that monitor zoos to ensure that the animals are being treated properly.
 
Wurmwood is right about highlighting the way some animals are kept.

Broxbourne Zoo had a stump-tailed macaque, which was picking away at a wound on its cheek. The zoo notice said that there wasn't enough off-show space to put the macaque, but it would have probably been better to close the house until the wound had healed.

Whipsnade Zoo housed an Indian rhino in an enclosure only slider wider than the rhino, which had difficulty turning round. Also, on a recent visit to Plzen Zoo, the male ostrich could only just spread its wings to reach the sides of its indoor enclosure, while a blesbok was only slightly shorter than the width of its enclosure. The most cramped animals were probably a pair of Barbary lions in the Small Mammal House. The height of their indoor enclosure was little higher than they were and the width was only just longer than their length. While I commend Plzen for going against the current trend of reducing the number of species kept (the mammal collection has risen from 50 to 245 species since 1990), it would be better to do this by not putting large mammals in small enclosures.

When I take various friends around zos, it is difficult recommending zoos when the animals show stereotyped behaviour or are kept in cramped, relative bare enclosures. I saw a brown hyaena at San Diego Zoo. It was repeatedly trying to gain access to a closed indoor enclosure. I assume another hyaena was kept within, but if he couldn't gain access, it would have probably been better to keep it in a separate enclosure, perhaps off show, rather than leaving a frustrated animal moving back and forth for hours.
 
France cat park

would be interested in hearing your comments about the cat park in France. I only recently heard about it. It sounds fantastic.

Arizona Docent said:
Worst was visiting Douglas Wildlife Zoo (thankfully now closed) near the Arizona-Mexico border. Just a disgusting backyard assemblage of small cages - I wrote to several local government agencies immediately afterwards to have it shut down.

Ironically, people are mentioning rain, but one of my best times was a light drizzle that developed in the afternoon while I was at France's Le Parc Des Felins last year. Me and another photographer (who I did not know) both ran under a small covered viewing area and put plastic covers on our cameras and Goretex jackets on ourselves and went out in the rain to see a family of white tigers with cubs playing in the rain and mud. The other visitors left and we had the whole place to ourselves - fantastic.
Click to expand...
 
snake farm

how was the snake farm in bangkok? Any pics? Did they have any large constrictors?


Dassie rat said:
Some of my worst zoo experiences involve looking forward to seeing a particular animal or exhibit in a zoo and the animal doesn't emerge or the exhibit is closed. While I saw a platypus at Taronga, the Nocturnal House was closed and I never managed to see some of the unusual Australian mammals I'd wanted to see. Similarly, despite frequent movements to and from the Nocturnal Lemur House in Paris, I never managed to see the hairy-eared dwarf lemur.

One of the biggest anti-climaxes was at a snake farm in Bangkok. the label said 'flying lemur' and the two Thai guides wondered why I kept returning to the enclosure. Eventually, the animal emerged. It was very attractive, but it was a giant flying squirrel, not a flying lemur at all.

It is also disappointing when I've been to a zoo and other people have visited the same zoo and seen an unusual animal behind the scenes. These include people who were shown the marbled cat and a species of leaf monkey at Howletts Zoo.

I suppose the biggest disappointment was the fact that I was returned to a hotel in Antanarivo in Madagascar, while some people I'd met in Berenty went to the Tsimbazaza Zoo I'd visited a few days before. The next time I met them, I was told that they'd been shown a monkey that had been captured in the wild in Madagascar. This could have been a macaque introduced to Mauritius, but as I didn't see the animal, I can't say if it was a lemur or a monkey. If it were the latter, how did it get to Madagascar?
Click to expand...
 
Sorry, Snake farm. I must admit that I don't remember much about the snake farm in Bangkok. I remember being encouraged to touch a live cobra - I touch the tail as the head was supported by a demonstrator. There were a few other animals, but the only one I remember was the giant flying squirrel.

I agree with some that it can be easier visiting a zoo in the rain. I visited Glasgow Zoo when it was raining and was allowed in free shortly before it closed for the afternoon. It seemed as if most of the exhibits were not accessible, but I remember having a good view of a clouded leopard, although not as good as the view at Prague Zoo.
 
I posted a thread about this a while back. I visited a place with my parents and sister called the Zooquarium in Cape Cod MA. It looked like one of those roadside zoos you see on TV, but on a larger scale. They had Turtles and Bearded Dragons with no UV light (UV light can be given with a flourescent light bulb, and basking reptiles need it to metabolize food), they had dead and sick fish in their tanks, they had fish eating eachother, etc. They had a big Redtail Boa in a cage outside with no heat or protection from the elements. It had rained all week and been cold, and the tank was sopping wet. They had a Red Shouldered Hawk in a small, dark, gross plywood enclosure with one perch and no enrichment of any kind. The touch tank had dead animals in it, and kids were picking them up and playing with them. The petting zoo had animals getting loose, animals that were wet and cold with no shelter, and no one supervising... kids were kicking and throwing stuff at the animals. Just to be a jerk I smartly asked the guy at the counter (they only have 4 employees, who do everything from maintenence to money stuff to animal care) if they were AZA. His answer? No, it's too much paperwork.
 
I would say visiting the Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton, NY. I don't remember much, but that alone tells me there wasn't anything groundbreaking there. I remember climbing up a hill the whole time and when I got to the end I kept asking, "That's it? Really, that's it?" It was very small and at that point I was a big fan of seeing elephants at a zoo (which of course they didn't have). Many of the mammals were in small, outdated cages. I would only go in again if I got in for free and was told they have updated areas since my last visit.

As for disappointments on zoo trips:
-One day the polar bear pool was being filled at Seneca Park Zoo. I was convinced it only take a couple of hours, but of course it was a full day process.
-Not seeing polar bears at the Philadelphia Zoo. Going just before spring and it still being cold out, I was sure they'd be at least one animal I'd see. For the first part of the trip, a lot of the outdoor animals weren't out and I was becoming very discouraged. But I had an enjoyable experince with the Giant Otters, and after that, it got warmer and more animals came out.
-Some trips to the Buffalo Zoo weren't as enjoyable when I really wanted to see the tamandua and he wasn't out. But I always knew he was an unpredictable, seclusive animal.
 
I remember when I went to otorohanga kiwi house last year, it was a bit run down, but I did see my first godwit, partridge, redpoll and little owl. When I walked out of the big aviary I saw a sign. It said what I was dreading. There are no Kokako in the park at this time. So not the best experience
 
My worst experience was in the so called Zoo in a park in Shillong, Meghalaya, in India. They had a bear and assame macaques in totally small cages without anything to entertain. A golden jackal in a horrible cage was in poor condition too. The monkeys, the bear and the jackal were totally mad with psychic diseases. The mysterious thing was that the aviaries and the area of the sambar deer were good with much place. I couldn´t understand how the animal keepers who feed the monkeys and the bear every day could continue this torture. Curious experience in State Zoo of Assam in Gowahati too. Natural areas for Indian Rhino, tigers, bears, many deers and so on which are just like a part of nature, huge and brillant. Cages for monkeys and smaller mammals which were worse than prinso cells.
 
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