Definitely not. Maybe it's the most memorable for better or worse, but the lack of proper outdoor enclosures and the sterile appearance hold it back tremendously. Even from a visitor perspective the glare on most of the viewing windows is terrible. It has its strengths like the o-line and the large amount of useable vertical space, but I'll take Woodland Park, Saint Louis or Omaha with their far superior outdoor habitats any day of the week.
I would be curious to hear some elaboration on these points. Toledo and Detroit have always seemed among the more acclaimed zoos in the US to me, while Brookfield, Cleveland and Cincinnati always seem to lean more negative in coverage. I know my home zoo's situation both ways of course. I have only visited Brookfield of those quoted. (although Toledo is likely in the near future.)
Even though Detroit is my local zoo I very much agree with this post. I found a few other zoos more disappointing than Detroit but that is very rare. The only other possibly impressive parts of the zoo is if you are lucky enough to see the polar bears or the tiger, red panda and wolf habitats.
Cincinnati is leagues ahead of Detroit, they aren't even comparable IMO. Not sure about Cincinnati being better than Toledo, though. I love both of them a lot and I feel like I could go either way. I think Toledo is slightly better, maybe?
I’ve been to Toledo at least 50 times and Cincinnati around 5 times so that may have an influence, I am not the biggest fan of Toledo’s habitats but some are impressive each visit (reptile house, aquarium, aviary)
Toledo's outdoor areas are pretty boring, but their indoor areas are so incredibly amazing they more than make up for it.
The only outdoor area I like at the zoo is tembo trail which is still not that impressive.
The Tembo Trail isn't that impressive, as you admit, but some of the outdoor aviaries are pretty cool. Especially Flamingo Key, the Pheasantry, and the penguin area. Though the last two are really only impressive because of some cool rarities.
I never really found the penguin exhibit compared to other facilities but it has grown on me. I do miss the walkthrough part though.
Yeah. I recall you sharing these thoughts before and you've been very infornative with my past questions.
This is gonna sound daft but, as much as people treat the exhibit as utterly offensive, it's pretty fixable if you just do the following.
I really dislike wildlands, it feels more like theme park then a zoo , the guy who designed it wanted it to be a theme park instead of zoo i just sense it. I do like the spacious exhibits doI see a lot of people going to mediocre or even bad zoos just to see some ultra-rare species that only that zoo has. But I would MUCH rather see an extremely common/boring species in a really good exhibit, than some rarity in a cage.
Example:
I'd much rather see a Dwarf crocodile, that's held in more zoos to count, in an exhibit like Wildlands':
Than see the rare New Guinea crocodile in a boring habitat like this:
Second hot take, although this one would only be relevant to European ZooChatters I suppose:
Wildlands is one of the best zoos in the Netherlands and doesn't deserve all the controversy around it. I rank it way above other big Dutch zoos like Ouwehands, Amersfoort or Artis
I see a lot of people going to mediocre or even bad zoos just to see some ultra-rare species that only that zoo has. But I would MUCH rather see an extremely common/boring species in a really good exhibit, than some rarity in a cage.
Example:
I'd much rather see a Dwarf crocodile, that's held in more zoos to count, in an exhibit like Wildlands':
Than see the rare New Guinea crocodile in a boring habitat like this:
Second hot take, although this one would only be relevant to European ZooChatters I suppose:
Wildlands is one of the best zoos in the Netherlands and doesn't deserve all the controversy around it. I rank it way above other big Dutch zoos like Ouwehands, Amersfoort or Artis
