Zoo Quality vs City Quality

Arizona Docent

Arizona Docent

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
(note - this thread is inspired by the recent discussions on London Zoo thread, re quality vs cost).

Logic would dictate that the quality of a zoo is in approximate relation to the size and quality of the city it is located in. In other words, larger and more affluent cities should have higher quality zoos while smaller cities should have smaller and/or lower quality zoos.

In my experience, this is NOT the case all the time. Let us see if we can list cities whose zoos are out of whack with their standing, either good or bad. That is to say, which major metropolises have poor zoos and which small towns have outstanding zoos.
 
OK, my thread so I get to start. :)

Major, affluent cities whose zoos are well below the city standards.

Los Angeles, USA (Los Angeles Zoo)
London, United Kingdom (ZSL London Zoo)
Paris, France (Le Menagerie)
Las Vegas, USA (Southern Nevada Zoo)
Phoenix, USA (Wildlife World Zoo)
Albuquerque, USA (Rio Grande Zoo)

Small towns whose zoos are well above the city standards.

Waco, Texas, USA (Cameron Park Zoo)
Tyler, Texas, USA (Caldwell Zoo)
Nesle, France (Le Parc Des Felins)
Chester, United Kingdom (Chester Zoo)
 
I really wish that you would stop saying that the LA Zoo "below the city standards", whatever that means - how are you defining it? I know you don't like the jaguar exhibit, but comparing the London Zoo and LA Zoo to the Las Vegas Zoo is really inappropriate. If you haven't been to the LA Zoo in the last five years then your view of it is outdated.

The London Zoo is a fine zoo, but small by modern standards - so are many urban zoos (Lincoln Park Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Bristol Zoo) - so what if they are small? Small size does not equal lack of quality.

Why are you including Phoenix on your list with World Wildlife Zoo when there is the really good Phoenix Zoo????? The World Wildlife Zoo is NOT the city of Phoenix's Zoo, but a privately owned roadside zoo.

Paris is completely rebuilding their zoo.

No argument with the Las Vegas Zoo, and have not seen the Rio Grande Zoo, but the rest of your list seems wrong.
 
Best small-town zoo

The best small-town (about 100,000) zoo I have ever seen is the Dierenpark in Emmen, the Netherlands. It is a remarkable combination of botanical garden, natural history museum, and some of the best zoo exhibits in the world.
 
@ David Brown _ I have been to the L.A. Zoo in the last few years. The only new exhibit I have not personally seen is LAIR (which by all appearances seems to be excellent and should go a long ways toward raising their status).

And certainly the Las Vegas Zoo is absolutely horrendous and by putting both on the list I do not mean to imply that Los Angeles Zoo is anywhere near as bad as that one.

So what exactly do I mean when I say it does not match the calibre of the city (which seems to confuse you, though I thought it was straightforward)? Los Angeles is a truly international destination, it is the home of the most creative minds in the movie industry and theme park industry (Disney I mean). It is also home to LOTS of millionaires, from the entertainment industry and other sources. Plus a great zoo location in Griffith Park. If you look at all the potential resources, the Los Angeles Zoo should theoretically be the best zoo in the world. However, I have personally visited over 70 zoos in this country and Los Angeles would never crack my top 20 (not even when the recent improvements).

I meant for this thread to be a fun little exercise, but I see that it has degraded from the outset because someone does not like to think their hometown zoo is substandard. I grew up in Los Angeles, I developed my love for zoos at the L.A. Zoo, so I want them to succeed as much as anyone (really). I am just frustrated with the overall experience whenever I visit compared to many other zoos I see. Please do not take it personally - if you think L.A. Zoo is great, more power to you.
 
Arizona Docent said:
@ David Brown _ I have been to the L.A. Zoo in the last few years. The only new exhibit I have not personally seen is LAIR (which by all appearances seems to be excellent and should go a long ways toward raising their status).
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AZ, I don't mean to infringe on your opinion of the LA Zoo. They've changed a lot, but are far from done with what they need to do to be a truly great zoo, so I do agree with you about that.

I think that the positive point of your thread is that small or medium sized cities can have excellent zoos that are often the center of civic pride.

Your own Reid Park Zoo in Tucson is certainly an example of that.
 
I want to give you an example. Madrid is one of Europe´s biggest cities. The Zoo has one of the biggest collections in the world with around 900 species. But it´s full of concrete and run with commercial purposes. The collection meets the city requirements but the quality of the exhibits don´t match what´s needed for a zoo in a city like that.

Barcelona has a very nice zoo and aquarium, even if they aren´t the best in the world, that can be considered as good as the city.
The same can be said to Valencia and Lisbon, as the three have some of the best aquariums in Europe and Zoos that are also very fine.

Portugal has two big metropolitan areas. Lisbon have 3 Million people and Porto has 2.2 Million, if we expand it to the Northern area, it´s 4 Million.
While Lisbon´s Metropolitan Area has places that can meet fill the requirements, Northern Portugal really lacks a good/big zoo or aquarium.
 
How on earth do you define the calibre of a city? In many ways London is a wonderful place but in terms of sustainability, social justice and affordable, decent housing it is woefully lacking.

Presumably because we have Buckingham Palace and hosted the Olympics people think the zoo should be some kind of all singing all dancing wonderland. It's a zoo which only a generation ago was threatened with closure and receives no government funding. I wish people would get over themselves and see it for what it is.

I'm not blindly defending my home zoo here, simply stating - as I have done before - that it's not perfect but I think we should be grateful that it is there at all and quit bashing it for not living up to our - often unrealistic - expectations.
 
To continue the international scope of this thread some latin american examples.
Mexico city and Guadalajara both have fine zoos. Cancun has Xcaret nearby. Yet in northern mexico Tijuana and Monterrey have poor, small animal collections. Actually, persons with a passport who live in these places prefer to go to the nearest U.S. zoo, people from Tijuana who can, go to the San Diego Zoo there, and people from Monterrey would rather go to the Houston zoo when they can. Africam safari park is in a large metropolitan area, Puebla and is not that far from Mexico city.
In Brazil, Sao paulo zoo and safari park is a large open zoo, acceptable by modern standards. Riozoo in Rio de Janiero is very outdated, certainly not fit for a global city.
Again, the Buenos Aires zoo is not fit for a global city either, though there is a fine animal collection at Temaiken park nearby.
 
Shirokuma said:
How on earth do you define the calibre of a city?
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I think there is a legitimate expectation that with more people and wealth available the zoo ought to be able to sustain a larger and/or better base of exhibits. More visitors come from a larger population and more visitors equals more funding.

I think you have to include the area's population rather than just the city's, though. A major problem for the LA Zoo is the San Diego Zoo. When I was growing up in LA my grandparents would take me to San Diego for the zoo and Sea World but we never visited the local zoo. The San Diego Zoo is really the flagship zoo for the Southern California area.
 
nanoboy said:
Maybe start with the lists of the world's most liveable cities (I assume that you can click the references for full lists) and then ask how liveable their zoos are. Sorry Yanks. ;)
World's most livable cities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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I was just going to do the same thing (I try and bring this up as often as I can :) ). There are only three cities in the top 10 that I've not heard of their zoo situation (Helsinki, Calgary, and Vancouver) but the other seven all have seemingly excellent zoos.
 
PAT said:
I was just going to do the same thing (I try and bring this up as often as I can :) ). There are only three cities in the top 10 that I've not heard of their zoo situation (Helsinki, Calgary, and Vancouver) but the other seven all have seemingly excellent zoos.
Click to expand...

With the ever-increasing number of illegal immigrants trying to enter Australia, I try to keep these rankings as secret as possible! The less people that know Australia is one of the best places to live, the better! :D

Adelaide and Melbourne have great zoos, and Perth seems to have a good collection too.
 
For Czech republic, I would mention 3 zoos:

Prague zoo - the quality of enclosures and no. of species at the zoo is in line with the "quality" of the city I guess. But it still has a big reserve to achieve a lot higher attendance numbers. Attendance of 1.300.000 annually is not enough with an aglomeration of almost 2 mio plus 5 mio of tourists.

Brno zoo - it has the worst negative relation between the quality and size of the city (0.5 mio people and a nice athmosphere and living conditions) and of its zoo. With many outdated and/or boring enclosures, lacking most attractive big species (no pachyderms, no apes minus last 1 chimp etc.), bad gastronomy and catastrophical lack of parking spaces, it is a miracle they can attract an attendance of 250.000. So many people living in Brno say they rather travel 1-2 hours by car to other zoos then to visit their own.

Zlin - maybe the best positive relation between the city and its zoo. Zlin with ca 75.000 inhabitants and a place that has seen better times (good part of the industry slowly died down) owns a very good zoo that so many people consider the best looking in the Czech republic, that is currently no.2 after Prague with an attendance of 500.000. With almost non-existent bad enclosures, not many mammal species but with large crowd-attracting species (rhinos, elephants..), top-notch gardeners and nicely restored historical chateau in the middle.
 
Some Examples from the Netherlands:

Safaripark Beekse Bergen, attendance of about 800.000, lies near a village with 8500 inhabitants.

Arnhem has 140.000 inhabitants but one of the better visited zoos in Europe with yearly 1.500.000 visitors.

But major cities like Den Haag and Utrecht, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam the biggest cities here, lack a zoo, although Den Haag (The Hague) has a Sea Life centre.
 
Docent I agree this is especially true if the Zoo is still a municipal zoo during these times of government cutbacks.

Birmingham has a long long history of mismanagement of the city budget. This is what led to the decline and eventual loss of accreditation of the Birmingham Zoo. At one point in the mids 90s they stopped improvements at all on the Birmingham site. The plan was to move the Zoo out to where Bass Pro Shops is right now. They were to replace the Zoo with a Zoo that very much would have resembled Nashville but bigger and built more at once. That never came to pass and the Zoo went badly down hill. The city has a very dark past when it comes to race relations and sadly they reared their ugly head back when they wanted to replace the Zoo with the Ecoplex idea. The mayor at the time was African American and refused to go along with the plan because he didn't want the Zoo outside the city limits of Birmingham proper.

The Zoo is called the Birmingham Zoo and was ran as a city department even though its actually in the very rich and affluent suburb of Mountain Brooke (I think the Zoo itself is Birmingham but its surrounding by MB)

And anyone who has been there knows what bad shape the City of Birmingham is. Its like a coin flip, the area around UAB hospital is very nice and has had a significant amount of urban renewal. The same with its suburbs (Mountain Brooke Homewood and the Shelby County area). While most of Birmingham proper thats not in UAB/Five Points is basically as bad as Detroit.

The best thing for the Birmingham Zoo was it being separated from the city as a Nonprofit that the city has now started donating a charity stipend too (that really isn't much smaller than their contribution when it was a city department which is sad but now its a tax write off for them)

Now that is is non-profit they have had success with their fundraising which has led to the badly needed improvements.
 
I know Oakland Zoo area wise is small for a city the size of Oakland, but the zoo is of very great quality with wonderful exhibits that are lush and large.

IMO Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose, CA is not quite large enough or of good enough quality to be in a city with the area size and population of San Jose, and not to mention that there animal collection isnt diverse enough to be in a city that size

As for the California Living Museum aka CALM, I dont really think a zoo like that is good enough, large enough or diverse enough to really be in a city as large as Bakersfield

As for Sacramento Zoo, they have a great and diverse animal collection held in suitable enclosures but like Oakland Zoo, Sacramento Zoo area wise is too small for a city the size of Sacramento

Same applies to Reid Park Zoo, they have a great and diverse animal collection in great exhibits, but Reid Park Zoo is small for a city the size of Tucson

About Santa Barbara Zoo, I think it is EXACTLY on par for a city like Santa Barbara, same applies to Santa Ana Zoo, but they could get more animals

As for Los Angeles Zoo, I DONT think it is below par or sub-standard, If anything I think it is above par and has a very diverse animal collection with IMO no bad exhibit, believe it or not but I like it better the way it was before 1998, for reasons that apply to both exhibit design and diversity in animal collection, but I want to make it clear that it is still a GREAT zoo !!!

Same that applies to Los Angeles Zoo IMO applies to San Diego Zoo, and like Los Angeles Zoo they used to have an animal collection that was above par for city standards, this may sound crazy but even the exhibits were better back in the day, I especially like Horn and Hoof Mesa over Elephant Odyssey and Polar Bear Plunge, If San Diego wants to call themselves "world class", they need to know that Elephant Odyssey is not world class, but Horn and Hoof Mesa is

As for Living Desert, I think it is on par if not above par for a city and tourist attraction/Vacation spot the size of Palm desert
 
Would we consider impressive zoos in rural areas? Like Henry Doorly Zoo or Columbus Zoo? I know the Columbus Zoo is in a rich suburb, but it's not in a main city.
 
I think Zoo Atlanta is over hyped compared to Atlanta proper. It is a few rockstar exhibits but not trip worthy other than Pandas. With the money that is in the Atlanta area they could have a much nicer zoo.
 
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