Miami Metro Zoo » Miami Metrozoo

Miami Metro Zoo
01-01-2008

Hello

Could anyone who has visited please give a review of it. I have seen their website and it appears to be a very attractive zoo (and the map is brilliant!). What're the best exhibits? What're the enclosures like for the apes, elephants and other megafauna?

On a side note, in case any one hasn't read it yet, the oldest know captive Orang-Utan died recently at Miami Zoo, aged 55.

Thanks in advance!

01-01-2008

Miami have a pair of black necked storks and are the only American zoo to do so.

They are also one of only zoos to house storm's storks. They were given one male from San Diego, and I presume that they're waiting for a female.

01-01-2008

I've heard good things about this place!!!

01-01-2008

We had one walking around our dam the other day Jo,

01-01-2008

I visited the Miami Metrozoo in 2002. It's one of the nicer American zoos whose specialisation on species (both animals and plants) originating from (sub)tropical can only be welcomed in regard to the local hot & humid climate. As You can see from said HP, the zoo has quite a bunch of interesting species likes gerenuks, King cheetah (as a show animal; don't know whether he's still alive though), very successfully breeding Komodo dragons (almost a "common" species now in US zoos), black duikers, gaur, etc. Some of the exhibits are nice to look at (bantengs under a huge Banyan tree); others could be improved (f.e. pygmy hippos). I liked the idea of the zoo to combine both plants and animals from the same habitat in the exhibit, even though several aspects (plant poisonous to animal, neozoa problematic etc.) pose limits here. For the lazy ones, a monorail goes through the zoo. The zoo staff is exceptionally friendly & helpful, the short animal shows in the arena quite nicely made, the always changing exhibitions at the main building a' "Scoop for Poop" etc. (back when I was there it was "Dinosaurs") interesting to look at. Due to hurricane damages, there is usually always something new built in the zoo.

All in all a zoo worth a second visit.

02-01-2008

I've heard a hurricane almost closed the zoo in the 80's..?

09-01-2008

That would be Hurricane Andrew. It destroyed their aviary, threw trailer trucks through fences, and made a huge mess. Many of the staff lost their homes. I was at a conference with some of the keepers a few weeks after the storm. They were still pretty shell-shocked. As I recall not many animals died, but it took a long time to get things back together.

10-02-2008

While most of the zoo is grottoes/enclosures carved out of the coral marl, with little landscaping in with the animals, the Wings Of Asia aviary was one of the very best large walk-through aviaries I'd ever seen. You could easily forget you were in a structure! But Hurricane Andrew demolished it. Its replacement is also enormous but (I suppose in order to withstand hurricanes) structurally heavy. Still, it is big enough for birds to soar overhead and for cranes to walk up to you.

The "next big thing" will be the 5 or 6 acre Tropical America exhibit (giant otters, leopards, hummingbirds, howlers, anaconda, capybara, marmosets, tapir...I think) which might open the end of this year. All outdoors.
MIAMI METROZOO’S NEWEST EXHIBIT TROPICAL AMERICA

10-02-2008

The Tropical America section of the zoo is reportedly going to encompass 27 acres and cost $35 million. Thanks for the link Zooplantman, as the exhibit sounds amazing! Using the same architectural company as Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo guarantees a quality set of enclosures.

10-02-2008

The 27 acres figure is a bit, ah, liberal. The actual exhibit area is a fraction of that. Perhaps 15+ acres is simply the surrounding undeveloped corner of the zoo, and there is a large "Plaza" for a new restaurant, shop and demo area.

10-02-2008

@zooplantman: thanks for the update. You're right about the exhibit figures, and yet it is immensely frustrating that zoos continue to announce enormous numbers for enclosures when the "human element" actually can take up more space than is previously allocated for the captive animals! I wish they would detail how much space is for animals, and how much is delegated to bathrooms, cafes, boardwalks and gift stores.

Anyway, hopefully the $35 million is well spent.

11-02-2008

I dunno, snowleopard, we have to accept that zoos are and always have been about the human element. That's what makes them a zoo rather than a preserve. To say a new exhibit is of a certain size (including that the visitors shall use) seems OK to me. Altho in this case, Miami, it makes little sense to use the larger acreage figure. Its simply wrong (unless of course I am wrong!)

My regret is a different one, it is a shame to think of the wonderful exhibits that zoo staffs with zoo designers create and then, once they are priced out, start cutting and cutting until the project...still over initial budget...seems hardly worth building! Sadly, zoos are almost never self-supporting and government support is disappearing. Once there were philanthropists who felt it a civic duty to support a local zoo. But their numbers are shrinking (although the number of billionaires is growing!)
They have no better idea than to become Disney and hope to build visitation. Which means jugglers are more important than animals! And still the keepers and other maintainers of the zoos are so badly paid.

11-02-2008

Speaking of philanthropists, the penguin exhibit and construction of a new west entry at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo was funded by an anonymous donation of $6 million, the largest private donation in the zoo's history. It was announced on Boxing Day, 2006.

11-02-2008

@Zooplantman

Are you suggesting that designers and staff continually have to cut expenditures in animal habitats because a larger allocation of the budget is transferred to the human element? Or are features cut because funding dries up?

Regarding governmental support, I assume that the real problem is annual financial commitment to operating costs and not support for major new exhibits. The public is rarely aware of the contribution to annual operating budgets, but major announcements of million dollar government commitments to major exhibits make for flashy publicity. In order to make up for the dent in government support for operating costs Zoos have to be more profitable and self sufficient which requires an increased allocation for human elements, be it in a spatial or financial sense.
The problem as I see it is if this results in the end with animal needs that are not being looked after in the positive manner that they otherwise would. How you would correct this though is not an easy problem to unravel and solve.


Also, aren't you involved in the design of "Tropical America" ?

11-02-2008

Two features that I really like about "Tropical America" are that it presents a more complete and realistic view of biodiversity, and is separated into three different ecosystems/ecoregions; the Cloud Forest, Mata Atlantica, and Amazonia. The former two are important biodiversity hotspots!
It is really refreshing to see a Zoo that before "Wings of Asia" had a collection basically limited to the great apes, tapirs, zebras, elephants, rhinoceros, cats, bears, and Cetartiodactyla branch out into displaying invertebrates, fish, small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians together with plants.

See everyone I'm not always a cynic !

BTW I do understand that part of the reason Miami Metrozoo had such a collection was because they lost a lot of their smaller animals with Hurricane Andrew