North American Rain Forest Buildings

North American Rain Forest Buildings
28-05-2008

Rain Forest halls are extremely common in modern zoos, and the first domed jungle ever built in the world was the "Tropical Rain Forest" building in 1974 at the Topeka Zoo. It's too bad that this tiny zoo, in the State of Kansas, is still primarily known for a 34 year-old building! Some zoos spell their buildings "Rain Forest", while others prefer "Rainforest" or "RainForest". The notion of an indoor jungle is appealing to both zoo directors and zoo visitors.

Since 1974 there have been rain forests constructed in countless zoos, and judging by the reactions of others here at ZooBeat it seems that many of these so-called "jungles" have failed to realistically recreate a true tropical atmosphere. The subjectivity of analyzing zoo exhibits comes to the forefront when discussing such buildings, as what one individual adores another person critques as being too garish, too concrete, or simply too depressing.

Anyway, in the 2008 book "America's Best Zoos" there is a list of the 10 best indoor tropical rain forests in the United States. Here it is:

#1 = Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo's "Lied Jungle" (1.5 acres)
#2 = Bronx Zoo's "Jungleworld"

The following 8 are in alphabetical order:

Brookfield Zoo's "Tropic World" (length of a football field)
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo's "RainForest" (85,000 sq. ft)
Denver Zoo's "Tropical Discovery"
Franklin Park Zoo's "Tropical Forest"
Minnesota Zoo's "Tropics Trail"
National Zoo's "Amazonia" (15,000 sq. ft)
Sedgwick County Zoo's "Jungle" (0.5 acre)
Tulsa Zoo's "Tropical American Rainforest"

I've only visited 1 of these buildings (Denver), but after this summer will have seen at least 5 and maybe 6 of the so-called "jungles". Does anyone agree with the list?

28-05-2008

Well, Topeka Zoo is also known for the gorilla glass tunnel...

Your first line made me think of something else: is there any (American) zoo with an exhibit focus on the temperate rainforest?

28-05-2008

I cannot think of any temperate rainforest exhibit.
But temperate mesophyllic forests exhibits do exist:
Montreal Biodome
Tennessee Aquarium

come to mind (both indoors)

28-05-2008

On another point, I've long felt the first rain forest building was The Great Stove at Chatsworth
The Great Stove, Chatsworth

It had free flight birds!

28-05-2008

I think Woodland Park or the Shedd Aquarium would come the closest to answering that...but their respective exhibits are not very specific towards a temperate rainforest theme.

28-05-2008

Oh come on! Shedd's exhibit is entirely fake plants! I won't accept it.
Woodland Park certainly is temperate forest, but botanically I don't think it is (or was intended to be) rain forest.

so the score, by my count, remains "Temperate rain forest" - 0

28-05-2008

I think several great greenhouses in Europe predate it.

29-05-2008

The closest to a constructed temperate forest has to be inside the Montreal Biodome, as previously mentioned by Zooplantman, and Woodland Park Zoo has a terrific temperate forest section of the zoo that includes many waterfowl species, cranes, japanese serows and red pandas.

29-05-2008

Fire causes $10,000 loss at zoo Rain Forest exhibit : Buffalo/Erie County : The Buffalo News

The latest North American rain forest almost went up in flames!

30-05-2008

It's a while since I saw it - maybe 10 or 12 years - but when I visited the Framklin Park Zoo in Boston, I thought their indorr rain-forest thing was pretty awful. Very unnnatural looking, with horrible glass boxes for most of the animals within. And the whole place seemed really tatty and unloved (as did the rest of the zoo, actually). Hopefully things will have improved since then.

It's interesting that whilst every US development of a zoo seems to include a false rainforest, here in Europe they are much rarer, and those which do exist - such as in Arnhem and Zurich - are much less animal heavy. There's a very nice low-key 'jungle' building in Dortmund Zoo, for South American creatures. Not spectacular, but well done.

30-05-2008

Indoor Rainforest halls arent really all that common in N American zoos (but relatively common in US aquariums). Maybe 10% out of the 200 so AZA zoos have such exhibitions. However they seem to be somewhat concentrated in the Northeast/Midwest portions of the continent.

30-05-2008

It is no coincidence that this is also the region where public glass conservatories predominate. I guess we Northerners dream of the tropics more then the rest of the country does

31-05-2008

I know when I'm slip-sliding my way down the path with a foot of snow and howling gusty wind I'm pretty envious of the keepers working just up the hill in our rainforest--they come to work in shorts, I look the the Michelin man with all the layers I have worn! It doesn't help that every time I go out the back door in the winter I can see the dome!

01-06-2008

What about the indoor rainforest building at the Sf zoo? I know it is a little run down, but is still quite natural looking

01-06-2008

@sooty mangabey: Oh, come on: there are plenty of indoor Rainforest Exhibits in Europe-think of Randers, Krefeld, Dvur Kralove, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, Vienna (all in all 4), Chemnitz, Berlin (Tierpark & Aquarium), Salzburg, Wuppertal, Posnan Walsrode, SeaLife Hannover, etc. etc.