Thoughts on San Diego Zoo » San Diego Zoo

26-03-2008

@SD Critter: I enjoyed your long and heartfelt response to all of us who were disappointed with the "Absolutely Apes" exhibit. Melbourne Zoo in Australia opened a brand new orangutan exhibit that has siamangs in a parallel enclosure, and both enclosures are mainly full of unnatural climbing structures. The swaying poles, wooden beams, and thick ropes are terrific for the apes, and apparently they spend a lot of time off the ground. Once the vegetation grows in with the orangs then I think it will be a long-lasting, brilliant exhibit.

At the San Diego Zoo I loved the massive viewing windows on the "Absolutely Apes" exhibit, especially for a busy zoo that needs large spaces for the immense crowds. But these apes are arboreal, and in the wild spend a huge portion of their lives off the ground. Zoos like San Diego are encouraging them to sit on the grass or lounge on boulders, and I'd just love to see many more climbing structures for them.

27-03-2008

Another complaint I had about San Diego, geography.

Freshwater crocs in a "Southeast Asian rain forest", or worse, red pandas and Arabian wild cats in an "Arctic tundra"? And the field exhibits at the park are just as bad, instead of naming them "East Africa" "South Africa" and the like they should just be "Savannah 1" "Savannah 2" because it's very misleading geographically speaking.

27-03-2008

hi SDcritter.

not to be nasty but i feel like your long response doesn't hold up much. that is to say that none of, your reasons given are still an excuse for poor design. now don't get me wrong i haven't even been to san diego, but if you don't mind me saying - comments like..

is a bit nonsensical to me. i can easily reverse that back and say "the apes clearly feel vulnerable and exposed on the climbing structures and thus spend a lot of time on the ground which is unnatural"

truth is, it doesn't hurt them to be on the ground, but should you design an exhibit well, these zoo-bred animals will take preference to their arboreal ancestral lifestyle once more. thats not only good exercise but thats what the public likes too. if the inhabitants of absolutely apes not only spend much time on the ground, but that the exhibit is actually designed in a way that encourages this (and it sounds like it is with ground level glass windows) then i think its totally fair to criticise the design as being uninspiring.

personally, i dislike most orangutan exhibits because they are always so barren. i know they present certain challenges, but i'm yet to see a zoo other than singapore that has created anything even remotely naturalistic - and its worth mentioning no zoo comes even close to singapore. melbourne's new exhibit, which snowleopard mentions, is highly practical. it features thin upright, closely spaces poles covering almost the entire space. for a bunch of apes that have spent most of their lives sitting on grass in their old exhibit the zoo certainly has succeeded in getting them off the ground. why walk when you can brachiate?

but for me the challange is to hide practicality with naturalistic facade and keep it looking real. currently most zoos don't even seem to try. choosing against even trying to attempt to protect a live tree, instead selecting barren sites and hardly even attempting plantings other than grass.

boring!

27-03-2008

It is truly difficult to design exhibits that will please both the captive animals and the animals that stand and gawk at the inhabitants. But nothing is more frustrating than to sit at an orangutan enclosure and read a sign that says something like "these apes spend all of their lives amongst the treetops" while watching a pair of orangs slumped against the glass with barely anything to climb on. I am 100% supportive of mixed-exhibits and rotating exhibits, and so I applaud San Diego for kickstarting the siamang/orangutan pairing.

The same goes for many other species: I've seen a pair of chimps sitting in front of a sign that said "these apes can exist in family groups of up to 30 individuals". Or a tiger enclosure with a tiny puddle of water: "these big cats adore swimming in freshwater lakes".

29-03-2008

I wasn't particularly thrilled with the "Absolutely Apes" exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, and yet there are numerous other mixed-species enclosures both at the zoo and the wild animal park that are brilliant. Overall it is still a remarkable experience to spend a day at the famous zoo. Those of us that have visited can nitpick and make a list of possible improvements, but at the end of the day it is still one of the world's truly great zoos.

For those who were disappointed...what zoos are better? I'm not talking about specific exhibits, but if one were to rank zoos via a list of objective criteria would there really be many that one could place higher than San Diego?

Maybe the Bronx or Singapore???

29-03-2008

For me, the Bronx Zoo is the cream of the crop.
The tiny Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas also stands out.
Even Saint Louis, which has some similarities to San Diego, I found to be quite well done.

09-04-2008

I understand the point that is being made by folks here. The orangs do spend more time on the ground then your wild orang might. But I have spent many hours seeing the all of the orangs, including the big male Clyde swinging away. The design isn't perfect but with each new exhibit they learn more. That's the reason they redid the orang exhibit in the first place, the Zoo is growing in its knowledge. The best I can say is watch Ape Cam on the Zoo Web site for a while and you'll be sure to see some orangs and siamangs having a ball off the ground.

And Patrick I must disagree. An animal will always retreat to where instincts tells the animal it should be, for orangs that means up above. If they were concerned they'd move up and away from what concerns them. If they're comfortable they don't mind relaxing and letting their guard down, whether it's on the ground or in the canopies. But the ground is not safe haven when instinct says get away. Ah well, we'll agree to disagree.

04-10-2008

[quote=aw101;43598]Hated the hippo/okapi exhibit


Your kidding, then what Hippo exhibit do you like? so you don't like the Hippo exhibit because of a fence in the back? That makes no sense.
San Diego's Ituri Forest is one of my favorite zoo exhibits ever. I think the Hippo enclosure is amazing, with a huge crystal clear pool and a naturalistic foliage. The hippos also are quite content in this exhibit. You must be pretty negative to say how much you hated a wonderful exhibit.

04-10-2008

The "World Famous" San Diego Zoo should do better. "Little details" like the ugly (and totally unnecessary) fence between the okapi and hippo is but one example of the sloppy execution of exhibits at this zoo. As posted earlier, the zoo is building new exhibits with good concepts and can obviously "out-plant" just about any other zoo, but they never get sightlines right, never replicate geology accurately, and sacrifice good ideas to cram in additional species, no matter how illogical (see Polar Bear Plunge and red pandas....).

Arizona Sonora, Woodland Park, Bronx, DAC and others blow San Diego out of the water as far as exhibit quality goes. Clearly San Diego has decided that there's no need to go the extra yard to create truly great exhibits, as they just need to keep SAYING they are the best zoo in the world and people believe it.

I love San Diego for its incredible diversity, but just don't think they are trying to create truly beautiful and effective exhibits. It's a real shame, because if they did it could be an extraordinary place.

04-10-2008

The nile hippo pool is amazing, the Ituri Forest primate/otter combination is excellent, polar bear plunge and sun bear forest aren't award-worthy but are still up there amongst the best of their kind for those species of bear, the lion-tailed macaque jungle, birds of prey aviaries, bonobo exhibit, tiger mountain, pygmy hippo/wolf's guenon exhibit, slender-snouted crocodile pool, etc are all terrific and better than most other zoo habitats in North America. Monkey Tales and Forest Trails and the Reptile Mesa also contain outstanding, naturalistic habitats for hundreds of animals.

04-10-2008

I definitely agree with snowleopard and disagree with reduakari. I also think San Diego has an amazing Gorilla exhibit too with lush tropical plants and few hotwire, and it also has a fine collection of pachyderms and pretty soon it will have an amazing elephant exhibit. It also has the amazing exhibits snowleopard mentioned above. I think the San Diego Zoo may be the best zoo there is. A fine collection in naturalistic award-worthy exhibits in a near perfect climate where the animals go out about 365 days a year- It does not get much better.

04-10-2008

I'm going to side with reduakari here. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy visiting the San Diego Zoo. The issue isn't whether the exhibits are better than most other zoos, it is that the exhibits could have been so much more realistic and naturalistic. I think the finest two exhibits ZSSD have done are the Kopje and the Heart of Africa (before this Journey into Africa whooey). The real turning point for me really was Ituri Forest, that's when the hardscape really seemed to overwhelm the landscape. It is also (correct me if I'm wrong) the first exhibit they did in house, and have done ever since. The rockwork is rarely ever believable any more (particularly the "otter pool" with underwater viewing in the buffalo exhibit, man that thing is a mess) and the concrete and metal seem to overwhelm any other design aspects. Sorry for the rant, it's only because I love San Diego that I get so head up about it.

04-10-2008

If San Diego has horrible-fake exhibits Ituri than what zoo does actually have good exhibits?That is thats not over seas where I might as well just go to the animals native land if I'm going to have go overseas to some european zoo.
I am so sick of people criticizing the San Diego Zoo. They have plants native to Africa and Asia all over the zoo to add to the realism and in most of the exhibits. The San Diego Zoo has the best hippo exhibit in the country, so please tell me what is wrong with that? And no I don't think Busch gardens has a better one because 1(All thats on shore is a short lawn and hard packed dirt), 2(You can't take a photograph of the hippo with out a roller coaster in the background to ruin the picture, and I have a picture myself to prove that) and 3(There is an overkill amount of tropical fish in the pool, so much that sometimes you can barely get a clear view of the hippos) also there are no native African plants in the Busch exhibit, but there are in the San Diego exhibit. Other than hippos the San Diego Zoo has an array of amazing exhibits which there are too many to name again. If want to include the Wild Animal Park with the zoo then there is really an overload of excellent exhibits. So much that it would take too long to name all of them.

04-10-2008

San Diego zoo does not have "horrible-fake exhibits", it's just that they call themselves the best zoo in the world, but cannot make the best exhibits in the world. The exhibits are indeed some of the better ones out there, but with all the money they generate and with the amazing collection they should be making the best exhibits.

04-10-2008

Ah, the wonders of opinions. We're here to share, not argue who is right or wrong.

Personally, I tend to side with reduakari and Ituri. When I first visited the SDZ in 1996, I was overwhelmed by the poor exhibits (the monkey and parrot quadrangles were still in use) and had been expecting much more. I think I likened it to having gourmet food in a cafeteria setting ... at the time, the newer exhibits were phenomenal (kopje, Hippo Beach), but the oldness really dragged the place down. I still think it does (are all the cages for the small carnivores really necessary? If they got removed, would anyone care?)

My perspective is similar to Ituri's - it is because I really like the San Diego Zoo that I am critical. And as mstickmanp says, it DOES have enormous potential - what with their climate, budget, and the rest. But no matter how nice it may be, it just doesn't seem to reach its full potential, and this is what disappoints me. (The devil is in the details ... the pipe barrier in the Ituri buffalo exhibit, the fencing around the planters in the Monkey Trails pig exhibits, and the aforementioned hippo/okapi barrier ... the exhibits may be great, but the lack of attention to the little details makes it tough to call them the "best"). On the flip side, the Bronx Zoo may have restrictions imposed by climate, but these 'problems' have led to greater creativity and I feel they have done a much better job of utilizing what they have.