american alligator exhibit

Quite simple, but seems like a great habitat for the alligators. How many are currently in here? Only wish the zoo would choose a rarer species to exhibit.

They have one alligator. I am refraining from giving my opinion of this exhibit, but let's just say my assessment would likely not include the word "great".

That is the sickest enclosure I have seen for American Alligators in my life.

@Jake Their are plenty of superior american alligator exhibits in the U.S. Especially in the South where zoos like the North Carolina zoo fenced in a swamp area. Heres a pic of that exhibit.

Alligator Exhibit | ZooChat

@Arizona Docent @Jake Looks fine too me. What's wrong with it?

It is inferior to what was there before, a simple and lushly planted muntjac exhibit with excellent viewing opportunities. (The muntjacs were later replaced with sarus crane, a less ideal inhabitant that required some ugly fence modifications).

The black perimeter fence is a secondary fence inside the main visitor barrier and is unsightly to say the least. This secondary fence was never there before.

The entire design looks like a cheap backyard landscape design and in no way replicates the lush natural habitats of the swamps of southeast USA.

The exhibit destroyed the theming of the former Asia area, which now has no theme at all (the lemurs across the way added to this problem).

Swamps do not have four foot high vertical waterfalls. In fact they don't have waterfalls at all.

One of the two information signs (see gallery) has the description of an alligator but the photo of a crocodile.

@Arizona Docent Was this the former sun bear exhibit before it became it became a muntjac exhibit?

@DavidBrown No, the former sun bear is directly to the right of this photo and was remodeled into the new primate exhibit. Before the alligator redo this held sarus cranes and before that it held muntjacs and before that it held giant anteaters.