Brookfield Zoo - Tropic World

The hard thing is trying to keep the woodchips from cloging up all the little rivers that the otters use.

I remember my visit in April 1996 I had seen it on TV and in the Jeremy Cherfas book of the same name Zoo 2000. but I was rather disappointed with the actual thing. As a professional gardener I was surprised to see that the plants acting as greenery where actually metal and nothing more than decorative bars, also the floor was hard concrete.
The Gorillas lolled around on one large rock and the orangs appeared to be mountain species rather than rain forest.
It's not fair to judge things from 0ver 16 yeras ago, but it wouldn't take much to improve the lot of some of the animals with outside enclosures, more sky lights would allow more light and afford the luxury of real plant life possibly using a bio dome section like the Edan project here in the UK.
Dean

I think people are not understand that this zoo has almost no money to improve this exhibit or any exhibit as they just fixed the grottoes and the dolphin exhibit.Iif they did add more skylights then the animals all would have to be in holding for multiple days plus it is very very tall and they would have probally need a crane to change the roof but there would be no space for one.

I've never been to the Brookfield Zoo, but the amount of space in this exhibit looks great.

But it's so....bland. It would be so much better for both the gibbons and the visitors if the Tropic World was actually tropic looking. And if everything wasn't fake.

This is only half the exhibit in the second biggest room! The Asian room is definitely the worst in the building because it feels so empty. If only the zoo had money it would be able to follow their master plan and renovate this building and add outdoor exhibits.