Cincinnati Zoo - Giraffe Ridge

The closest vehicle is probably about 15 feet from the fence, and hopefully not many alarms go off and scare the crap out of the giraffes.

Even though the parking lot is that close, I think the exhibit is great for the giraffes.

The giraffes on the picture seem to be very cool...We have a few zoos in germany with giraffe, antelope and zebra exhibits near to busy streets, and they have absolutly no problem with that. They know it, cars are nothing spectacular to them.Often humans have more problems with exhibits near to streets or parking lots than the animals by themselfs.....

I bring comparisons to Bronx a lot (mostly because it's one of the few zoos I know like the back of my hand) BUT let's not forget that there are portions of Bronx (the Asia monorail ESPECIALLY) with a major expressway several car lengths away from tigers, elephants and far more skittish animals than giraffes. Urban zoos make deal with space as best as possible.

@tigertiger: do you have any recent photos of Giraffe Ridge that you could post onto ZooChat? I know that you are a fairly regular visitor to the Cincinnati Zoo, and I'm sure that this giraffe paddock looks much better now that it has had a year and a half to mature.

Here's some Google Earth snapshots so you can definitely tell the difference. The first one is from August 31, 2009 and the second from November 2, 2011.