"Have TWO bananas" (while holding up three fingers!). Good God what an awful waste of perfectly servicable concrete. How many sidewalks and driveways were sacrificed to "create" this monstrosity?
This is exactly what I was thinking. I hate to see this kind of exhibit. It's one thing to see an inappropriate exhibit in a zoo with few resources but clearly this place has (or had) enough money to commission a fairly elaborate enclosure but it does nothing whatsoever for the welfare of the animals or for the education of visitors.
This orangutan exhibit is brutal in many ways, and it reminds me of a type of elaborate museum display. I wonder how much money was spent on the design process?
I cannot swear to this, but I do believe the firm responsible has been out of business for several years. Sadly, it is the same firm responsible for the terrific Wolf Wilderness at Cleveland Zoo!
Huh, I'm going to have to go to more zoos and see their orangutan exhibits. I actually liked the look of the exhibit! I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the limbs and what they were really made out of. I thought there was nice viewing areas for people to see the orangutans, but also hiding spots for the mother to have privacy with her baby. I didn't get a picture of the the outdoor section, which I admit was small, but they did have more limbs and ropes to climb high on. And the indoor section had stairs leading to a higher place. I'm excited to see Columbus Zoo this summer then which I assume has a way better orangutan exhibit.
@blospz: there are some picky zoo visitors on this site! I'm actually one of them, and even though I think that the Columbus Zoo is easily one of the 10 best zoos in North America I really dislike the orangutan exhibit there. This criticism aimed at the orang enclosure at Erie Zoo is mainly due to the fact that it is designed with too much emphasis on humans instead of the apes that inhabit the exhibit. It looks pretty, but parts of it are useless to orangs.