At least the fence and barn are in the background rather than the foreground! Your observation made me think about comparing some other similar enclosures, I thought of a few that have more obvious untreated fence and barns, so I think for the space it encloses and the fact that it is a very flat zoo, its not too offensive.
I'm compaing this place to Busch gardens, with the only differece to the africa areas is that this has african elephants, and this exhibit with the barn and no grass (shame)
Where are the African elephants in the Honolulu Zoo?...as far as I know they havent had one at the zoo in years.
This exhibit does have grass off to the right and a little portion to the right. And as okapikpr said, the zoo has no African Elephants, they only have Asians.
Actually on their site it says their African Elephant Daisy came in 1916 and died in 1933. but anyway, these are a great set exhibits but the Hippo exhibit is really poor as far as underwater viewing. The water for the waterbuck, hippo, and crocodile exhibits are so murky too. The honolulu also has a nice area for hawaiian animals like Io and Nene and they have a great set of tropical birds from australasia. I always spend time talking to the mynahs whenever I'm there. If you're ever taking a vocation to Hawaii and want to aviod all the obvious tourist traps, I'd go to the Honolulu Zoo (hiking in the mountains is also a wonderful experience, not many people do it in hawaii but the views are just breathtaking, just had to share that...) Also, I must mention that the Honolulu Zoo is like a lot of zoos right now who are building a new Asian Elephant exhibit. I remember seeing construction last time i went in 2007 but they hadn't announced what it was then.
Blackduiker See the Cameron Park Zoo savanna photos in their photo gallery. I had to comment on just how atrocious that fence appeared. This is definitely less of an eyesore.