elephant park

It looks like a gigantic tortoise! All joking aside, it seems that the world-class Zurich Zoo has done it again and created a fantastic exhibit. Does anyone know the cost in American (or Canadian) dollars? I've looked it up online but there seems to be several different numbers floating around on the internet.

It does look like a tortoise.

The cost of the entire park: 57 million Swiss francs = 62 million US$
11000 m2 for 2.6.x elephants (afaik)
main building with 80m diameter and 6800 m2 self-supporting wooden roof with 271 skylights
webcams
streetView

@ Snowleopard: I`ve been there and the indoor area is really good. But the outdoor enclosures are WAY TOO SMALL to be called "world-class". There are three outdoor paddocks, one off-exhibit and two on-exhibit, and the total area of all three paddocks is less then 1 acre. I estimate the largest enclosure is 1/2 acre and the other two around 1/4 acre. It all looks fabulous and compared to the old elephant facility, it`s a big improvement, but I am very dissapointed that Zurich spent that much money (many, many millions of dollars) on an enclosure that is already outdated. I really have no idea what these people think.

Maybe: "We had to meet a deadline" or "Let's try to make the best of what we got-and make it look good for the public/politicians"?

@Yassa: There are 3 outdoor paddocks and they total a combined 1 acre? That is terrible news, and surprising as the investment in the Elephant House looks to be immense. Woodland Park in Seattle receives awful criticism for having slightly over 1 acre of outdoor space for its elephants. When I think of all the new elephant exhibits that have been built in the United States or throughout Europe over the past decade, many have been 2 acres or more in size and some even far larger. North Carolina Zoo has 7 elephants on 7 acres, Dallas Zoo has a veritable bounty of wildlife and 4 elephants on 4 aces, while Nashville Zoo has 4 elephants on at least 3 acres. Zurich's outdoor yards are puny in comparison and that is a massive disappointment.

Are those numbers confirmed? Overall exhibit size is reported to be 11000 m2 which equals 2.7 acres. The elephants are free to move between the indoor and outdoor parts of the exhibit, so they can and do use that total space. Indoor area is considerably smaller than outdoor, so the overall outdoor area must be at least 1.5 acres (but I could not find any figures). In any case, the elephants could arguably have been offered more space, but space is limited and 2.7 acres is certainly not puny.

exhibit plan

Quality trumps quantity--Zurich's spaces are full of enriching opportunities and physical challenges, much more important than raw area.

Same problem wth cologne-and their elephant "Artificial Rocky World"provides the elephants, 15 now ?, less space than Zurich for 2.6-and their exhibit seems on pictures to be much better done than cologne.So I wouldn't say, Zurichs elephant exhibit is already"outdated"-that was Halle, for example...

But generally I agree with you-most elephants exhibits, nevertheless new or not,are still too small-mainly in germany.Maybe Erfurt is better than the present exhibits. Kronberg provides his 1.3 elephants also much more space than cologne or Hamburg-and Hannover is desaster in any way...

Do you remember the design competition for this exhibit?
https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de...ttbewerbe_2009/elefantenpark_zoo_zuerich.html
Ganz Landscape Architects - Nilgiri - Competition Elephant Park at Zurich Zoo - Garden archive - Garden landscape
Zurich Elephant Park - Studio Seilern Architects
Elephant Park | aurelVR architecture

@ Antonmuster: You forget that the 11.000 m² include the areas for the visitors. The area the elephants can use is definately less then 11.000 m², even if you combine all indoor + all outdoor enclosures and the stalls in the management area behind the scenes.

And while in theory the indoor and outdoor paddocks can be combined, that is not possible because the elephants are kept in 3 seperate subgroups. Females Farha and Ceyla must be kept apart from Indi and her daughters, and bull Maxi spends most of his time on his own. And now they brought in a new, young bull. During the day, one group of females is always inside, and the other one locked outside. They change groups during the day, though. And they do a lot for enrichment. But the outdoor area is absolutely too small to keep two incompartible groups of females and two bulls!!

By the way, the elephant exhibit in Cologne has much bigger outdoor paddocks then Zurich (or Halle or Hannover..).