Lied Jungle - America's #1 Rainforest Complex!

July 6th, 2012.

America's number 1 rain forest complex unless you're a tapir or one of the other species trapped in a substandard concrete box in an otherwise very pretty exhibit.

Are there any rain forest exhibits in North America that have exhibits that people here would agree universally are excellent? The Moody Gardens rainforest in Texas looks pretty good from the photos. As I recall Woodland Park Zoo had no bad exhibits in their rain forest area.

Aha, let the Omaha debate continue! The Malayan tapirs have an atrocious amount of space, but both species of otters have absolutely huge pools for that species, one of the two pygmy hippo enclosures is very nice, and the clouded leopards have departed the zoo. There are at least 13 species of primate and all of their exhibits are fine, and so arguably other than a single hippo and the two species of tapirs all of Lied Jungle is pretty darn good. In terms of a visitor experience I'm not sure that any other of the 25 rainforest complexes that I've seen even comes close. Now that Lied Jungle is 20 years old there still has been nothing constructed in North America that is as impressive. Cleveland, Bronx, Sedgwick County and Denver are perhaps the next best rainforests and they are all 19 years of age or older!

I believe that jungleworld comes close or ties omaha's rainforest. The primates all have very large exhibits that contain plants and are very well themed. The gibbon exhibit is one of the countries best full of thick folliage and the exhibits finale has 2 species of bat, storks and many other species. The major downfall of the exhibit is the leopard exhibit which is puny but has climbing opportunities.

JungleWorld is very good but not nearly as mammoth as Lied Jungle and besides the much-discussed black leopard exhibit at the Bronx Zoo the otter and tree kangaroo enclosures are not nearly large enough either.

I really do not like Lied Jungle because all the animals do not have enough space. And if being massive makes it a good exhibit then Tropic World would be a good exhibit.

Rainforest exhibits on this scale are not only very expensive to build, but then the zoo is committed to extremely high operating costs for decades after. Medium sized zoos that lack such an exhibit do still build them and benefit from newer technologies, but few organizations will be prepared to create anything on the scale of the Lied or JungleWorld anytime soon, IMO.
There have been many proposed over the years but they never make it far past the Concept phase, when the true costs become clear.

The building itself might be massive but both the orangatan and gorilla exhibits within Tropic World are too small.In our opinion the Brookfield's Orang exhibit might be the worst we have seen followed by perhaps Birmingham and Pittsburgh.Add the fact that there is zero natural substrate flooring throughout the complex.If Omaha were to move its tapirs outside and tweek a few things it would no doubt be a untouchable best Rainforest complex in North America.

Team Tapir

Rainforest Falls at the Buffalo Zoo is a good example of a medium/small sized zoo which was able to construct a rainforest complex that works for both animals and the public.In no way does it rival Lied or JW but it certainly works for Buffalo and we would consider it their signature exhibit and it only cost 16 mil.

Team Tapir

Yes indeed. I was thinking of Buffalo, Mesker Park Zoo and similar institutions