for crying out loud. Are American zoos in some sort of competition to see who can devise the worst ways to house and display animals?!
There are many top-class American zoos that have terrific exhibits, but there are also just as many crappy enclosures that are commonly found in outdated buildings. Philadelphia Zoo has a reptile house, a "Rare Animal Conservation Center", a primate house and a small mammal house and none of them are even remotely close to being world-class because the animals are crammed into tiny fish bowls and therefore usually have zero access to the great outdoors.
Wow, National Zoo's Small Mammal House sure beats this one. These look like they are better equipped for housing insects or small fish!
@Cinzoo man: you are probably driving everyone nuts asking "what kind of species are in here?" on countless photos...but I can help you out with this one. Here is an excerpt from my review of the zoo last year: Small Mammal House – It was cool to see two aardvarks sharing the same habitat as meerkats, and another mixed-species exhibit had two-toed sloths with Brazilian agoutis. The rest of the small and fairly outdated building resembled the far superior “Mouse House” at the Bronx Zoo, and here are some of the species: chinchilla, Merriam’s kangaroo rat, European harvest mouse, short-eared elephant shrew, common tree shrew, bushy-tailed jird, pygmy marmoset, degu, damaraland mole rat, and Madagascar giant jumping rat. A very good but tiny nocturnal wing had these species, amongst others: African striped weasel, vampire bat, fruit bat, pygmy loris, sugar glider and echidna. Like much of the Philadelphia Zoo there is a great animal collection in average enclosures.
You guys are being quite harsh here considering we are talking about extremely small animals here like rats, mice, and shrews. Plus, many of the exhibits extend to multiple windows.
This is a fifty year old building. It still outclasses the hundreds of chicken wire and dimensional lumber "exhibits" peppering the countryside of Great Britain.
frankly this house looks like a museum display, and an ugly badly-designed one at that -- the metal surrounds make the display cases look like oven doors, and if these front doors are indeed the only access to the cases then that's simple bad planning. Further to which, display appearance aside, just because small mammals are small doesn't mean they should be kept in tiny boxes. In my opinion this photo shows an awful display aesthetic, and any "chicken wire and dimensional lumber" cage would actually be far preferable.
No argument that this is a dated and unattractive building. I was reacting to your earlier statement that implied that this is somehow typical of the current level of aesthetics/husbandry of US zoos. This is a relic, but the vast proliferation of ugly, "functional" animal enclosures in many private British collections are of a far more recent origin, and therefore in my judgment less defensible.
