Snowleopard inspired this by saying that the Columbus Zoo may become the best zoo in the country within 5 years or so. So factoring in future developments, and obviously what you feel about the current zoos, what's your choice? Feel free to rank the top 5 or 10 if you like. I'll include our neighbor Canada and the Toronto Zoo since they're upgrading their zoo a lot.
While you are welcome to start thread on anything you wish on Zoo Chat, there is no way that any one zoo can be the best in everything. Not a chance. I wish life was that simple. You need to narrow it down. A zoo can have the biggest collection; the most acres, most carnivore species, and so forth. But no zoo can ever be the best. There will always be parts that are bad and out of date. I know a few zoo enthusiasts who are so obsessed with their quest for the perfect zoo that I sometimes wonder why they bother visiting zoos. The perfect zoo, the zoo that has no faults, the zoo that will please everybody, does not exist and will never exist. I love to visit zoos and then ponder at the end of the day what was good and what was bad. I have visited over 120 zoos in around 20 countries. But the day that I enter a zoo, expecting it is perfect or near perfect, will also be the day that I will visit my last zoo.
Who said anything about being the best at everything? I'm not expecting perfection by any means. People rank zoos on here often, I'm just wondering what they think the rankings will look like 6 years from now. If you're someone who has an issue ranking zoos, I'm obviously not asking for your feedback.
I agree that there will never be a perfect, but for some reason I feel like everyone (including myself) will still think that San Diego Zoo will be the "best" five years from now. I also feel that Columbus will be a close second, but the only thing separating the two will be the fact that San Diego Zoo will always be in sunny Southern California.
I think you left out some zoos that are going to be among the best by 2015. Denver will have Asian Tropics OKC Zoo, already a top 10 zoo by many, will have their enormous Asian Elephant Habitat open by then Dallas will have Giants of the Savanna, and it already has Wilds of Africa ranked in top 25 exhibit list by both authors of ABZ. They also have a great tiger exhibit.
Maybe (but possibly not) by 2015, Toronto Zoo will have a new eurasian area, a new canadian wilderness exhibit, an expanded elephant habitat, a renovated orangutan exhibit, a tropical american pavilion, a renovation to the southside of the african rainforest pavfilion (now underway), a new giraffe house and by 2018, pandas and penguins (again, these are "plans")
Well that's why I put other. However, I doubt they'd get any votes for #1 by anyone anyway, except maybe a homer for one of those zoos.
It would be interesting to see what ColumbusZoo001 has to say about this, as he voted for San Diego despite his obvious allegiance.
Even though I would die for my zoo and defend her to death, literally, San Diego's position at the top will not be easily usurped. Columbus is already a top five zoo in the nation and I think we will challenge Bronx and Omaha for the #2 or #3 spot by 2015. I must confess, Elephant Odyessey to me was a bitter disappointment and if San Diego doesn't open a better exhibit within the next few years, the #1 spot may very well change to Columbus.
I think EO is better than most on here do, however, you're probably right that they need to step it up to keep that top spot. Since their plans aren't known like Columbus' or various other zoo's, it makes it harder to answer this question.
Well, the quality of exhibits at Bronx is amazing. They are home to perhaps the greatest exhibit of all time, CGF. Every exhibit they open is one of the best of its kind. Tiger Mountain, opened in 2003, is perhaps the best tiger exhibit in America. The Madagascar house is also very highly regarded. The Himalayan Highlands exhibit is said to be the nations best display of snow leopards, according to both authors of ABZ. The Baboon Reserve is one of the best baboon exhibits and all the other savanna habitats are above average. I also like that WCS has started projects for their smaller institutions. The new Snow Leopard exhibit at Central Park is brilliant, and I am sure the jaguar exhibit at Queens will also be brilliant, as there really haven't been any disappointing enclosures built by WCS. It would almost be unheard of to see an enclosure like EO built at Bronx. Not saying EO is a bad exhibit at all, its pretty good, but it lacks attention to detail, which is really important in creating naturalistic enclosures. I think San Diego is second best, but the problem is it truly lacks an outstanding brilliant exhibit like CGF. No doubt many of the exhibits are great, but none are as brilliant as Bronx's. One thing I see in San Diego is they are becoming more and more like a theme-park, especially how they changed all the names of their exhibits. "Lost Forest" and "Easy Street" sound like something out of Universal Studios, not one of the nations greatest zoos. I find it a little disappointing that Bronx has decided to phase their elephants out, as there enclosure is really decent being 2 acres and somewhat resembling an Asian Forest clearing. A plus to Wild Asia though is their Indian Rhino breeding program. They probably have the second best breeding program in a US zoo after SDWAP.
Ok, so you currently think the Bronx Zoo is the best? I thought you had SD at #1. I also didn't think you cared about zoo's becoming more like theme parks. I don't think the name of the streets or area's of the zoo are important factors at all when judging a zoo and the visitor experience.
Well, I sort of reevaluated what I consider to be the best zoo. I highly doubt in the next 6 years an exhibit as good as Congo Gorilla Forest will be built. I am sure some will come very close, but not quite as good, which is why I think Bronx will still be the best in six years.
So the zoo with the best exhibit = best zoo? I'm not saying the Bronx isn't the best, I have yet to go, but the entire zoo should be taken into consideration, not just the best exhibit(s). BTW, have you been there? Going forward, I would say the lack of elephants is a big negative when considering who has the best zoo.
Nope haven't been, but if I were to judge strictly on the zoos I have been to, I don't have any business in this conversation. I do know that CGF is rated as the best zoo exhibit by both Scott (snowleopard) and Jon Wassner. Its hard to beat two enormous gorilla habitats that are nearly a perfect resemblance of the African rain forest. That along with a real connection between the visitor and conservation, along with the nations best display of okapis, not to mention the other great primate and red river hog display/s makes for a brilliant exhibit. The visitor experience is also incredible being immersed in a rain forest and walking through a glass tunnel with gorillas on both sides of you. Then what constitutes the best zoo? Surely its exhibits would be the main thing to take into consideration as one could go to a zoo with every animal in the world, but if they are all in cramped cages what's the point. I think its a combination of visitor experience and the animals exhibits. As I mentioned above Congo accomplishes both remarkably according to its description. Many of their other exhibits accomplish both as well. I will admit Bronx is missing some majors animals (Orangs, hippos, jaguars although they will be at the Queens Zoo in a few years so they will count by 2015).
I don't get how this is a response to what I said. I didn't say anything negative about CGF at all, I just said one exhibit or the top exhibits at a zoo shouldn't be all this is judged on. You have to consider the whole zoo, that should be obvious. I also didn't say anything that should have led to "one could go to a zoo with every animal in the world, but if they are all in cramped cages what's the point." And Queens Zoo and Central Park Zoo are different zoos, they don't count towards the Bronx Zoo. If that was the case, I guess SDWAP would be part of SDZOO.
It would be cool if more people explained their choices, especially the other votes. Can't imagine what they're unless they're thinking DAK, which I don't consider eligible for this.
