I'll post a poll once we get the contenders down. I would think SD, Busch Gardens, St. Louis, Toledo, and DAK would the top contenders unless I'm forgetting some. Any others? For a hippo exhibit to be really good, I think underwater viewing is a must, which all of these exhibits have.
Since no one has made any suggestions, I put up a poll, will be interesting to see the results assuming we get a decent amount of voters.
I have seen all four exhibits that were voted for and San Diego has been my favorite. It is very well planted behind the pool making the exhibit appear very lush. And not all the plants are in planters. Many of them could be eaten by the hippos if they chose to. The only negative to the exhibit is the fence sight line in the back, which I will take over Busch Garden's roller coaster sight lines and mess of hot-wire. All four are very good, but I am surprised St. Louis got 0 votes. Probably because hardly any zoochatters have been to that zoo.
Busch Gardens has the smartest overall layout--a very long and relatively narrow pool, with shallow areas designed to encourage hippo resting at prime viewing locations. The hippos have quite a bit of swimming length, but are never too far from the glass. The fantastic schools of multi-colored chiclids add a lot too (although some posters here have found them distracting/overwhelming). The adjacent Nile Crocodile exhibit adds a nice element. And the water quality is better than at any other hippo exhibit I've seen. Downsides: land area seems rather small; awful views of rollercoasters in the background, and while originally a troop of baboons had access to the beach and area above it,they have now been replaced incongruously by ring-tailed lemurs. My second favorite hippo exhibit is at Werribee, which is fantastic despite not having underwater viewing. Much better (bigger) land area than most, and actually a more realistic viewing situation (like being in Africa on safari). St. Louis is good, but just too small (especially the land area).
San Diego has the best quality of water I have seen. They also have one continuous panel of glass meaning if the hippos are in the water they are always in view. At Busch Gardens the panels are separated and at some points it makes the hippos very difficult to see. And to me the shallow areas are very poorly located. At all the glass panels the pool is 12 feet deep. At their favorite resting spot they are hardly visible. The schools of cichlad fish really take away from the exhibit too. Their are far too many, and at times they make it difficult to photograph the hippos. I still like the exhibit though.
Thanks for the explanations guys. I voted for SD, which is the only one I've been to, I did look at pictures and read comments about the other exhibits, but as I've made clear elsewhere, I don't think that a proper way of judging. But since it's all I got, it seems like SD and BG were similiar in quality, but BG has the roller coaster and hot wire, and as Black Rhino pointed out, the hippos often rest far away, while at SD, they typically rest right up against the glass, which is great.
Hard to say: I've seen San Diego's 4 times. 3 times the water was cloudy and the hippos were way in the back of the pool, nearly out of sight. As a result, my eyes were always drawn to the famous ugly fence separating the hippos from okapis, and it made me wonder why a few thousand more dollars weren't spent to make this a perfect view (it would have been easy). Oh, and there is plenty of hotwire in San Diego's exhibit too. The last time I visited the water was clear and the single hippo in the exhibit at the time was racing back and forth in the water right at the glass--very cool. I've been to BG 3 times, and have always seen multiple hippos either active or right up at the glass. Of course there's that damn roller coaster.... But personally I LOVE all the fish--the more the merrier. And the crocodile in the neighboring exhibit is very impressive. They are both very good. The "truly great hippo exhibit" has yet to be built. It would combine the visitor wetland immersion experience and above-water views of Werribee, the great underwater viewing of Busch/San Diego/Berlin, multiple species layered enclosures (baboons, crocodiles, antelope all in the view in safely separate but seemingly connected spaces), and the natural large herd size only Disney and Emmen manage currently (8-15 animals). Can't wait to see it!
I've been to the SD zoo over 10 times just in the last 3 years or so, and the hippos have almost always been close up. I don't think considering the crocodile exhibit is really in the spirit of this unless you can see the crocs and hippos in the same view. Not sure if you can or not. I agree with your last paragraph, much better can be achieved, and hopefully it will be.
Right now, nothing in African Savannah is for certain and those plans are fairly outdated but we will probably mix hippos with something.
mweb, at Busch Gardens Tampa you can see the hippos and crocodile in the same view, the two underwater viewing windows are next to each other. However, I wouldn't consider them the same exhibit for the sake of the hippo exhibit ranking!
I have not seen Toledo, but all the others in the poll are better than San Antonio...but San Antonio is very nice and a close runner-up!
Only 2 great hippo exhibits I've seen are San Antonio and San Diego. Out of those 2 SD wins, but SA's exhibit is still very good.
I voted for Toledo because it is the original of its kind and has held up very well.The Hippos here also tend to be very active.I have been to SD STL BG and SEA but gotta go with one of my regulars. Marty from team Tapir
I think Brookfield Zoo has one of the best hippo exhibits because it has a large pool and a grassy yard.
I am gonna have to wait to vote until I have seen the new 1 acre hippo exhibit at the deyoung zoo to vote on this. Though the pictures I have seen make it seem very promising.
