I found a cool article about various plans for a zoo to be built in Ottawa. I never really thought about it before but it does seem weird we have a national capital without a zoo. I could see an impressive zoo built in the Ottawa area with an impressive focus on showing of Canadian wildlife. Maybe that zoo doesn't have lions and tigers. Instead it has an exhibit for polar bears to rival Assiniboine's Journey to Churchill, beautiful mountain exhibits like Calgary's Canadian Wilderness, nice big field exhibits like Zoo Sauvage, and an impressive coastal aquarium like Vancouver Aquarium. Take the best Canadian exhibits in the country and combine them in Ottawa and you would have one incredible Canadian zoo to showcase to the world with a strong conservation message centered entirely on Canadian species. Some big conservation programs it could participate in would be. Wood bison Black black footed ferrets Vancouver Island marmots Polar bears Caribou Eastern loggerhead shrikes Whooping Crane Trumpeter Swans Greater sage grouse Swift foxes Burrowing owls Spotted Owls Peregrine Falcon Basically all reptiles and amphibians Various fish species Oh what could have been... The zoo Ottawa never had
Your idea is very interesting. While not in Ottawa proper, there is the (rather mediocre from what I can tell) Papanack Park Zoo
