America's Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums

Thanks but I think you may be confusing me with someone else. I've got a fair pile (enough to make my wife ask, "have you got space for that" when I come home with a new tranche) but don't do postcards (there lies madness) or annual reports (no time to read, too big to store). I know a few in the Premiership but I'm merely a Championship outfit bobbing around the play-off spots for promotion.

 

Aquarium La Rochelle is also quite good. However, I agree with your point about Aquaria - it would probably be 90 zoos and 10 aquaria if you or anyone else were to do a book in that format.

 

I just got the book! This is a wonderful, high quality book and I must thank @snowleopard and @Tim Brown for putting this masterpiece together.

 

What does Spadefish have to do with Pine Knoll Shores?

 

They have Atlantic spadefish in their Living Shipwreck exhibit.

 

North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher and North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island are a trio of public coastal aquariums that receive more than a million visitors combined. From the book: "All three of these aquariums can be identified by their iconic spadefish sculptures outside their entrance areas".

 

thanks.

 

Lee Ehmke, President and CEO of the Houston Zoo in Texas, sent Tim and I an email on Christmas Day and that was a nice surprise. I'll quote 6 words from the message: "Best work of its kind ever". Thanks Lee!

At the very back of America's Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums there are some lists, with the Houston Zoo being the #8 facility in the book in terms of annual attendance. The only 7 establishments that can top Houston are 4 theme park attractions (DAK, Busch Gardens, two SeaWorlds), a couple of free-to-enter zoos (Lincoln Park, Saint Louis) and San Diego. Houston is doing a phenomenal job of getting people through the entrance gate to explore the zoo's 55 acres and the 'Pantanal' exhibit is due to open at some point in 2020.

 

One thing Houston does that probably helps with attendance, and that I really like, is they stay open late in the summer, until 8pm. It can let a lot of people visit who normally wouldn't be able to fit it into their schedule. It was going to be the only way I would have been able to go if I hadn't started having health trouble, because I was in Houston for an event.

 

Occurred to me the other day that the publication of this book largely eliminates the likelihood of any significant articles on the featured zoos in Zoo Grapevine for a while.

 

I’m just happy Oakland made it to the top 100. Definitely a book to keep an eye out for.

 

Since zoos (80) and aquariums (20) are sort of separate categories, you could actually say Oakland made it into the top 80!

 

It is fantastic to hear that major figures in the zoo world are praising this novel. Its equally gratifying that I was able to have a part in it - as minor as it may be - and I'm sure you have to be satisfied with the final product. Can someone please link the page to purchase the book here? I am eager to get my hands on a copy.

Considering the kind words, is there any chance of the Houston zoo or any others selling copies in the gift shop?

 

I believe it was linked up thread somewhere, but here it is again.

SOCIETY BOOKS

On another note, I believe my copy arrived when I was out of town visiting family this week! However, we didn't get home until late last night after our apartment complex's office closed and I can't get at it until Monday!

 

Having received a copy several weeks ago, I thought I would give myself a chance to properly devour America's Top 100 Zoos and Aquariums before posting any significant comment here.

I do need to preface my comments by stating that I am good friends with each of the authors: I have known Tim for a quarter of a century, and, through this website, have got to know Scott very well over the past decade or so. The less-frequently-mentioned Alan Ashby, who was responsible for much of the design of the book, is another very good, very old friend.

I have to say that I think the book is fantastic.

It is weighty - literally so - and it looks fabulous: the design is clean, and consistent, and the choice of photographs is excellent (even if, in an ideal world, I would have liked to have seen fewer plucked from Flickr and other such sources). The choice of zoos seems wholly reasonable and fair (if the biggest discussion is as to whether Franklin Park Zoo, Boston, was unfairly excluded, or as to whether the Seaworld parks deserve their inclusion, then things can't be too contentious). Mistakes are very few (so far, I have only come across one statue which seems to have grown in size to be ten times its actual height, and one homonym given the incorrect spelling - more-than-forgiveable errors in a text of this scale, I think).

The text is really very good indeed. The histories of each zoo are rendered efficiently and with clarity - and, I think, with authority as well. The descriptions of each zoo as it is today are well done - although, personally, I would have liked these to have been more opinionated, to give a greater sense of what it is that the authors like (or don't like). Those opinions do come through at times (we can see their dismay at the way in which Busch Gardens mixes animals with 'fun', for example), but as to whether they really like, say, Indianapolis Zoo - often, we do not learn. There is a definite upside to this, however: this isn't just a personal vanity project, in which two authors have self-indulgently foisted their views on to a reading public, but, rather is an objective catalogue which will be relevant to future generations of zoo enthusiasts, just as, for example, Anthony Smith's landmark Animals on View is still relevant nearly 50 years after its publication.

One problem that the authors have faced in completing this book is that, with some exceptions, the histories of US zoos are often very similar: ragtag animal collection in a public park slowly evolves into something more, usually enhanced by the arrival of an elephant 'paid for' by local children and a WPA building or two. I think a similar volume focusing on European zoos would see more variety on this area.

But that does not in any way take away from the importance, the quality, and the enjoyability of this book. Over the Christmas period I have derived an enormous amount of pleasure from sitting by the fire, reading abut the zoos of Nashville, Houston and Fort Worth, dreaming of future zoo trips. America's Top 100 Zoos and Aquariums will certainly sit on my desk alongside the handful of volumes to which I refer the most often, and I cannot imagine that anyone with even the most passing of interests in zoos would not want - and need - to buy it and devour it.

 

Does anyone know anything about Jackson? and why on earth is John Ball on there?

 

I could be wrong, but I would assume they like all of these zoos if they were good enough to make the top 100 list.

 

Yes, but there's like and there's like. I like Bob Dylan. I like Van Morrison, I like - really like - Bruce Springsteen. Zoo-wise - if I were making a list of the top 100 US zoos it would certainly include Indianapolis, which I like - but I like the place a great deal less than I like San Diego, Lincoln Park, the Shedd, or Toledo.

 

I'm trying so hard to be patient, but I ordered the week after Tinopup, and it hasn't come yet.....