I think it was meant to be placed on this thread - Name that zoo - because they were next to each other on the "new posts" list at the time of posting.
If this hypothesis is correct, the post in question is not just misplaced but ungrammatical too, since the image in question clearly shows two species.
I don´t have any luck with Dortmund´s badgers, for example... Will turn 40 this year and I visit the Dortmund Zoo for more than 39 years, but the badgers are always asleep... It is also tricky to get a good photo of the Palm Civets in Dortmund as well, due to their enclosure! But maybe it will be better after their move to the old Amur cat enclosure later this year.
As others have said it is generally the design of an enclosure / lack of light / terrible glass etc that causes my issues - but I do seem to have a bit of a block where adult giraffe and adult rhino are concerned. Possibly because they are not often doing anything 'exciting' and I struggle to take a compelling straight up portrait shot of them.
Due to exhibit restrictions, for Giraffes and Rhino, young or old, I focus on specific aspects of the animals. The head for Giraffes as well as their fur pattern. Rhino's have their horns, ears eyes, and even tick skinned hides to focus on.
Yup - tried all that with minimal success. I have one mono photo of a giraffe that I am happy with. I have 'ok' rhino shots but nothing I am particularly proud of.
My biggest struggle is dark animals, when there are other things that the camera finds more appealing to focus on ... like blades of grass
Fishing Cats and Black-footed Cats. Not many zoos, especially on the west coast, have them and I've been to ones that have them but I have never seen them, even with tips on where to look.
I always struggle with extremely large animals (elephant, rhino, hippo, giraffe, polar bear) because they take so much space and I find that makes it really hard to compose photos.
Fast small animals are harder to 'compose' in my opinion, especially through a wire fence in a 'messy' enclosure. I went to see the bear cubs at Noah's Ark (UK) and the grass was as tall as them adding to the challenge of the fence and other obstacles. Great to see short glimpses of them scampering around, but a pain to photograph.
Some animals I have been unlucky with: - Elephants: big for a total photo with surrounding, so often not a nice scene. Character hard to catch in a photo. Detail photos all have been done in the past, difficult to do something new. - Snow leopards: one big string of zoo visits with poor enclosures for photography (wires/fences/dirty or scratched windows) or poor cooperation of the snow leopard (not a nice position/always sleeping/hiding behind mock-rock)
There are some nice exhibits in europe where you can try your luck. Zoo Basel, Zoo Zurich, Safari de Peaugres and closer to the Netherlands the newest enclosure in Pairi Daiza. The Koelner Zoo is more difficult with the scratched windows.
My nemesis to shoot in zoos, are arboreal squirrels. I haven't got a good picture of one yet. Ground squirrels are easier. Plenty of decent shot of Greys in the wild, as they sit on tree stumps, or forage in the leaf litter and are not really bothered by humans. But squirrels in zoos seem to be highly active, and when they're not leaping about, they're climbing the mesh. A few years ago I tried for ages to get a good shot of a Prevost's Squirrel, only to find that it was blurry or I'd only got part of the animal in the shot.
Small monkeys, they're often hiding high up and way too blurry to take a good shot or just not there at all
I agree with the elephant sentiment particularly in city zoos such as Berlin Zoo - they have a nice bull elephant there with a nice pair of tusks - but he seems to walk around the same area [when I visited anyways] and so a full shot is hard to get, though 'detail' shots are doable. In another yard were a herd of cow-elephants, in the distance - so easier to photograph, but not really doing anything notable imo. That said, I have seen elephants at Whipsnade very active and acting nicely - nice to see, and perhaps to photograph. Snow leopards I have only ever had no-show once I believe - at Tierpark Berlin, though Marwell Zoo and Wildkatzenzentrum Felidae seemingly provided for myself good photo opportunities. As for my personal sentiments - cats are something of 50/50 - either you get a nice cat photo - or the cat is curled into a ball, or hiding wherever... Larger dogs can be troublesome as well - I have been to Hamerton twice and I have seen neither the jackal or the maned wolf.. though I have now seen the latter once at Tierpark Berlin.. sleeping..! The more common [in captivity] Painted dogs have not been very co-operative either - most of the time I see them they are in a resting position.. The kiwi I managed to see [after returning to the kiwi-booth for the second time that day] at the Berlin Zoo was perhaps one of the highlights of my day there - but obviously I did not get any photographs out of it.
Wow, you really hit the nail on the head with everything you said. This is why I consider zoo photography its own distinct genre of photography, separate from wildlife photography, While there's obvious overlap, zoo photography presents a unique set of challenges. It really rubs me the wrong way when people say that photographing animals in captive settings is somehow cheating. Sure, zoos do add a lot of convivence to photographing animals, but with that comes many constraints that don't exist in natural settings.
I haven't really dealt with that until now as most enclosures like that at the St. Louis Zoo hold fairly large animals that aren't particularly active. However, a couple days ago I tried to photograph the new Amur leopard cubs and definitely found that to be the case Their exhibit looks like this for reference (it will say serval exhibit, the Big Cat Country mesh-topped enclosures are rotated fairly frequently).
There are many species of birds that I have not been able to get a decent shot of. Some in zoos, but mainly in the wild. Often, just about to take the photo when the bird moves!
