Been reading over a lot of the AZA requirements of accredited zoos over their exhibits of particular species. I am a bit confused over what makes a zoo within accreditation guidelines and what does not when it comes to exhibits. For instance I am going to use my home zoo (Milwaukee Zoo) as an example. The current bear exhibits, (Black, Brown, and Polar) are mostly all concrete with a water feature, and very little actual grown vegetation. Although if you look at the accreditation for at bears, the exhibit by itself would not be up to standard, but the zoo continues to showcase them. Yet it was cited in another northern zoo (Duluth Zoo) that they had to transfer their brown bear in order to maintain AZA accreditation. Whats the difference? Now if you take the elephants, the AZA changed the requirements for housing elephants back in 2006 or so, with a time frame of about 10 years to renovate their existing exhibits to meet the new guidelines. Was the elephant renovations to meet standard a normal way of forcing zoos to change in order to comply with AZA standard, or was it out of the norm? Or is the norm waiting of animals that are in exhibits that don't meet the standard to pass or to transfer for them, before a zoo needs to renovate and comply with the new standards for animal care?
