Reimagining the Bronx Zoo

So by the suggestion of @ThylacineAlive, I decided to make a thread dedicated to the beloved Bronx Zoo.

So here are my ideas for what the Bronx Zoo could do to freshen the whole thing up

My ideas are...

Make the Wild Asia Area including the Monorail and the Asia Parking a massive Asian complex for elephants (breeding of course), rhinos, gaur, etc. Have all Amur tigers at Tiger Mountain only and only have Malayan tigers here to create an Asian jungle sorta theme. Then with the South(east) Asian hoofstock, make it so they can walk among the giants ala Dallas. Dholes could also be moved here and have them rotate with tigers ala Denver. Also, have a bit of this new Asia visible from 180th street like when you walk from Asia gate to the train. That way, it's sort of a tease and people there get to have glimpses of the animals which will entice them into the zoo. Indoor viewing of elephants and rhinos is also a massive priority for me so that they can be seen all year.

Make the Bronx River Parking lot multi-level so you can get rid of Asia and the excess parking by the buffalo. Then use that whole area to create a sorta Yellowstone exhibit that incorporates the river and teaches about human/wildlife conflict in our nation. Get some pronghorns (they gotta share the exhibit with the bison), wolves, cougars, elk, and move the grizzlies here.

The Heads and Horns building is kinda wasted as education IMO. You could easily use it as a zoo museum since a ton of interesting stuff happened at the Bronx Zoo.

Make the area around Tiger Mountain, Bears, Himalayan Highlands, etc. a whole Northern Asia thing with better flow, more modern exhibits, and with the displaced Northern Asian herbivores like the markhor (they'd love the grizzly exhibit with a few mods), tufted deer, etc.

With WoD, you could theoretically demolish the building and add a polar bear exhibit with an air-conditioned indoor area. It could also be swallowed by Africa and used for something of that theme

Get some better food venders. My idea is to have decent restaurants open up places in the zoo and they pay for their expenses. You can then add a zoo tax.

The African Plains exhibit really needs a spit and shine. I think redoing the layout and making the animal night areas more modern would work wonders. I think more hoofstock like elands, blue wildebeest, etc. could also fit. I think that the animals should still have the space but the space should be used more efficently as there is a lot of unused/wasted space. Then I'd do more multi-species habitats

For the former Rare Animal Range, I have no idea tbh. I heard that the director wanted to do a Latin America exhibit which would hopefully have tapirs, monkeys, jaguars, macaws, etc. but it's likely not concrete. If they are gonna do an Amazon theme, it's gotta have an indoor area so even in winter, you can immerse yourself ala Jungleworld

The area of Congo Gorilla Forest outside of the exhibit itself should be converted into a gorilla training/feeding area so that you can have shows with the gorillas which will give the lower income folks a guaruntee of seeing them.

Monkey house would likely be a copy and paste of the Madagascar concept with another ecosystem.

Redo the Aquatic Bird House from the ground up. With bathroom tiles and horrid lighting, the building screams to me "I wasn't touched since the collapse of the USSR." It shouldn't be that hard to find the birds a temp home real quick while this place is demolished and a new Aquatic Bird House is created that is up to modern WCS standards.

Get an Aldabra tortoise and giraffe feeding booth so that you can just pay 10 bucks up front and then get some lettuce and kale. I feel the online booking for a simple animal feeding is too much for people.

In Jungleworld, divide the monkey and leopards equal space so the leopards can have more room. Then make them rotate for enrichment. Then get some outdoor real estate for things like leopards and tapirs so they can go outside if they wanna. Or you could have the leopards somewhere else, improve the langur island you first see, have a rotation system for the 2 species (this would also include more comfortable night housing) and make the former Silver Langur/Leopard area an indoor orangutan exhibit. Then give the apes an outdoor area in the main Asia exhibit and connect it with wires.

I'd do something a bit more interesting with the white rhino yard. Idk what that would be. It could be another kind of megafauna, reptiles, etc. but I'm sure someone here has a hot idea. I have a soft spot for black rhinos so seeing the yard expanded for a breeding group would be great. Hippos could also be a option if they were able removate the inside of that area to have a pool and then have an outdoor area with underwater viewing.

That should be it for now but I will come up with other ideas.

Actually, is there a program that would allow me to take an image and put a bunch of annotations on it that people can mouse over? That way, I can just put all my thoughts on there and it can be constantly updated.

 

I really wish you could edit posts you made a long time ago but I'd really like more Australian representation in NY like a roo field, loris, maybe even some devils. It doesn't have to be much but I think that could occupy some land by the former RAR

 

The WCS is trying to focus its animal collections around species they work with in the wild, or that at least occur in regions they operate in. Unfortunately for us, Australia and New Zealand are not two of those regions.

~Thylo

 

Good to know. So real quick, I'll post 2 pics: One of the priority regions for WCS and one I made of every country the WCS has a program in

 

The WCS does also work in Bolivia and Ethiopia.

~Thylo

 

So looking at this, I think the Latin America exhibit is a great idea since the Bronx Zoo already has tons of African/Asian representation.

Also, I'd really like more of you to come on in so it's not just me and Thylacine

 

I'm always surprised Bronx doesn't have Orangutans. Also, only one bear species. Also think a Latin America section should be added as is the case in most large zoos. Most of the animals from the Childrens Zoo are of C/SA origin and don't really fit into that section, plus you have those New World Monkey enclosures just randomly popping up near there. If Jaguars and either an Orinoco Crocodile or a Giant Otter are added, it could be a major hit.

 

So... does Bronx (or any of the WCS zoos for that matter) have a master plan to begin with? In terms of adding anything *new*. Bronx' last major exhibit was Madagascar in 2009, (I guess you could count dholes but that was a retrofit of Tundra the polar bear's old habitat), Central Park's was the snow leopard exhibit, NY Aquarium opened up Ocean Wonders: Sharks recently, Queens, IDEK, and Prospect Park replaced their kangaroo walkabout with a nature play area (oooh, exciting. ). Am I missing anything developmentwise?

 

Where would the zoo put orangutans? Or additional bear species? I suppose Sloth could theoretically be added to the monorail but that's about it. Polar Bears have been phased-out and the WCS also keeps Andean Bear at Queens Zoo, which focuses entirely on New World fauna. The Children's Zoo was designed to focus on New World fauna as well, so I'm not sure how those animals don't fit there?

Regardless, it has been reported here in the past that the zoo has wanted to build a Latin America exhibit, although there's no sign of that actually happening anytime soon if ever.

~Thylo

 

Well... As you said, the aquarium just opened a new massive multi-million dollar exhibit (only a few years ago). Not to mention they've been having to rebuild half the aquarium following Hurricane Sandy. They've just finally gotten another building reopened, after completely renovating it to feature a new marine invertebrates exhibit. There's still at least one building (the only that also features the underwater viewing for the penguins and pinnipeds) that they're busy repairing and renovation. New York has THE highest construction costs in the US, so it's not exactly as easy to have multiple projects in play as with zoos like San Diego (which also gets more public funding than Bronx does). The aquarium costs are undoubtedly insane and that has to be the focus right now.

As for Bronx, the Dhole exhibit is a complete redesign of Tundra's habitat, including filling in the pool, tearing up all the concrete, adding natural substrate, and planting live trees and shrubs. Since 2014, the zoo has also opened the new Komodo Dragon and giant tortoise habitats as well as the indoor monitor area (all a completely new build, having replaced pretty much everything that was there previously). The zoo also renovated the Children's Zoo and rethemed it to feature New World taxa (though the ASCO and some Old World herps are still there). At some point they also closed the second floor of World of Birds for renovations. Aside from that, they're been renovating existing areas here and there.

The zoos all have masterplans (or some form of one anyhow), they have to. It's an AZA requirement. What's not required is that they have to share them with the public. A former member interviewed the zoo's director some years back and he shared some of their future plans, though with the aquarium rebuild/renovation, New York's soaring construction costs, and the pandemic, I doubt much of any of it will be happening any time soon, if ever tragically. But yes, the zoo has plans, unfortunately being located in New York just makes them less feasible than they would be if they were located in pretty much any other major city.

TBH I don't really know what Queens and Central Park are supposed to do? They've pretty much maxed out their available space and are pretty complete zoos. Queens once talked about Jaguars but I don't know where they'd put them. Prospect Park has the big lawn that was once for kangaroos/wallabies and I sorely wish they'd do something with it. Only part of it was converted to a kid's space, the rest is just empty. There's also the small hill near the entrance they once planned for Amur Leopards but it seems those plans have been squashed as well. They did open a new Pallas's Cat habitat last year which is nice but that's about it.

~Thylo

 

I'm not actually sure where they'd fit to be honest, I just find it strange that there aren't any there. Perhaps JungleWorld or near the Asia Monorail section could used to build an enclosure for the orangutans?
And I was not talking about the intention of the section, just that generally when a facility has an exhibit with the word Children's in the title, I always assume it will be a petting zoo-type section filled with domesticated animals and perhaps small wild animals used for demonstrations like the cavies and parakeets. I suppose some of the animals like the squirrel monkey have the cuteness factor to fit a childrens section, but some like giant anteater and porcupine not so much.

 

San Diego used to have pangolin in their children's zoo Bronx has a petting zoo at the end of theirs as well but I've always it a little silly to think a kids themed area can't have anything "exciting" in it because it's targeted towards kids. I believe it's OKC that has mud snake and house snake in theirs and San Antonio used to keep giant salamander.

~Thylo

 

Id be interested to know what plans exactly?

 

It's been some time since I read the interview (not quite sure where it is nowadays) but from memory it included the addition of a non-ape primate species to the monorail, addition of Pygmy Hippos, a Latin America exhibit in the portion of the zoo formerly occupied by Rare Animal Range (above the Birds of Prey aviaries), a reopening of World of Darkness, and a reopening of the original Monkey House. There have also been plans for their nature playground near African Plains to be replaced by an African themed encounters area with some new habitats (iirc hornbills, mole-rats, and dik-dik were named) and the desire to build a newer, more modern reptile house. I have no idea if or when any of these will come to fruition.

~Thylo

 

A re-opening of World Of Darkness would be incredible, it was one of my favorite exhibits as a kid and I was sorely disappointed to see it go.

 

I wish I remembered it more, I was too young to truly remember it when I'd been inside. Unfortunately I doubt this is a priority given the costs associated with running a nocturnal house. Who knows of well ever see this come to fruition but at least the building is still standing and appears to be maintained.

~Thylo

 

Does the World of Darkness Building re-opening inherently need to be a Nocturnal house? Or could the zoo reutilize the building as some other sort of small animal habitats? If a Nocturnal house is unreasonable, then at least having the building open would be a good thing.

 

I don't see why it shouldn't be reopened as a nocturnal house again.

 

I feel like the Bronx could do so much if they weren't located in a city as grossly expensive as NYC

 

The World of Darkness has been used in recent years as a special Halloween walk through experience, so at least the building is not going completely to waste. Would be nice if they brought it back for its original intended purpose, though.