In time, I think it will. Ostrava's new developments show a good line in thoughtful design, both visually and in terms of animal husbandry, and also have the usual Czech touch of zoo nerd pleasing species. There's a still a way to go, but the time's a-coming. It's certainly catching (or has already caught) Dvur and will closing in on Zlin before long (although Zlin, of course, has plans of its own!).
Sounds very much like this campaign has reared it's head once again and shown it's true colours..... imagine you are glad you didn't sign now!
Having visited the place today, here seems a good place to jot down a note or two: I enjoyed Madrid rather more than you did, but it's certainly not winning any awards - overall it is a firm "hmm it's okay I suppose" from me. Seeing the Iberian Lynx a definite highlight. You weren't kidding about the baboons more of them on that rock than fleas on a stray dog!
Out of interest: how many beluga exhibits had you seen at this point? (I'm pretty sure none after this) And I think you have done so elsewhere but could you reprise your world aquarium rankings for us? The top ones anyway.
Hmm. Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld San Diego, Port of Nagoya Aquarium. I can’t remember now if I saw them at Moskvarium. I know they have them behind the scenes at Moscow Zoo, but to my regret I didn’t attempt to make any arrangements. I’ve never really bedded it down. There’s a top tier that includes Valencia (which I gave my top ranking to, and that stands), Lisbon and Osaka. Copenhagen, Atlanta, Singapore and Moscow would make up the second tier, with my dear-departed pre-Merlin Sydney Aquarium perhaps just at the edge of that group. I adored Sumida, as you know, but it’s not really comparable due to the size difference.
Full thoughts anon, but a note - this exhibit is still there as of today or possibly has been reinstated? Oh, and I saw the lynx at the zoo
As if you need another reason to regret not visiting Faunia, my visit last week revealed there is a Takashi Amano exhibit there, too Whilst I think on, a few more thoughts on Zoo Lisbon and the Oceanario; first things first, I really liked both collections! As regards the latter, it was definitely refreshing to see a well-done aquarium which escaped the identikit pitfalls of the SeaLife chain and which displayed a wide variety of unusual and more commonplace species in suitable environs. I'd be hard pushed to decide whether this is the best aquarium I have visited or Valencia Oceanografic (visited later in my trip) as the two collections rather complement one another in terms of excelling where the other falls short As for the zoo, it quite possibly benefited from being seen a day after I visited Zoo Madrid which (as noted previously) I enjoyed more than you, but which wasn't exactly amazing there was a lot of building work underway, especially in the various exhibits for larger hoofstock, so I probably didn't see Zoo Lisbon at its best, but even so it beat Madrid hands-down. The exhibit complex for Iberian Lynx was excellent - as it is currently not represented in the gallery, I have taken copious photographs for illustrative purposes and may post a thread on the subject anon.
Some thoughts on the Valencia collections now: I did things the other way round, visiting the Bioparc first and Oceanografic second, but I don't think either collection suffered through being done in the same day - partially because I deliberately timed my visit for a Saturday, when the latter collection is open until 8pm rather than 6pm and hence I was able to afford a little more time there, partially because the Bioparc really didn't take all that long and partially because I had carefully planned my day to allow for time at both collections *and* the long, long walk between them. This is one aspect which really, REALLY benefited from my visiting Oceanografic second, and on a day where it was possible to remain beyond sunset - when we left the Arctic Dome for the final time (having finished the collection with an hour or so to spare, and hence decided to sit watching the belugas for a while before setting off for our train), every single conceivable bit of freshwater on the site was teeming with calling - and copulating - Iberian Green Frogs, and the skies were filled with various bat species feeding on the evening insect population which was hovering over the water As noted above, I'm hard pushed to pick between them - so they both get the title for me though I suspect that given the fact the Lisbon exhibit you cite has *not* been destroyed your opinion may well be reversed from that of the time. Yep, I reckon that is more or less accurate - it took us about 2.5 hours, but this includes the congestion throughout the great ape complex caused by the rush of visitors wanting to see the newborn twin chimpanzees This policy seems to no longer be active, with the exhibit labelled as being open throughout the day. The chimpanzee exhibit was indeed not great, but I actually rather liked the complex of exhibits for gorillas. Overall, given my general dislike for overly-themed exhibits and collections, I enjoyed the Bioparc rather a lot more than I expected certainly I enjoyed it more than I did Hannover, which is the collection I often see it being compared to. Not in a hurry to return, mind you.
For the sake of comparison and completion (and including two collections CGSwans omitted)...... Lisbon Zoo: 4 hours Lisbon Oceanarium: 3 hours Madrid Zoo: 5 hours Faunia: 5 hours Oceanografic: 4 hours Bioparc Valencia: 2.5 hours Barcelona Zoo: 4 hours Barcelona Aquarium: 1.5 hours It is worth noting that it didn't take the full 5 hours to see Madrid Zoo properly - we managed it in about 4 - but we had a few revisits to sit and watch Iberian Lynx throughout the day
Just had a repeat read-through of this thread and thought I'd note that since it was posted I have now visited 12/15 of @CGSwans top European collections
Given the fact that I have visited both Ostrava and Dvur for the first time over the last few days, I would tend to argue that the former collection has not caught up to Dvur quite yet - despite the presence of a mind-blowingly good bear/langur exhibit!
At the time it was posted I'd been to all except Beauval. I've now been to all of them. And although I can't say that line-up would necessarily be exactly my choice of 15, there's very little in that set of 15 to argue with.
Well, @CGSwans , you finished posting your Top 15 European Zoos list on February 4th, 2018, after your eventful jaunt across the continent. A couple of years might not be a great deal of time for you to reassess your rankings, but we all seem to have a little time on our hands these days. Obviously Zurich's Lewa-Savanne looks to be fantastic, with something like 14 acres for giraffes, rhinos, zebras, various antelope, hyenas and some smaller animals in a gorgeous setting. However, you weren't keen on the Great Ape House and it's still there in all its glory. I wonder if the new African Savanna zone would be enough to prod Zurich a little higher? One possible major movement to your 'charts' would be Beauval in 15th place. Shortly after your visit in 2017 the exhibit complex called Land of the Lions officially opened (lions, African wild dogs, meerkats, naked mole rats), then in 2018 a 1.5-acre cheetah exhibit, a new wolf exhibit and a new brown bear enclosure all opened at the zoo. The year 2019 saw Tasmanian devils added, as well as an 800-meter long gondola/cable car ride that goes across the zoo. Finally, the Equatorial Dome opened in 2020 with more than 200 species, including the likes of manatees (a dozen of them!), pygmy hippos, giant otters, false gharials, possibly douc langurs and harpy eagles, etc. I'd estimate that all of the new additions to Beauval would likely add on at least an hour or two to an average zoo visit. This is obviously all hypothetical, but I wonder if Beauval would surge up to 6th or 7th on your list if you could visit them all again next month? 1- Chester 2- Burgers 3- Zurich 4- Berlin 5- Prague 6- Munich 7- Berlin Tierpark 8- Rotterdam 9- Nuremberg 10- Frankfurt 11- Cologne 12- Vienna 13- Plzen 14- Leipzig 15- Beauval
It's quite possible that Beauval would move up, though it's speculative until I've seen the new exhibits for myself. Beauval's ranking here reflects that, for all it has all the components of a 'great' zoo, the whole somehow feels less than the sum of its parts. There's something intangible missing from Beauval, and the closest I can get to labelling it is 'soul'. The one ranking that I'd perhaps reconsider is Munich, though I'd need to go again to be sure. It was a funny day, my Munich visit - I thought I was becoming sick again and so I went on a public holiday and rather rushed the visit. Elements of the zoo stick out in my memory as fantastic, but I'm no longer sure the zoo as a whole is better than some of those below it. I'm also very eager to see both Rotterdam and Leipzig in better circumstances than my respective visits. And, well, let's be honest - I want to go back to all of these places.
Certainly I suspect that a revisit might bump Prague up a few places! And of course, you need to revisit Chester so you can see that Giant Otter exhibit you missed by days.
I'm pretty confident in the placement of the first five, at least as the respective zoos were in the northern summer of 2017.
It's certainly a tight one - but I do wonder how your ranking of the place would benefit from seeing it when not sleep-deprived and enduring a pretty horrific heatwave, as was the case then.
I did the NHM in Vienna at opening time in the morning, saw just a minimal part of it (only paleontological part and the start of invertebrates) and was asked to leave because museum is closing in the afternoon, with my camera battery fully empty. I had to return other day for see the remaining zoology sections when again I have been here from opening time to closing time and battery empty, filled two 15G memory cards and still left some things for see, but fortunately very few (the gastropods, bivalves, hemipterans, mantids and cockroaches, basically). An all this despite having skipped intentionally the minerals, rocks, meteorites and planetarium sections. After leaving for second time, I've learned that this museum houses the largest on-show collection of all the natural history museums of the whole world.
