Creative uses of old enclosures.

Toledo Zoo turned their 1930s-era carnivore house into a restaurant:








Photo credits to @snowleopard, @geomorph, and @Baldur

 

Wow... Now that is super creative, you can even see the old bars of the enclosures.

I have to say I love the name too , I bet the hamburgers are nice there.

 

Old Poznan zoo seem to be particularly good at doing this as one of the photos I posted at the start of the thread that impressed me quite a lot (maybe I'm just easily impressed though) was a creative display of the "silent forest" campaign at that zoo.

By stuffed are we talking taxidermy animals?

I'll check that out @Tim May , thanks for your comment.

I agree, that is a really interesting example indeed.

Also, quite ironic too that the housing for the largest land mammal would be used for a micrarium, very creative.

 

I absolutely love this.

 

The Naturzoo Rheine has reused 2 very old and outdated exhibits in two diffrent ways. The old wolf enclosure had its fence removed. And the outline was recreated with bicks. (Yes, it was incredeble terrible)
It show now the history of animnal keeping here

The old cage for the black bears is now used as an area for picknicking, with some information of the zoos history aswell.

Even though I like this educational aspect. I hope after they are finished the replacement for the outdateds monkey house. That the bear cage area gets compleatly replaced with some kind of modern enclosre, Since the smal zoo has not that much space to expend. With this area being right in the middle of the zoo.

 

In general Is it allways a perfect reuse of older Architecture to make exhibit for similar, but smaler species. Like an exhibit for bigger monkeys/apes, being reused for other aboreal species likes tamarines or porupines.

 

I think these are incredible developments and of course really highlight the way that zoos have changed over time in terms of husbandry.

I particularly like the old bear enclosure picnic area

 

Yes

 

I was intrigued by the examples from the Naturzoo Rheine mentioned by @GiratinaIsGod so I had a look in the gallery and found these:




Could any German speakers translate what the sign reads?


Photo credit to @Maguari.

 

Interesting feature, there are similar educational taxidermy displays at a couple of zoos like Zacango zoo in Mexico and Sorocaba zoo here in Brazil.

So far I haven't been able to find any pictures of this display at the Old Poznan zoo though.

 

A conversion of an old carnivore house and its cages into a restaurant or eating area has been done at Little Rock Zoo in the USA:


A historic enclosure at Melbourne zoo in Australia has been left standing with a leopard art installation:


Some more views from inside the old carnivore enclosures at Vienna zoo in Austria that I mentioned earlier in this thread:




Photocredits to @snowleopard,@Baldur and @Maguari.

 

The old enclosure of Martha the last passenger pigeon and the memorial / museum (also dedicated to the Carolina parakeet) at Cincinnati zoo are quite interesting too.

Martha's cage:

The memorial / museum:

Exhibits in the memorial / museum:





Photo credit to @Moebelle.

 

Yeah, I've been here, I quite enjoyed looking at all the artifacts and reading a lot of the signposts.

 

Yes, an interesting one for sure, very significant site in terms of holocene extinctions.

 

If it is architecturally significant, the structure should be kept and the interior potentially overhauled so that it can work to properly house a species. If it is not architecturally significant, I believe the best course of action is to demolish and rebuild, as many zoos have done.

 

Thanks for your comment !

I agree with your first point but I think your second point is a little severe. I think buildings and enclosures can also serve for other purposes such as those mentioned in this thread (educational & recreational areas etc).

 

And as a lover of Historic landmarks and such, and its not being used anymore, then just turn it into a Museum. I feel like with anything, Abandoned farms, Trainyards, and Castles, I feel like it could easily be turned into a museum of sorts, as I love to look at artifacts and read about historical acts that not a lot of people talk about, but interest me. Like a hotel opening and such.

 

That is a very good point actually.

Many zoos have histories going back to the mid or early 20th century and many others back to even the late or mid 19th century and I do think there should be a space allocated to showcase this history that is often just gathering dust or being eaten by beetles in a spare room.

An available bit of space if it is a building could be used to display the history of the site whether it is photographs, posters, education signs, artifacts etc.

 

My german isn't completely on-point but here a rough translation with some artistic freedom to make it more readable:

At this spot...
.. lived black bears until their death from old age in 2004. The bear cage was created in 1977 out of the renovation of the bear-pit. With the current knowledge of how to decently keep wild animals in human care the further keeping of bears in an exhibit of this type can no longer be justified.

In the future a new species of bear will find it's home in Naturzoo once again. As the location for a new exhibit is the meadow behind the penguins reserved. Such a new building does cost of-course a lot of money. However with united (bear-)powers a new bear-exhibit as the next big project will become reality.



When I visited them a few years ago, they had already built this new bear complex housing two pairs of sloth bears in two exhibits.

Edit: I changed bear-grotto to bear pit as that is more fitting actually to what it was.

 

The main reason Why I like such zoos like Cincinnati, many of their buildings were used in the 1930s and are of course, revamped now, but are the basic same design and shape as the Original. And I really like old stuff, old heirlooms, old holiday decorations, and old books. So I feel like I would be the kind of guy who would really like to see more museum displays in zoos as small sub-attractions separate from the animals.