A friend who is a keeper at the LA zoo told me that Disney bought the San Diego Zoo. Aside from many reasons this may sound untrue, which I would tend to agree with. . . Is there any substantive reason to think it may be so? Wespen01
No. The San Diego Zoo is a public asset owned by the taxpayers of San Diego. They would need some kind of legal referendum to make that happen and it seems impossible that the city would sell off a prized asset. Disney owns a zoo in Florida with their Animal Kingdom park. They have pretty much stopped adding live animal exhibits to that park (other than re-arranging what already exists like adding zebras to the end of the safari ride). There is absolutely no indication that they want another zoo on the west coast.
Other than the fact that they are constructing another Animal Kingdom park in Shanghai which will have live animal displays But no, this deal has not taken place, nor is it in the works. San Diego Zoo/Safari park will remain entities of San Diego and Escondido
It sounds to me like a sarcastic statement that you took literally. Perhaps they were referring to the recent increase in non-animal attractions (climbing wall, 3D theatre, etc) and the LA keeper was joking - look at them, they're becoming like Disneyland.
Actually, if Disney were running things I'm guessing it would actually be a lot less tacky than all the crap that has littered the two SDG parks in recent years. At least Disney's commercialism is executed with class.
Are they building another Animal Kingdom? I had not heard that. All that I have heard about Shanghai is that they are building a Disneyland. It will be interesting to see if the Animal Kingdom happens too. From what they are doing with Florida one would think that the zoo aspect of Animal Kingdom has basically been halted with what exists. The theme park aspect has taken over future developments with Avatar-land being the new focus, at least from public statements and news from reliable Disney news websites.
Disney bought San Diego It doesn't seem many years ago that, whenever a rare or difficult species was mentioned, someone would say 'San Diego breed lots of them' or 'there's a nice group of those at San Diego' & it seemed like some sort of zoological Eldorado. I have an idea what went wrong, but what do people think? I'm on shaky ground here, never having been to the USA.
I think just part of the overall trend (in AZA at least) that to maintain viable numbers of any given species, you have to have that species in several zoos. This means individual zoos generally cannot have unique species not seen elsewhere and therefore cannot have a large variety. That being said, San Diego (both parks) still has a wider variety of animals than you will see anywhere on the continent.
I always was under the impression that San Diego was the mecca for almost any species. That is too bad there aren't as many hoofstock varieties as there used to be. Aside from elephants that's what I like to see in zoos.
They have not announced anything about a Shanghai Animal Kingdom The zoo aspect is not halted, although Avatarland land will likely be the focus in the near future. They did just add a zebra herd to the Safari ride replacing a non-animal segment of the ride. I hope there is more of a focus of the animals after Avatar. Disney always wanted mythical animals (aka dragons and unicorns) but this is going to replace that. I hope the next expansion will be an Australia
True Disney itself hasn't because it has yet to complete the regulatory approval process. But the government of Shanghai has. Animal Kingdom and EPCOT mooted for Shanghai - Park World Online - theme park, amusement park and leisure industry news
It also says possibly. Everything is always possible. They say a 5th park in WDW is possible but it will never happen Perhaps Disney would like to compete with the Shanghai Zoo perhaps not. I tend to doubt they would go the Epcot route as well. But I would like to see it I love the Animal Kingdom
This is what I found out from a friend and former co-worker that currently works at the San Diego Zoo It turns out that all those ''Disneyland'' type attractions are not intended for extra revenue, it turns out that the director is the former CEO of some entertainment company, and isn't really an animal person like us
That seems unlikely. Douglas Myers, the director, was once a manager for Busch Gardens in Los Angeles (which was a far cry from the current Busch Gardens in Florida and Virginia), but was never CEO. Furthermore, he has been the director of San Diego Global for almost 30 years. It seems unlikely that he all of sudden decided to go for alternative entertainment options because he isn't an animal person. Furthermore, if these attractions were meant as a driver for crowds (rather than just revenue directly), they wouldn't cost so much on top of the already expensive zoo admission.
Sorry to bump an old thread, but when I was in Disney last year, I was on a tour and my guide told me they wanted to add an Australian or South American exhibit after Avatarland or whatever it's called.
