When it closed in 2009, yes that was the plan. The recovery took a while and then the aquarium was devastated so much of the WCS’s facilities investment was deferred or rearranged. So I don’t know much about the future of the building now, but it is in good enough shape to be used every year for a variety of halloween activities. I’d imagine any investment in the building would require a lot of new infrastructure (new energy efficient lighting & expansions to the habitats) and therefore money. Also I don’t think its that high a priority given that the zoo still holds a fairly large collection of nocturnal animals between Jungleworld, Madagascar, and the Mouse House. Its not like the zoo is fully lacking in this category as it stands. A Zoochat thread from 2009 had this species list: Rodriguez Flying Fox Long-Tongued Bat Short-tailed Bat Jamaican fruit bat Lesser speared Nosed Bat Fat tailed lemurs Lesser mouse Lemurs Moholi Bushbaby Slow lori Lesser Slow Loris Grey legged Night monkeys Leopard Cats Sand Cat Small spotted genet Stripped skunk Cloud Rat Spiny Mouse Striped Mouse Rock cavies naked Mole Rat Hoffman's Sloth Brush-tailed pordupine Bay Duiker Broad snouted caimen Corn island Boa Sand boa Marine Toads Scorpions Overall many of those species are still kept at the zoo or its sister facilities. Something no one ever talks about is that since 2009 despite its closure, the zoos collection has actually expanded significantly especially when looking at birds. Which is not something one can say about many other zoos.
The picture of the gibbons with the tapir is about as cool as they come. And the picture of the Grevy's Zebras in the fall foliage, as unnatural as it could be considered, is still beautiful beyond belief.
So while I walk my dogs in the morning, I talk with them about what I'd do if all of a sudden I had a billion dollars. One would be to call Jimmy Breheny and say: "Let's have a meeting. You bring your wish list and I'll bring mine." Here's mine: 1. A Latin American complex in the northwest area, including a temperate part featuring pumas and guanacos and condors and a tropical part featuring jaguars and tapirs and so forth. 2. Replace the World of Darkness, despite its architectural value, with a Small Mammal palace, not just a house, five parts on three levels: fossorial animals like mole rats on the lower level and a bat cave; terrestrial animals on the main level, half diurnal, half nocturnal; and arboreal animals on the top level, half diurnal, half nocturnal. The nocturnal section would be centered around a huge bat exhibit, running through all three levels. All the Mouse House denizens would move to this new building. 3. Replacing the Mouse House and much of the rest of that area with exhibits for hippos and pygmy hippos and chimps and pygmy chimps (I know, the term is disfavored and outdated but the symmetry with pygmy hippos is attractive). 4. Remodeling the monkey house for endangered small primates: monkeys; marmosets; tamarins; and prosimians. 5. Turn the Wild Asia parking lot into a sunken garage. On top of the garage, use the south end for orangs and the rest for Asian Elephants. 6. Turn the Southern Blvd. parking lot into a sunken garage. Use the top for African Elephants. 7. Either where the Butterfly Court is now or as a wrap around the current Reptile House build a state of the art facility for aquatic and semi-aquatic herps (amphibians, turtles and crocodilians) and renovate the aquatic exhibits in the current reptile house for terrestrial species, esp. lizards. 8. Find a spot for an exhibit of Antarctic Penguins, like the Empire of the Penguin at Sea World Orlando. 9. Find a spot for Polar Bears, along the lines of the Exhibit at the Columbus Zoo. 10. Rebuild the pheasant cages. 11. Build replacement offices somewhere else and resurrect Bill Conway's idea of turning the old Bird House on Astor Court into an insectarium. Now I just need that billion . . . .
Better solution than calling bonobos 'pygmy chimpanzees'. Pygmy hippos are henceforth to be known as 'hippobos'.
@Gomphothere: Although @reduakari will be right about the money, I like your future plan of the Bronx Zoo - also because it is very similar to the mine. And it would fit in most parts also zoogeographical-wise (a new word, but you guys know what I mean)
I figure a billion earns between $50 million and $100 million per year. So if I spend about $150 million per year, more than which I doubt could get spent even if it were wanted, I could effectively spend about $2 billion.
Given the granite beneath most of the zoo I think a couple of underground parking garages ought to eat it all up. But they'd get a great pile of rock to show for it.
As expensive as my parking garage idea would be, digging into the ground would be even more insane. I'd like to make the winter viewing of the gorillas to be more expansive like Cincinnati. My biggest goal (besides elephants) would be to redo Africa to have more flexible back housing and more interesting viewing in terms of exhibit space.
Well compared to Tiger Mountain, Lion Island is getting really long in the tooth and I assume the back area could use some work Also, I'd like to see the zoo have more info panels about zoo history. - Khartoum, the elephant that almost got to Jumbo - Gunda the enraged poet - The revolutionary Lion Island - etc and etc
Any info on these two? An elephant along the size of Jumbo is definitely something the zoo should talk about, and what's this about a poet?
A quick Google search led me to the follow: Khartoum, an African Bush elephant at Bronx Zoo Gunda, an Asian elephant at Bronx Zoo ~Thylo
Was it revolutionary? A lovely use of already standard Hagenbeck principles. Bronx Zoo was late to the game on applying Hagenbeck's ideas
I mean but the idea was not common at all in the United States, African Plains is often dubbed first of its kind in the nation by news sources and WCS. As well it refined upon those principles, so well so that the exhibits for hoofstock and lions still hold up pretty well, nearly 8 decades later. Yes the lion exhibit can be improved, but its in no way a bad exhibit. The Bronx Zoo definitely lagged behind a small number of European zoos in dismantling the old way of exhibition, yet once African plains opened it marked a turning point. Their exhibits become the basis for zoos across the nation, although many zoos continued to build and exhibit species in cramped-taxonomic houses for decades.
It was the first use In America of the predator/prey panorama idea developed by Hagenbeck, and to their credit they did not rely on artificial rockwork to create the illusion (although a large amount of Bronx schist was removed to create the hidden moats)
