The book that I cowrote, titled America’s Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums, contains reviews and photos of 80 zoos and 20 aquariums. There are 45 out of the 80 zoos that currently display gorillas. The lists that I've done so far: 71 out of the 80 zoos have giraffes 61 out of the 80 zoos have rhinos 54 out of the 80 zoos have elephants 48 out of the 80 zoos have penguins (plus 16 out of 20 aquariums) 45 out of the 80 zoos have gorillas 35 out of the 80 zoos have pinnipeds (plus 12 out of 20 aquariums) 22 out of the 80 zoos have common hippos (plus 12 have pygmy hippos) New gorilla exhibits that have been built in the past dozen years include only Como Park and Houston, which is a bit surprising. However, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Milwaukee County and Omaha have all made significant renovations to existing exhibits in recent years. The 45 zoos (in the book) that have gorillas: ABQ BioPark Atlanta Audubon Bronx Brookfield Buffalo Busch Gardens Cheyenne Mountain Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Como Park Dallas Denver Detroit Disney’s Animal Kingdom Fort Worth Gladys Porter Houston Jacksonville Kansas City Knoxville Lincoln Park Little Rock Los Angeles Louisville Memphis Miami Milwaukee County North Carolina Oklahoma City Omaha Philadelphia Pittsburgh Riverbanks Saint Louis San Diego San Diego Zoo Safari Park San Francisco Santa Barbara Sedgwick County Smithsonian’s National Zoo Toledo Utah’s Hogle Woodland Park My 12 favourite gorilla exhibits in American zoos (alphabetical ranking): Atlanta Bronx Busch Gardens Dallas Disney’s Animal Kingdom Houston Lincoln Park Riverbanks Saint Louis San Diego Sedgwick County Woodland Park One main difference between American and European zoos is that the ‘Euros’ like to provide a lot of mixed-species habitats in their zoos. On my 2019 road trip through Europe, I saw gorillas in together with meerkats, diana monkeys, black-crested mangabeys, red-capped mangabeys and various types of colobus monkeys at several zoos. The 5 worst gorilla exhibits in American zoos (alphabetical ranking): ABQ BioPark Brookfield – entirely indoors on a mock-rock monstrosity Buffalo – an all-indoor cave setting Cleveland Milwaukee County
Well, I think that Milwaukee County has easily the best exhibit of the '5 worst', but it's still forgettable. Going down the list of 45 zoos with gorillas, Milwaukee really does have arguably the 5th worst gorilla exhibit in an American zoo. There's probably 40 better gorilla exhibits on the list.
It would be great to see San Antonio Zoo acquire some great apes in the future. As of right now, there aren't any gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees or bonobos. Also, while compiling these lists I noticed that San Antonio also doesn't have any pinnipeds or penguins, two very popular animal types in major zoos.
Hopefully the gorillas will be in place by 2025 or so, as part of the first phase of the master plan. I don’t know if penguins are in the plans. I can imagine the zoo does nor prioritize them along with pinnipeds given the proximity to Seaworld. Also given that most of the new management to the zoo is ex-seaworld I imagine that’ll make the zoo even more not want to compete with seaworld. Back to gorillas though the zoo earlier this year hold a contest to design a new entrance and gorilla habitat (separate projects in different parts of the zoo). The picture below is one of the ideas.
Here are the 35 zoos (in the book) that do not have gorillas: Akron Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Binder Park Birmingham Caldwell Cameron Park Central Park El Paso Fort Wayne Children's Fresno Chaffee Great Plains Henry Vilas Honolulu Indianapolis John Ball Living Desert Maryland Minnesota Montgomery Nashville Oakland Oregon Phoenix Point Defiance Reid Park Roger Williams Park Rosamond Gifford Sacramento San Antonio Tampa Tanganyika Wildlife Park Topeka Tulsa Virginia Wildlife World Zoo
Speaking of gorillas in America, does anyone have the list of Willie b’s offspring? And their mothers? I couldn’t find the master list anywhere. Thanks.
Oh I forgot to mention that part This was my brain working at 2am. I had heard the zoo was committed to gorillas still although other groups definitely proposed plans for the species. They did not go with this specific option though. That’ll likely be announced publicly when they reach 80-90% of there capital campaign goal with private fundraising. Last I heard that should be mid 2022, but given the economy who knows.
KUDZOO - Choomba's daughter OLYMPIA - Mia Moja's daughter KIDOGO aka Willie B Jr. - Machi's son SUKARI - Choomba's daughter Stillbirth - Kuchi's daughter LULU - Kuchi's daughter
Zoo Tampa/Lowry Park Zoo had them on the master plan at one time, the plan was for a bachelor troop. I don't know if they are still on the plans for the renovated space where Primate World is or an addition to Safari Africa. They were previously planned for Africa, but that was before Africa was actually built.
Lowry is still very much interested in gorillas with the current planned location being towards the front of Africa and using the tunnel as part of public viewing
Would they be taking the space where the tortoises are (where the warthogs were)? I hope so, that area is kind of weird. It made sense with warthogs, less with the different tortoises.
thank you. I still remember Willie b as a child and he had only a tv for entertainment and no other gorillas.
