How bad Natural Bridge Zoo really is?

Thank you for uploading these photos, and I think I can judge it myself from these photos.

First of all, it's 2021 and they STILL make Asha the African Elephant gave a ride in that summer heat? Like, how the hell is that elephant not gone already? That elephant really needs to be confiscated and transferred to an adequate facility, either a credible zoo or an elephant sanctuary. I felt bad for Asha who had to deal with loneliness and probably sore back from the rides she had to gave.

That Asian Black Bear cage is unacceptable. Way too small, concrete floor, basically no enrichment other than some big rock and a tub of water.

I don't think I've ever saw such a bare looking Giraffe exhibit. Like, very little vegetation, looks like most of the enclosure is covered in gravel rather than natural substrate. It's quite depressing, to say the least.

Barriers seems to be non-existant in that zoo considering you can basically reach out and pet almost all of the animals there and you managed to take a photo of a couple trying to pet a CASSOWARY. Like I know people can be dumb, but the very least the zoo can do is to implant barriers to prevent this from happening.

Most of the ungulate paddocks seems very bare with nothing but a stable and bunch of grasses.

The circular monkey cages looked way too small and doesn't seem to have a lot of space.

The tiger enclosures looks better in quality, albeit no pool and needs larger space.

And the DeBrazza Monkey enclosure seems to be the best in terms of quality. Which is kinda sad to say the least.

The rest of the cages are very much roadside zoo-like quality. Usually very small and uninteresting.

So yeah, I guess I'm not surprised when people say the zoo is bad.

Anything I missed? Are the tiger cubs photo ops still running too?

 

It was not as bad as I was expecting, at least. For most of their species, I have seen worst exhibits in person, some even in the same state.

Asha obviously has the worst of it there. No one was interested in riding her, so I don't know how much money they're making off of making her stand there most of the day, but it can't be much. She doesn't even get to wander around the little paddock while waiting, she has to stand at the platform.

The rock/gravel for giraffes is fairly typical for roadside places, since it's easier to clean up. It isn't good for their hooves or legs. These giraffes also didn't have any shade, high up hay bags, etc. None of the animals have shade other than their indoor areas.

Oh they have plenty of barriers! Not all of them are great, like the cassowary, but there is ugly fencing everywhere thanks to all of their previous USDA citations involving fencing.

The monkey cages are the typical corn cribs that are ubiquitous in in roadside USA.

The tiger ones look new, and are much better than I was expecting. They don't have good shade or water, but they have climbing structures and aren't in corn cribs. There's the one for their orange tiger, seen in most of the photos, and then the white tiger is next to it and harder to see. It shares a fence wall with the orange tiger and is partially obscured by trees.

No cub petting, unless they don't advertise it.

 

Just got around to looking at the map in the brochure. A few differences:
- It has japanese macaques in the lynx/debrazza's exhibit
- serval in the lynx exhibit
- "bears", plural
- scarlet ibis in with the sacred ibis
- crowned cranes next to the camels (where llamas currently are)
- "monkey" in the second gibbon exhibit, looks like a capuchin
- fallow deer yard is split with bongo

There's also a thing about getting your photo with ambassadors, wish I had asked about that!