PossumRoach's Ranking of Zoo visits by PossumRoach

A couple days ago, I got inspired by aardvark250's thread Aardvark250 ranking his zoo visited, where he ranks the zoos he has visited in his life so far. I decided to make this thread and try this ranking activity myself. In the 22 years that I have existed in this mortal realm, I have visited 34 zoos in 6 countries. While I admit that I could have played my cards more wisely and visited more places, I am glad that I was able to visit the places I did, sharing my experiences and my opinions of them.

Of course, enclosure quality and species diversity matter when reviewing a zoo. However, on this list, the ranking could be affected by other factors, which may not make sense for some people. In fact, I have ranked these zoos in a way that would make some of you gasp in shock and mutter to yourselves, "the audacity of this madman!!". But then again, these are my opinions. Opinions, just like humans, are unique and flawed. I hope that you enjoy this thread.

Before I start ranking, I will start by listing the zoos I have visited:

Turkey (7)
Ataturk Forest Farm Zoo
Darica/Faruk Yalcin Zoo
Izmir Wildlife Park
Bursa Zoo
Gaziantep Zoo
Istanbul aquarium
Eskisehir Zoo
Aqua Vega (some place at a shopping mall.)

USA (14)
Bronx Zoo
Queens Zoo
Central Park Zoo
Prospect Park Zoo
New York Aquarium
Mystic Aquarium
SeaWrold Orlando
Brevard Zoo
Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo
ZooTampa of Lowry Park
Jacksonville Zoo
St Augustine Alligator Farm
Turtle Back Zoo
South Carolina Aquarium

Japan (9)
Ueno Zoo
Tama Zoo
Kobe animal Kingdom
Kobe City Oji Zoo
Suma Aquarium
Himeji Central Park
Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium
Tennoji Zoo
Nagasaki Biopark

France (1)
Menagerie du Jardin Du Plantes

Germany (2)
Cologne zoo.
Berlin Zoological park (and the aquarium)

Netherlands (1)
Artis

The review will start with the three zoos I decided not to rank for reasons such as me being too young to remember or not properly seeing a good majority of the collection. I will, however, still share some memories I had of my visits to these facilities. Afterward, I will go through the ranking list, starting from the worst to the best.

 

I am beyond excited to see what this will entail.

 

Non-rankable zoo 1. Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes

Reason why it does not get a rank: My visit only covered a small fraction of the zoo and being a clueless five-year-old I did not pay attention to many of the animals properly.

Reason why it does not get a rank: My visit only covered a small fraction of the zoo and being a clueless five-year-old I did not pay attention to many of the animals properly.

Talking about Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes and my perceptions of it is pretty tricky since most of what I know about this collection now is due to what I see on the internet rather than my zoo visit itself. Despite its problems (Having large animals in small enclosures), this zoo would be an ideal zoo for me. It has a dash of historical structures, a great hoofstock collection, nice small mammals, and felines being represented by cats other than lions and tigers. However I had never held Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes in high regard when I visited it. And this is despite being an impressionable five year old.

I visited this zoo around the age of five on a visit to France with my dad and this newly married wife (probably a reason why I tend to repress memories of that visit). The thing that makes this visit odd is that we were not even planning to visit this collection. Our initial plan was to see the Grand Gallery of Evolution but apparently the gallery was not open or was under maintenance. So my dad decided to bring us to the zoo. And at the time the Menagerie wasn't a good compensation for the fact that I was not able to see the Grand Gallery. As I said at the beginning of the post, we only visited a small fraction of the zoo and did not even see every animal the zoo had to offer. Not to mention that we just walked past some of the buildings rather than get in to look at the animals there.

What did not help was my amateur knowledge on animals. I was stupid enough to dismiss a lot of the animals I may or may not have seen because they resembled animals that I previously saw. I didn't know that Mongolian wild horses, manuls, and red-headed vultures would be any more different or "special" than ponies, persian cats, and griffons respectively. What also doesn't help is that we skipped past most of the animals to the point that I clearly remember only three animals from my visit (yak, red panda, and binturong). Thinking about this really makes me want to punch myself and revisit Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes if it is ever possible.

Since I only saw what might be a small fraction of the collection, it is not possible to give a fair review to this zoo. However, here are my two cents from the memory of my visit: the enclosures are just not interesting and if I did see the big cats and orangutans then I would be more unsatisfied with my visit. This was not the zoo that made me passionate about zoos and visiting them. And this was during my phase when my views on zoos were tarnished due to a certain place which will be discussed here one day. Otherwise, the most enjoyable thing at the zoo for me at the time were the hippopotamus statues that children including myself were crawling on.

So there you have it. My first entry on the list. I know that a five year old's experience from around 16 years ago definitely isn't really going to useful to determine if a zoo currently is good or not. Heck, I don't even know if this counts as a review, but I did enjoy having a trip through memory lane and sharing my experiences with the rest of the community.

 

Apologies for the late post. I got distracted by stuff. I decided to post my memories and opinions of the other two unrankable zoos on the same post since one of the entries is considerably brief.

Non-rankable zoo 2. SeaWorld Orlando

Reason why it does not get a rank: The trip was rushed because my brother had to drop me back to Gainesville on the day of my visit. We were not able to get through the whole park let alone all the animal enclosures. There is also the fact that right now I don’t even know if SW would count as a zoo or count as a theme park that happens to have animals.

I went to this collection around late 2018 or early 2019 after finishing my first semester of college. My brother decided to pay a visit and offered to take me out somewhere since I was trapped at home in my free time due to my inability to drive. I decided to visit SeaWorld Orlando because the rides seemed more interesting than the ones on Disney and Universal. That and I wanted to see orcas. On our visit, we went on three rides and five or six exhibits. I neglected to give the flamingos, penguins and their enclosures enough attention but I did spend a generous amount of time with the manatees, sea turtles, orcas, and the dolphins at the Dolphin Nursery.

Despite my rushed visit I did enjoy my time there-except for two things. The first was that things felt really far away from each other which I could guess why it had to be that way. The second reason was a problem that wasn’t the park’s but my brother’s. He said at least three times on how it's wrong to keep wild animals in captivity, let alone intelligent ones both before, during, and after the trip. Not to mention that he called me “mentally disabled” in order to correct a rude behavior I made. That ruined the trip for me and broke off any facade that my brother is sincerely trying to be a better brother after years of him being … himself. Putting the personal venting and family drama aside, I still enjoyed my visit and would have revisited during my stay in FL if I had the chance (which I didn’t ;_; ) to experience the park properly.


Non-rankable zoo 2. Mystic Aquarium

Reason why it does not get a rank: I was around 3 years old and I barely remember the trip.

I remember this visit being a considerably brief one which makes sense considering how Mystic is not a large facility. I remember having two memories from that visit. The first was an exhibit in which kids were climbing on some pieces of some shipwreck. After getting some images of our visit from my uncle, I was able to find out that the exhibit/area was named Noah’s flood & ancient shipwrecks. The second was me seeing the belugas. This is one of my first animal related memories and the first one of me seeing a non-domesticated animal. Which is why, despite not being my favorite cetacean, I love belugas and are thankful for them. I think I also had memories of seals but they may be sort of distorted since they are not as accurate as my other two memories.

 

Whoops. I meant to say non-rankable zoo number three for Mystic.

 

I reallly like Jardin des Plantes. Great Caprid collection, magnificent walkthrough aviary, superb Gaur, Clouded Leopards….

 

I wish I actually saw those on my visit or at least pay attention to them. I hope they are still up by the time I get the chance to visit Jardin des Plantes.

 

Before I do post this entry I just realized that I made a counting error on the OP and said that I have been to 34 total zoos with 7 of them being in Turkey. Turns out, I have been to 35 zoos with 8 of them being in Turkey. Then again I may have miscounted becaıse I don’t even know if this facility would count as a zoo or not.

Number 32.: Aqua Vega (Turkey).


When Aqua Vega was first advertised I was not interested in visiting it since I thought it would be like this other lackluster aquarium in some other shopping mall. It also did not get my attention then the collection got an expansion called “The Adrenaline World” which consisted of reptiles. But then this place got my attention after finding itself in some controversy over keeping servals along with other land animals including ferrets, Flemish giants, and the servals, which were the poster children of the contreversy. My moral compass (yes I do have one of these), along with the fact that this place was really far away from my home really deterred me from visiting. Then, as far as I remember, my mom and her friend from university decided to meet each other and introduce their children to each other at this place. This place was chosen because the said friend’s late husband was a veterinary professor who taught the vets who worked at this place. I had mixed feelings because at one time I was giving some sort of support to this place by visiting it but on the other hand I was having a good time as I talked with the head vet who, simply put, knew some of the things I knew (there aren’t too many exotic animal people in Turkey, or at least not to my knowledge). Not to mention there are no zoos in Ankara and I just wanted to see animals. Are these mixed feelings how people who intentionally visit questionable places for species hunting or to add another zoo to their visit tally feel?

I did revisit this facility late August last year, mainly to meet the vet. There were some changes such as new animals and animals that were gone. My biggest beef was the aquarium and reptile signs which were pretty outdated. The tank either didn’t house the signed animal, or had an unsigned animal. Another difference was that the venomous animals were moved and the king cobra had a new enclosure that was better than the small glass tank it had. There was also the disappearance of my favorite animal from my previous visit: the striped skunks. Turns out the owner of the mall found the nocturnal animals sleeping very boring for the visitors. The vet did not want to alter their sleeping pattern so the little stinkers were put in the quarantine area with thirty-something ferrets which were suspected of having canine distemper (thankfully they were fine.)

From the moment I said “shopping mall” I am sure that most of you have already made up your mind without me giving any detail of this place. That is very reasonable to do so.The collection of animals (particularly the aquarium and the reptiles) is considerably basic. Although there were signs for curly tail lizards I have no memory of seeing them. Another group of animals that made this collection interesting were the venomous snakes which I only remember the king cobra, black mamba, and a black cobra. The enclosures range from “works but not great” to what most of us could refer to as an atrocity. The worst offenders were the cat enclosures. The entire perimeter of the serval enclosure was glass and the caracals only had one wall. There was no hiding box so the poor critters had to sleep in the open. I only have one proper enclosure image for the entire facility let alone the cats.

Usually when judging an exhibit one needs multiple images from different distances and angles. Not for this one though. This is just bad.

One question that popped in my mind in both visits to this place is why did the owner of Aqua Vega (who also owns the mall hosting it) choose to make a menagerie on the underground parking lot level of his mall instead of opening an actual park. He would have done a decency to his animals and the people of Ankara, a city where almost every parcel of land gets grabbed and gets converted into just another apartment complex or a shopping mall. My mom once told me about a coworker who visited there with their kids. The coworker said that there is no other place in Ankara where parents could show animals to their kids, which is why most people seem to ignore the controversy or the ethics of this place.

So yea, this is the worst zoo I have ever been to. Despite that it does not make me as furious as the next entry.

 

Number 31.: Ataturk Forest Farm Zoo (Turkey).

I have ranted about this zoo at least once on this website and those that are (un)fortunate enough to share the same space with me on Discord have heard me bring it up more often. While this entry is not on the last place of my list, it is an entry that infuriates me. Sure it is not in a mall with the intent of having visitors to visit said mall, which is one reason why the Ataturk Forest Farm zoo isn’t in the last place, but I would expect more from a municipality owned zoo.

The Ataturk Forest Farm was a farm built by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to be a leader in Turkish agriculture. Other than the farm, which is still working to this day, the farm area had other attractions such as restaurants and a swimming pool (I don’t know how many of these facilities are still open). In 1933, the zoo was built to contain pest animals which were a threat to agriculture and the general public. Ater the animals got the public’s attention, Ataturk later gave orders to build a modern facility at the time. The zoo was opened to visitors on October 29 1940. Before it was closed in 2013, the AFFZ was an outdated city zoo with a basic collection and many unacceptable enclosures for a facility funded with taxpayers’ money. What made this collection odd for some people is that this zoo exhibited dogs and cats. I myself don’t oppose keeping domestic dogs and cats in a zoo but even they were not exempt from pathetic enclosures. If this zoo was still open today with the same conditions I would advise against visiting it regardless of your intentions.

I don’t have any proper images of the zoo myself which is why I will be posting third party footage to demonstrate how terrible this place could get. Credits go to their respective owners.





I first visited this zoo on a trip during pre-k. I saw many animals for the first time in my life including giraffes, zebras, and hippopotamus in crummy enclosures that should have stayed in the 1970s. Of the animals I saw, the most heart wrenching animal was Şirin (pronounced as She-rin), the first elephant I ever saw. The weather was cold which is why Şirin was kept indoors in a dark concrete stable with one of her back feet getting shackled. Due to safety reasons we obviously couldn’t get brought near the elephants and only saw her back side. This scene, along with the rest of the zoo, wrecked my perception of zoos as a kid. For the longest time I had a negative reception until I was in third grade.

I revisited this zoo a few more times. Once was after my perception of zoos was changed, yet I still got underwhelmed from my visit. It was a school trip during third grade and I remember a crossed chimpanzee spitting on one of my classmates along with a few other classmates throwing loquats at the spider monkey. I also remember seeing the wild boars in a tiny pig pen which I did mention in a poem I wrote for an English assignment. I later had a third visit with a family friend and the most I remember was feeding a crested porcupine, which was confined to a small ugly cell, cheese flavored cracker sticks. The last visit wasn’t as memorable other than the fact that my mom bought me there because she noticed me moping and I feel guilty for visiting it.

In the end after years of neglect Erdoğan’s homeboy and then Ankara Metropolitan Municipality’s mayor, İbrahim Melik Gökçek shut down the zoo and promised the new zoo. However, as far as I know the zoo wasn’t shut down because of the horrid conditions the animals had to face. The biggest priorities of Gökçek was to privatize parts of the Ataturk Forest Farm to build a theme park and Erdoğan’s palace. This was controversial for multiple reasons including the fact that the AFF was a protected area and that Ankara had bigger problems than trying to attract tourists. In the end these cautions were steamrolled over these warnings and criticisms and what’s done was done. The zoo was closed and the theme park and the palace was built... Only for the theme park's rides to be faulty and the theme park shutting down and the props there being left to rot. As a resident of Ankara this felt considerably embarrassing for me.

If having your childhood city zoo neglected for years only for it to be demolished for a couple of petty projects is not infuriating then I don’t know what is. If you or your children’s childhood zoo is getting rid of a charismatic species or getting rid of multiple animals in order to expand the enclosure of one species feel free to feel miffed. However, just be thankful that the entire zoo is not destroyed over petty projects such as a pallace your shady elected official feels like he is entitled to.

 

Befor I start, I would like to apologize for the lack of original footage for this entry and the Ataturk Forest Farm Zoo. I do wish that I had my own footage of the zoo but I am sure that the images are deep burried somewhere in my mom's house. Even if I can find them, chances are, they have faces of my family and family friends rather than the exhibits and the conditions of the animals.

Number 30.: Gaziantep Zoo (Turkey).

Now that I have reviewed the zoo that gives me the strongest negative feelings, the next few zoos on this list won’t have much strong feelings. And that is the best way I can describe Gaziantep zoo. However my lack of chimping out and going on a tangent does not mean that the zoo's flaws are tollerable.

The Gaziantep Zoo is a city owned zoo located within a big park/forested area at the edge of the town, so accessing it is not as easy as accessing a city zoo. The collection could be considered basic with nothing too impressive. It has buildings such as a monkey house, a reptile house, a bird house, an aquarium, a "zoology museum", a seal amphitheater, and a drive through section the zoo boasts as "Turkey's first Safari Park". The latter three were addedd years after my visit.




The "safari park"


I went to Gaziantep zoo at around the age of ten to eleven when my family and I were going to Southeast Turkey. We went to this zoo twice during the trip. Once without family and once with family friends. At the time I visited I was impressed by this zoo because 1) it was not Ataturk Forest Farms, 2) big. However, that does not eliminate the flaws of this zoo. While some enclosures were better than the ones at the AFF Zoo, some weren’t. Examples in my mind are the reptile and the primate enclosures. I also saw the classic error of calling Pangasius as sharks without even adding freshwater as a prefix. However, the most offensive thing I saw was the galah. The zoo had a big bird house, that was filled with mediocre enclosured with birds that I know as found in pet shops. The one bird I found interesting was the aforementioned galah. But the poor bird was laying down in a ventral position on the corner of its enclosure. Across the bird a mouse got out of a hole, stole the bird’s food and went back. I saw the mouse do it again for a second and third time. After seeing this I went towards this notebook where visitors were writing their compliments to the exhibit, and in it I wrote “your galah is sick”. I am sure by the time they read that note it was already late for the poor bird.

To simply put it, I personally consider this zoo superficial. This zoo always brags about being the biggest in Turkey and the third largest in Europe (which could be disproven even if Turkey was considered as a part of Europe). As I grew up, I learned that bigger does not mean better. Other than being a forever home for animals consfiscated by authorities and helping stray animals, I do not know what else this facility does that is worthy of getting the attention and respect of greater zoos around the world. I do check online to see if this zoo is up to anything, and to be blunt, I am not impressed. Everything this zoo makes from the "zoology museum" to the "upgraded chimp enclosure" (which can be seen in the first video I posted on this thread), or the improper handrearing a five year old chimpanzee feels mediocre. This place needs professional guidance more than anything before it is really worth a revisit. The lack of revisiting value is what places the Gaziantep Zoo this low on my list.

 

Quite an understandable translation of the French but 'grand' in French does just mean big or tall .

I can really relate to this - missed a pair of woodpecker species there that were previously unheard of in captivity yet were on display during my visit...
Or maybe I saw them, no way of knowing...

 

Just looking at the videos i dont think the zoo is too bad. I think it's better than some zoos on your list just from looking.(cough cough Kobe cough cough) But I guess it might fall into the classic "we dont care too much on animals" mid tier zoo niche.

I do wonder if the next inclusion will still be in Turkey. I can see one or two zoos from japan next.

 

Number 29.: Kobe Municipality Oji Zoo (Japan).

Well, here is my first non-Turkish entry. By all means this zoo isn’t much better than the last three zoos in terms of the welfare of the animals or the collection. Even the enclosures that are not bad just areb't substantially good. Sure this zoo has Tibetan blue bear, panda, and koala along with ABCs not even found in Turkey which feels like an up for me, but that obviously won’t cut it the lacking enclosures. In fact, the fact that this zoo is this outdated despite Japan being more economically prosperous and ,at least to my knowledge, more advanced in the zoological sciences than Turkey, makes the mediocrity of this zoo much more inexcusable. To add insult to injury the zoo has an amusement park area that seems to be, based on the zoo’s map, larger than many of the animal enclosures. Despite that, this zoo somehow does not cross me off as the previously mentioned zoos.

Sharing this media because I did not take proper images of the enclosures. My apologies ;-;


However I do feel like the zoo has one advantage up its sleeve. That is the zoological science center. This is the very opposite of the zoology museum that the Gaziantep zoo has. While the museum obviously isn’t the same level as AMNH I feel like it is at least presented in a way that kids could understand some basic animal facts. The museum also has a library for kids to enjoy both animal stories and informative books.



I remember being lucky enough to see the polar bear feeding. The bear was lured into the water as the keeper threw food items to the water. While I have seen a polar bear swim underwater before, I never saw one eat let alone an egg in one bite. That was more interesting than the fact that the bear was underwater right next to the display glass. I remember seeing a giant anteater, kept with capybaras, which was wearing a cast on his arm. There was also the time when I sort of got miffed over not seeing the bobcats (the only ones in Japan). If I was able to see them, they would have been the first bobcats I ever saw in my life but as I said before, I wasn’t mad.

Overall, this is not a good zoo (duh.) If I had to revisit any zoo I visited this definitely wouldn't be it. Despite that, I am still going to place it higher than what most people believe it should be placed on the basis that it has a good education center, and I saw a polar bear eat a whole egg and some pieces of meat while it was in the water.

 

The standard is so low that a polar bear eating is enough to rank it above. ugh.
Honestly Kobe Oji is a bad zoo. How do they even manage to get and maintain those black and white cuddly bear for me is a mystery. It's just any ordinary japan city zoo even though you're like the 6th biggest city. Like i can pick any mid sized city and it's the same quality. Kumamoto, Kagoshima, Sendai, Sapporo etc. The fact KAK is a better zoo despite being smaller said it all.
I hope they can do something with it's future development being announced.
Oh and you can check on google street view if you want to know how bad is it.

 

To think that Kobe Municipality Oji Zoo is still able to operate is simply a shame.

 

the sad truth is there are way worst zoos across all over the world still operating

 

By all means I am aware that my ranking standards won't meet everyone's expectations. I did acknowledge this in the second paragraph of the original post before I started the ranking. But let's be fair, being in 29th place isn't really an honourable position for a list of 32 zoos.

One thing I wish I said in my final paragraph on my post on Oji zoo is that I did not emphasize how good the education center was. Education, let alone a good attempt at it, was something that the previous three listings failed to do. So even if Oji zoo isn't able to give a good message through the live animal displays, seeing the zoo make a decent education center definitely boosts Oji zoo above the previous three zoos.

If I have to be honest, seeing a polar bear gobble down an egg underwater is a better memory than hearing an elephant's shackles in it's concrete stable or seeing a seemingly terminally-ill galah have mice walk around its enclosure and stealing its food.

Regardless I am very sorry for not reaching up to your expectations.

 

This is *your* show. You don't gotta apologize for being honest and being true to your experiences.

 

i mean the standard of the zoos in the bottom, not your thread. I like this thread.

 

Number 28: Himeji Central Park (Japan)

This was the first park where I had my “drive-through safari” experience. Did I like the experience? Yes. The park? Not really. However, I feel like my visit was worth it for the reason I visited it: wildebeest. Specifically eastern white-bearded wildebeest.

Himeji Central Park is a privately owned theme park that has a safari park in it. The safari park is divided into a drive-through and a “walking safari” section. The drive through is fine but isn’t too interesting. It is divided into six sections with three for carnivores (lions, cheetahs, and tigers) and three for random combinations of herbivores that would ruin the day of anyone who values immersion in zoos (I am sorry @StopableSan). The only animals that looked lied as if they were not having a good time in the drive-through area are the hippopotamuses (I recall them being corned by hot wire) and elephants (who were in constant supervision by their keeper, who had a guide). The walking safari is a section that has a petting zoo with farm animals, a walkthrough aviary with nenes, capybara, squirrel monkey and lemurs, a bear pit, a monkey pit, and enclosures for ASCO, red panda, color morph big cats, and a (yes, a singular) chimpanzee. The quality varies from "does a fine job, but could do better" to god-awful. The park also has feeding options which is resulting in animals waiting near the enclosure perimeters waiting for visitors to give them a treat. There is also a sky lift that brings visitors from one side of the walking safari section to the other.


Gate to the safari zone July 2016 - ZooChat


Elephants as seen by the sky lift July 2016 - ZooChat


Visitors feeding giraffes July 2016 - ZooChat

My apologies if I don't have enough images of the facility and gettting to reliant on youtube videos on making a point. Regardless I will still post a video of the walkthrough section along with the worst offender.





The highlight of my visit was the white bearded wildebeest. I don’t know anyone else who would get out of their way to go to a theme park just to see a wildebeest. I was also able to see nene, roan antelope, and radjah shelduck. I also saw color-morph big cats such as white lions, white tigers for the first time. However I wasn’t impressed by the cats for I am not the bigest fan of lions and tigers (that and the ethics). Seeing the lonely chimpanzee and the parentless baby coatimundi in the adjacent enclosure, obliviously playing with its toys, felt painful to me. I don't even know if the park still has the coatimundi.

I am only placing this zoo on a higher place because this was my first time going in a drive through enclosure and a zoo that is a part of a theme park. While I won’t let this experience affect my perception towards drive through enclosures, it does back up any skeptical feeling I have towards theme parks with zoos in them (even Disneys Animal Kingdom and Pairi Daiza).

I had a hard time deciding if Himeji Central Park or Oji zoo was worse. One one hand Oji fails not only its animals but also the people of Kobe with the zoo being stuck in the last century, but does try its best to educate the masses, and (surprisingly) is globally recognized. On the other hand, HCP isn’t failing a big city of taxpayers, but it has questionable enclosures and practices. What also doesn't help is that I see to no signs of conservation activity (other than breeding markhor and Grevy's zebra). If there is an attempt at education other than the audio guide in the buses, then I don't recall seing it. In the end they both are not necessarily worth a revisit.