With Oakland zoo getting a 56 acre upgrade, I started to wonder about small zoos that had a relative size to Oakland's 42 acres before the California trail. Mostly because when I was trying to create a whole new Oakland zoo during my thread "Reimagining Oakland zoo" I realized that the map that I'm basing my design off of turned out to be off from the actual usable land of the zoo. So with the new map, I decided to take an example from smaller zoos similar of size to Oakland to get an idea for exhibit organization. I was going to put this in the fantasy zoo thread but then I realized that this topic doesn't really follow the normal rules for a fantasy zoo thread and only connects to one. So my question is, what are some small zoos (under 50 acres) and what exhibits are there? Preferable if the zoo has elephants but it's not important.
Racine Zoo Menominee Park Zoo Wildwood Zoo NEW Zoo Henry Vilas Zoo Manitowoc Lincoln Park Zoo Many, many more...
50 acres is a quite large space, especially in Europe. I think most zoos in Europe are smaller than 50 acres (20,2 ha).
This sums it up perfectly. There are approximately 150 aquariums and 600 zoos in the USA and out of those 750 facilities I'd guess that at least 500+ are under 50 acres.
Lintworm has compiled a list of 50 European zoos. So far the ones covering below 50 acres are: Innsbruck, Vienna, Antwerp, Odense, Besancon, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Doué-la-Fontaine, Paris Ménagerie, Chemnitz, Cologne, Duisburg, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Jersey, Amsterdam, Apeldoorn, Tenerife, Valencia Bioparc, Valencia L'Oceanogràfic, Bern, Bristol Above 50 acres: Pairi Daiza, Dvůr Králové, Ostrava, Plzeň, Prague, Helsinki, Nesles, Obterre, Saint-Aignan, Berlin Zoo, Berlin Tierpark, Grafenau, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Walsrode, Arnhem, Rotterdam, Wroclaw, Obregon, Borås, Hunnebostrand, Zurich, Bekesbourne, Burford
I never finished my color coding, but here's my spreadsheet on AZA sizes, based on info provided on websites / wikipedia.
I realized the reason why American zoos tend to be larger is because their area includes parking, buffer zones (undeveloped areas within the boundaries) and staff-only areas. For example, the Maryland Zoo has a total of 135 acres but only 45 of those acres are developed as exhibits and public area. Because of that, my recommendations are Philadelphia Zoo, Roger Williams Park Zoo, and The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore