The World's 50 Greatest Zoo Exhibits

"Penguin Encounter - SeaWorld, San Diego (USA)"

Are you kidding me? That's one of the worst exhibits of penguins I have seen.

It is true they have a large amount of penguins in there but you only get to see them in the dark by standing on a roller crammed with people. The whole viewing experience lasted less than a minute since you have no chance of walking back to see them again.

The penguins at the Long Beach, CA exhibit at the Aquarium of the Pacific has more to offer and that's a stretch.

"Elephants of Asia - Los Angeles Zoo"
And this exhibit is not that great either. The elephants are barely visible. Maybe premium visitors get to actually enjoy it. All I saw was the tail of an elephant quite far from where I was standing.

The Elephant Oddisey at San Diego is much better.

 

Sure as long some people don't start accusing others of making "idiotic" statements, right?

 

I fully agree.

 

You do realize that there is and always has been an elevated area behind the moving sidewalk that allows you to view the penguins at your leisure. Also, it's only dark in the summer (being the Antarctic winter, allowing for a natural photoperiod for the birds).

 

That's the plan!

 

My list certainly includes many already mentioned here (but somehow does not include the white wagtail extravaganza!), but I cannot imagine not including several US exhibits, several of which are important historically and still stand the test of time:

Bronx Zoo--African Plains, World of Darkness (sadly closed), World of Birds, Himalayan Highlands, Jungleworld

Woodland Park Zoo--Savanna and Gorilla

San Diego Zoo--Kopje

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum--Cat Canyon, Otter/Beaver, Cave (even with no live animals)

St. Louis Zoo--Penguin and Puffin Coast

Busch Gardens--hippo

San Diego Zoo Safari Park--lion

Segwick County Zoo--Pride of the Plains

Monterey Bay Aquarium--everything, but in particular the Kelp Forest,jellies area, shorebird aviary and Open Ocean tank

 

Of course any list is subjective. If the article/list was entirely written by one person that would be expected. But the fact that it is a collaboration of presumably some of the most experienced zoo fans in the world makes some of the choices and omissions quite glaring. I have not been to Germany so I am in no position to judge, but I must admit I was shocked to see them as having the most on the list and I suspect this has something to do with the regional bias of the contributors. I have not been to Sweden either, but based on my amateur opinion they seem to have the OVERALL best zoo standards of any country earth and I would expect to see them better represented.

 

It really is interesting to see the diversity of opinions on what makes a "best" exhibit. Clearly some privelege collection over other factors, while some privelege historic significance, visitor experience, or design aesthetics.

My overall zoo experience being fairly limited as it is, I've not been to the majority of exhibits on the original list or those posted afterwards. I find the frequent mentioning of Life on the Rocks at ASDM interesting as I've not been as impressed with that exhibit. Perhaps it's in the difficulty in figuring out what is supposed to be on exhibit along with what seems an inordinate amount of "Animals Off Exhibit" signs.

My top list has always included both the Kopje and Tiger River at San Diego, but it's difficult to include any San Diego exhibits due to the number of changes that have taken place. Neither the Kopje nor Tiger River are as impressive as they once were. I think the only exhibits in San Diego that haven't been diminished with change would be the two great walk through aviaries, Scripps and Owens.

I would like to throw in a personal favorite that may not make many people's lists. Oregon Zoo's Steller Cove. I find the predator-prey setup with the sea otters and kelp forest to be innovative, plus the Steller sea lions themselves make the complex even more amazing.

 

The main problem that I have with the list, isn't so much the exhibits that are included (or excluded) but, the different scales that have been used. Some of the examples that are on the list are stand alone exhibits for a single species whilst others and entire complexes. Chester Zoo's giant otter enclosure is pretty great but shouldn't be included in a list with the likes of Congo Gorilla Forest or San Diego's Lost Forest. A few members have already mentioned this in the discussion but it makes this particular list seem pretty flawed. Perhaps two lists would have been better; one for individual exhibits and one for whole connected areas.


Alas, I'll add a few that I think could have been included.
>Rotterdam Zoo seems to have been left out entirely but has some of the best exhibits that I've ever seen. The Oceanium, for example, is better than many stand alone aquariums.
>Melbourne Zoo's Great Flight Aviary is still the best walk-through aviary I've seen.
>And, lastly, the floodplain savannah at Werribee Zoo is simply spectacular.
All three of these exhibits are highlights of their respective zoos.

 

I very respectfully disagree! I personally love the CHINA exhibit, and I believe it is the highlight of the Memphis Zoo. To me, it's like a Disney Epcot Center country pavilion -- only with animals.

 

The more I think about it, Sooty (and others), the more I actually DO have a problem with this. My "problem" isn't with any of your choices or even with your method of putting this list together. The problem is the actual TITLE of this list. At least what SnowLeopard labelled this list on this ZooChat thread, it is labelled the "World's Greatest" zoo exhibits. Using that term "Greatest" implies these exhibits are in some way superior to all exhibits not on the list. Thus, the Columbus Zoo Songbird Aviary is superior to the Burger's Bush huge rainforest in Arnhem, Netherlands.

I would humbly suggest that perhaps the title should be changed to something like, "50 Favorite Zoo Exhibits from around the World". That would be a more accurate title.

But then again, I haven't seen the actual Grapevine article, so maybe the actual list's title isn't so bad.

 

One way to think about this is to consider how the exhibit--whether single enclosure or multi-animal thematic "zone"--was built and is interpreted. If there was an intention to tell a story or series of stories about a place or group of animals, and all developed at the same time (ala Congo Gorilla Forest or the Berlin Bird House) it's different than something like Lost Forest which is just a name used to describe a series of disparate animal exhibits that were built piecemeal and added to over time.

You can have one Monet on the museum wall, and the experience of viewing it can be a powerful "exhibit." But an entire gallery of Monet's is also an exhibit. It's about the intent....

And since you mentioned Werribee, I'm reminded that it's the home one of the world's great hippo exhibits--Kubu River.

I love Rotterdam, but aside from the Oceanium, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any individual exhibits or even exhibit zones that--on their own--rank as being among the world's best. The overall quality of the place is, however, fantastic. The walk-through prairie dog exhibit is delightful, to name just one example.

 

I know SnowLeopard well, and perhaps he gave the list that title with his "tongue in cheek" a bit.

Actually, though, I have a personal example I can share. As you may know, when Jon Wassner and I released our America's Best Zoos book back in 2008, we were priveleged to have a famous person (Newt Gingrich) contribute the Foreword for the book. When USA Today learned that Gingrich had this connection with zoos, they asked him to do a personal article for the paper on his favorite zoos. To his credit, Gingrich never claimed his list of 10 zoos were the "Greatest". He just said they were "his favorites", and he included the tiny ZooAmerica in Hershey, Pennsylvania on his list. Why? Because that was the zoo he went to as a boy -- simply a personal favorite of his, not one of the "greatest".

10 great places to go wild over zoo animals - USATODAY.com

 

Absolutely agree. Good idea.

 

Exactly, that's what raised my doubts right from the start.

In agreement with ANhyhuis I think the title is completely misleading and perhaps the contributors should better have marked favorite exhibits as their own.

 

As is so often the case, people commenting on something about which they have only half the knowledge leads to misunderstanding!

The introductory article in Zoo Grapevine magazine makes absolutely plain that this is not an attempt to categorically rank the very best zoo exhibits in the world, that it is, really, just an opportunity for a few zoo-ish people to write about the places that, to them, are the ones they like most. Nothing more or less than that.

And in the piece, the contributors do mark as their own the various exhibits that are chosen. So it is wholly possible to see which person was unwise enough to nominate the Alfred Brehm house as his favourite....

 

There are many zoo nerds on this site who really should fork over the cash to receive a subscription to what is truly an excellent quarterly magazine. The latest issue is 40 large, glossy, all-colour pages and it is as always jam-packed with a multitude of interesting facts and figures. The only criticism that I've heard in regards to Zoo Grapevine is that the "zoo news" section can sometimes be outdated by the time it goes to publication, but that is less than 10% of each issue. There are always many pages of book reviews, zoo reviews and all sorts of other goodies.

The article is titled "The World's 50 Greatest Zoo Exhibits" and naturally that is a presumptuous yet effective way to obtain the attention of the masses. The Chairman Tim Brown is well on his way to visiting 1,000 zoos in his lifetime, and other contributors include the likes of Jonas Livet (more than 1,000 zoos), famous zoo directors and even high school teachers like myself who have nevertheless written more than 500 pages of zoo reviews over the past few years.

I cannot speak to the exact method of how Tim Brown ended up with his list of 50 (most of which are absolutely terrific exhibits) but my contribution was to type up a few paragraphs on about 6 different exhibit complexes and he chose 3 from that total. Each of the exhibits in the magazine has a long write-up and the name of the individual who selected it. For example, the legendary zoo director Dr. Bernhard Blaszkiewitz chose the Bronx Zoo's "Mouse House".

My 3 contributions were "Lost Forest: Monkey Trails" at San Diego Zoo (pygmy hippo, yellow-backed duiker, slender-snouted crocodile and numerous primates in modern habitats seen via a winding boardwalk); Kansas City Zoo's 95-acre "Africa" section that includes arguably one of the world's truly amazing chimpanzee exhibits (3 acres!); and "Kingdoms of the Night" which is the world's largest nocturnal house and is found at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. One could make a valid case that parts of Lost Forest at San Diego Zoo are piecemeal separate enclosures, or that Africa at Kansas City should include either all of the exhibits or perhaps just the chimps, and that Omaha has the biggest of everything but not necessarily the best of everything. Vive la difference in opinion!

The top 50 list could perhaps have been divided up into the top 50 of Europe and then a separate list of the top 50 of North America, and even a third top 50 of the rest of the world. What an incredible 150 exhibits we would have had published! I'm sure that there still would have been individuals exclaiming that specific exhibits had been missed. What is wonderful about the top 50 list that is in Zoo Grapevine is that it is has sparked a tremendous amount of great conversation (may it continue to do so!) and there is a really impressive overview of many great exhibits. A drive-thru section is on there, an amphibian complex, a rock hyrax enclosure, a dolphin pool, a couple of nocturnal houses (both brilliant), a reptile house, a couple of rainforest complexes, a desert house, an aquarium, Arctic/Antarctic zones, immersion habitats, rich zoological history and at least 5 exhibits devoted to great apes. Tim Brown seems to have taken a really neat selection from across the globe and compiled them into 11 pages that offer up explanations and rationale behind every single choice.

 

For me, it's the eclectic nature of the choices that make the article such an interesting read. The "Sheridan approach" of scoring and ranking zoos and compiling league tables has been much debated on this site and isn't to my taste: I would much rather have three personal choices from fellow zoo nerds than a homogenised list of multi-million pound exhibits.

For the record, my contributions to the list were Frankfurt's Grzimek House, Burgers' Desert and Zurich's Masoala. I chose three exhibits that I would love to have in my local zoo, and in which many happy hours could be whiled away if I were so lucky.

 

For the record, I just took SnowLeopard's advice and ordered Grapevine today. He's been telling me to do so for a while and I've finally gotten around to doing so. Thanks, Snowy!