Thread of the Year Champions: 5 Year Face Off

Congratulations to @pachyderm pro for bringing @lintworm back from obscurity, as I had feared that he was wandering around inside his beloved Burgers' Bush and trapped forever. I actually toured that rainforest with him and there are trails everywhere and it would be easy to get lost. Thankfully he wasn't eaten by a caiman.

There was mention of a sequel to Europe's 50 Must See Zoos and I think that it would be glorious if someone put in the immense effort to come up with The World's 50 Must See Zoos. Maybe that is the sequel that @lintworm is talking about? Fingers crossed!

I've often thought about doing a thread titled America's 50 Must See Zoos, or even possibly North America's 50 Must See Zoos, but there is not the deep, rich history of zoos as can be found in Europe. In the USA there are maybe 800 zoos, aquariums, nature centers, etc., but in Germany alone there are circa 500 'zoos', plus another 400 or more between England and France, and therefore thousands of zoos across Europe's approximately 50 nations. The selection of zoos is therefore infinitely greater in Europe than what can be found in North America.

If one were to do a (North) America's 50 Must See Zoos, there would be many obvious possibilities but also a lot of zoos that don't compare to their European counterparts. For example, Roger Williams Park Zoo opened in 1872 and is one of the oldest existing zoos still operating in North America, but there is nothing historic about it and nothing 'must see' whatsoever.

 

I wouldn't mind wandering inside Burgers' Bush now, but with lockdown that is rather impossible . I simply had different priorities last year, though I did lurk here from time to time , and contributing to the site wasn't as pleasant as it used to be. Fortunately some things seem to have changed for the better since then...

That would be a terribly difficult task and it would be hard to get it right instead of just listing 50 great zoos from around the globe. As my knowledge of non-European zoos is limited, I won't try to do that...

I think it would be an interesting exercise nonetheless, but there is a risk to select just the larger well-known zoos and aquaria. What made the original so appealing was that I did make some rather unorthodox choices (for which off-course there was a good reason), but that kept it interesting and unpredictable at the same time. Even with less history and less cultural differences than in Europe, there would still be enough choice in America's zoos, aquaria and specialist collections, both great and small...