Top 5 Zoos in the USA

I'm not sure what I didn't explain in full or why my post generated such a strong rebuttal. Honestly I don't.

But since my main point is that this cost discussion is hardly worth having between two of the most expensive zoos in the country, I'll just leave it at that. Cheers.

 

This doesn't seem to be remotely accurate based on what I just looked up. It seems that the medium income for San Diego Country is as high or higher than of NYC.

And of course the Bronx is by far the poorest of the NYC burroughs and the cost of living in close proximity to that zoo is probably not higher than that of near San Diego.

 

It appears I used data from the 2000 census by accident for San Diego & much newer numbers for NYC. That was my mistake. Yes the community around the Bronx Zoo is lower income and the zoo is overpriced compared to a lot of their incomes. Yet the free days are the days in which the parking lot is least full, likely indicating the majority of the guests are locals. At least at the Bronx they have an option to enjoy it. Sure ticket prices could be lower overall if the zoo did nor have free day, but I’m fine with a portion of my entry purchase going towards funding the zoo trips of those less fortunate than myself. And I will still state, even though you ignore my point, how does the San diego Zoo serve lower income individuals in its region?

 

That doesn't seem to be close to accurate for 2000 either.

Anyways, I'm not ignoring your point, I just don't think this discussion is relevant to which zoo is better as I've clearly stated.

Otherwise, I'm simply correctly omissions (that the free Bronx days doesn't get you free parking or into the ticketed events) and falsehoods (your statistics regarding income).

I absolutely do appreciate that The Bronx Zoo offers free admission on Wednesday's though. I am an inner city teacher and have a tremendous desire to see children like them get more and better opportunities, whether they be fun, educational, and/or career related.

 

Maybe quantity doesn't always trump quality (of husbandry)?

I would; never fit comfortably into one (too long legs).

Well put! I fully support this notion.
What we (= especially the senior ZooChatters) all generally tend to agree on is whether a zoo is good and worth a visit, or not. Both Bronx and SDZ are worthy of the first category - if you can afford it.

 

First I want to say thank you @ANyhuis for taking the time to responding and giving additional explanations, even though we will probably keep on disagreeing on a lot of things.

I think we have to disagree on that, I still think the statistics are used in such a way that you can't use if for anything else than personal use and most surely not say that Bronx *is* the #5 zoo in the US, that can be your opinion but is does not hold any more value than others thinking otherwise.

That would be a clear case of pseudo-replication, which as statistician you should know very well...

The problem is you have not nearly accumulated enough to make the rating resembling subjectivity. I think a main problem is that though you never explicitly said that your opinion was better informed than others, some of your responses did seem to imply that, which gave a lot of comments (including mine).

I don't think such double-counting is statistically acceptable, as you did not try to correct for that.

I also think that many people would rate exhibits completely different, I personally would not care too much for whether they are visually pleasing or well themed, which may partly be a cultural thing. As an example the indoor enclosure for Chimpanzees in Basel would fail miserably at both theming and being visually very pleasing:


It is however spacious, full of enrichment and has excellent viewing opportunities and is among the most popular exhibits in the zoo and one of my favourite indoor holdings for Chimpanzee.

It still implies a *complete* collection with animals from all continents is a must, which is an assumption open for debate.

Lied Jungle and Desert Dome are both highly flawed complexes based on the pictures here in terms of animal welfare. A lot of the enclosures are ranging from on the small side to absolutely tiny and many are completely inadequate in terms of substrate. Additionally the Madagascar section seems to be littered by enclosures that were outdated by the time it was opened (and 20 years ago). I am pretty sure that if Lied Jungle were to have been in Europe it would consistently rank well below Burgers' Zoo, Zurich, Randers, Leipzig and Emmen as the first 2 actually look like a rainforest and the latter are much better in terms of animal holdings. Any zoo that prefers looks over actual quality doesn't get any points from me...

This is exactly the problem, because it is just an opinion that says it is no better than #5.

 

Wow, a lot of reaction to first our "fun" zoo-comparison analysis, and now my explanations of it. Let me try to respond to the main points:

We did not find our final results of 1.San Diego, 2.Omaha, 3.St.Louis, 4.Columbus, 5.Bronx to be overall convincing because we do acknowledge that our analysis was not perfect or totally complete. But what we did find to be convincing was that San Diego is #1 -- because it was SO FAR ahead of the other zoos, and that Bronx is (at best) #5 because it was SO FAR behind the other 4 zoos.

As for the zoos you asked about, I believe Burgers would do great by our analysis. If it's weak in Reptiles/Amphibians, who cares? That's only 1 category out of 28. I also believe Nuremburg would do quite well. Both of these two are very "complete" and high quality zoos, which are the main things our analysis was looking for. But you are correct that Walsrode would rate low by our analysis, and so be it. It may be a great bird zoo, but it's just not a real complete zoo. It's a specialized zoo, like Apenhuel. I'd love to go see these specialized facilities someday, but neither should be considered among the very best "zoos" in Europe. You may disagree, but that's just my opinion.

Your critique of Omaha (and Berlin Tierpark) is calling for us to use the "Weakest Link" method of comparison. That is, look for the worst exhibit in each zoo, and then compare those worst factors -- and then whichever zoo has the "least worst" exhibit wins! With this method, an otherwise very average zoo -- with no bad exhibits -- would be ranked very highly.

We didn't have any "doubts" about our analysis, but we don't claim it's perfect. But I did know the analysis would be controversial because some folks just don't like hearing the Bronx Zoo is no longer a top-rated zoo. It's still pretty good, but no longer in the class with San Diego, Omaha, or St. Louis. And no, it was not "cheating" to re-rank the zoos if we were reminded of some new exhibit or animal the zoo has added, especially if it was added in the 7-10 years since we last visited that zoo. This was just making our rankings more accurate.

You all may not like our 28 categories, but we picked them based on what we believe a wide variety of zoo visitors are looking for when they go the zoo. Consider the time they spend when in the zoo. Don't you think most visitors spend about 7 times as much time looking at mammals when compared to reptiles or fish? That's why there are more mammal categories -- because more people want to see the mammals than the birds, reptiles, or fish. Elephants, great apes, and bears get their own categories because these are THE animals more people want to see than any others. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the majority of zoo visitors gravitate to these particular animals much more than others.

The Bonus Animal Superstars is just the name we gave to the animals we all know are the biggest crowd-drawers: giant pandas, koalas, manatees, dolphins, and a few others, such as Tasmanian devils, etc. These are the animals you will see on the zoo billboards, trying to draw folks into the zoo. These are the animals people will go out of their way to come see. (Note that the Bronx Zoo is very weak in this category!)

What we are saying is show us a better way of comparing the zoos! Thylo lists a long list of animal facts and figures which he believes show Bronx is comparable with, or better than, San Diego. But first, he never shows any method of summarizing his points, and secondly, he seems to me to be "cherry-picking", finding a few places where Bronx excels and basing his whole conclusion on them. But all of Thylo's pro-Bronx points are badly overwhelmed by the much stronger and more conclusive points made by SnowLeopard in post #207 (and also by Sooty in post #147).

I completely see your point, and I really believe our analysis covers the momentum, as the new "juggernaut" exhibits at San Diego, Omaha, and Columbus are the main reasons they have passed up Bronx. But I would not want to give an ranking for "Momentum" and honestly, this sounds very much like Sheridan's way of ranking, as he gives points to zoos for "Vision", a factor based on his personal interviews with the zoo directors.

Exactly!! I fully agree that our analysis method is not aimed at "zoo nerds" or ZooChat regulars. It is aimed totally at the casual zoo visitors, and that is what our 28 categories is aimed at.

Good question! I (we) try to be balanced between having animals in sight for the paying customers versus the animal welfare aspects of giving them plenty of room. But I'm not a big fan of "hiding places" for animals. Years ago I really liked Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, but from my last two visits there, my impression of the place has gone downhill, as I hardly saw any of their larger animals -- they were all hiding! I'm a fan of the methods that zoos use to bring animals up to visitor windows -- heated rocks or putting their food near the visitors.I concede that "some" hiding places are fine, but ASDM seems to take this to an extreme, at the expense of the visitors. Just my opinion.

Sorry that we disagree, lintworm. Again, I'm NOT bragging about my credentials, but I know that my knowledge of and experience in statistics is strong enough that I know what I'm talking about. I now teach statistics at a major university. This doesn't mean our analysis is perfect or unflawed, but again, show me a better way to compare zoos! We personally are comfortable enough with our analysis to believe we've confirmed that San Diego is very deserving of the title, America's #1 zoo, and that Bronx has fallen several notches below that level. If you want to believe something else, fine. But I'd suggest you are doing so merely based on personal preference, not on any objective analysis.

You are correct that many people rate exhibits very differently, and even though it was only 3 of us, the 3 of us rate exhibits quite different from each other.

Yes, a "complete" collection of animals will give a zoo the highest rankings, but it's not a "must", and certainly they don't have to be from "all continents". You could have zero animals from Asia, Australia, and South America (like North Carolina) and still get a high rating -- if they're complete and high quality in all of the other 25 categories.

As for Omaha, their Expedition Madagascar opened in 2010, not 20 years ago. And I think the Lied Jungle is still one of the very best rain forest exhibits in the world! I'd only rate Liepzig's Gondawanaland as for sure better. In fact, I think Gondawanaland is the world's very best zoo exhibit -- anywhere! While Burgers Bush is also very, very good, you definitely see a lot more animals in the Lied Jungle. As for Zurich's rain forest, it's a tremendous re-creation of a Madagascan jungle, but what animals do you see in there? A few birds, chameleons, and if you're lucky, 2 or 3 lemurs. Nothing else. Once again, visitor experience!

 

Rating a zoo based on the casual zoo visitor's perceptions is probably the absolute worst way you could judge a zoo... They don't care about the animals, they don't care about the welfare, they don't care about conservation, they don't care about captive breeding, they don't care about the history, they don't care about the enclosures, and they don't care about the collection. The casual zoo visitor wants the select few animals they want to see presented directly in front of them for their entertainment. Following this style of ranking, a roadside zoo that offers elephant rides and tiger cub petting would likely rank fairly well as long as said animals had mostly natural substrate and the cages weren't too small. The only reason it doesn't is because you've mixed it with your own preferences as a zoo nerd. Your method does not represent the desires of the casual zoo visitor, it fits only the views of yourself, snowleopard, and your third member.

You've once again claimed that your conclusions are not definitive rankings while simultaneously stating they are the definitive answer and belittling anyone who dares think otherwise.

Cherry-picking? Please tell me how? I went through each and every mammal group, birds as a whole, and herps as a whole. I discussed entire exhibits and specific enclosures and compared them. I did not go into every detail about every aspect of each zoo because that was not the point of the post nor is it the point of this thread despite what you and others keep making it. I did not state opinion, I stated fact. Enclosure/exhibit sizes are facts, weather hardiness of certain species are facts, collection sizes are facts. Bronx has more species than SDZ and overall larger/better rated enclosures/exhibits than SDZ. These are facts. As I pointed out in my previous post that you ignored, following your own categories Bronx does very, very well. These are the facts and they are now being thrown out the window because you say Bronx is no longer a top-rated zoo and anyone who thinks otherwise is "doing so merely based on personal preference, not on any objective analysis." We have to believe this because you say so, because you teach statistics and thus know what you are talking about, and yet you are the one not explaining why. You say sooty and snowleopard have provided substantial reasoning for why SDZ is better than Bronx, yet several others disagree and the only argument I remember them making against the zoo is that it snows in the winter, which is a very poor argument indeed as I've proven. Tell me why Bronx is "SO FAR behind the other 4 zoos" when it has a larger collection than all of them (except maybe Omaha, who claims to have the largest but idk how well that claim holds up) and less bad enclosures than any one of them (except maybe Columbus). Make a whole thread about this, one where we all can go in-depth into this topic since everyone clearly wants to talk about it so much while not derailing this thread any more.

Again, I can't help but see the bias here. You place species like Giant Panda, Koala, Tasmanian Devil as being worth more "points" than others. SDZ is the zoo with the greatest number of these species. Who decides what species is worth more? You do. You place having highlight species above animal welfare as shown by your comments on rather being able to see more animals than those animals having excellent large enclosures where they can escape the public eye for a moment. You dismiss taking bad exhibits/enclosures into account because it "is calling for us to use the "Weakest Link" method of comparison." That is not true, it is simply comparing all the good and the bad in order to come to a balanced and fair conclusion, it is how good comparisons are made. You claim momentum is not part of your raking, yet in the sentence beforehand state that it is "the main reasons they have passed up Bronx." As I've stated before, Bronx may not have built any big new flashy exhibits in the past ten years, but exhibits they built decades ago are generally still considered better than some of the new stuff the other zoos are building now. Bronx does not have entire portions of the zoo that have to be overhauled like the others do.

You are claiming you have found definitive answers to questions based off of the viewpoint of those least qualified to come to those conclusions while you yourselves are not apart of that group. Not to mention you are assuming that millions upon millions of people have the same exact expectations and standards. You are tossing out a good number of factors that should 100% be taken into account in any serious analysis. You are claiming to have found the objective based off of the subjective, while admitting it's subjective. 1+1+1≠84. You make these decisions because it is what you think; you are assuming everyone thinks, or at least should think, the way you do and that your line of thinking, and thus your conclusions, are the only right answer. That is wrong.

~Thylo

 

The validity of ANYhuis's analysis aside, the problem is that you keep presenting it as objective - as being 'correct'. But ranking anything on overall quality, or any other factor that can't be objectively determined like pure numbers, can only ever be subjective. I think it would be fine if you presented it as something just for fun (didn't you say it was at some point?), but it just doesn't make sense to hold it as fact.

However, I think the only thing that should be objectively considered is animal welfare. And this includes giving an animal the option to give itself privacy if it's feeling stressed, wants shade, or any number of reasons. I find your views on this aspect of enclosures hard to get behind.

 

It is not, it is your opinion about what casual zoo visitors would want to see.

You keep bringing up your credentials, but I am not interested in those really.... What I am interested in is how you minimized the impacts of the flaws (double-counting, small sample size etc) in your design.

You also did not do an objective analysis as @DavidBrown already pointed out, you have very well substantiated your opinion, but it is just as objective as what @ThylacineAlive is doing. Your ranking was probably a lot of fun and that is just the way it should be, but it doesn't make your opinion more valuable than other well-informed members who came up with their opinion in another way.

In my first reaction I outlined a way which would be useful to more objectively rank zoos, if that would really be worthwhile (imo it wouldn't). But the problem is that data collection for that would be immense for such a study.

I know Madagascar opened in 2010 in Omaha, but some of the indoor enclosures would have been outdated 20 years ago.

There are mulltiple types of visitor experience as you know and Lied & Gondwanaland and Burgers' & Masoala deliver two completely different experiences. The first is somewhat reminiscent of a rainforest and you see loads of animals, but there is no exploration feeling, visitors don't really have to do anything. In Masoala and Burgers' this exploring is very much present and visitors are urged to actively search for themselves as in the wild. As far as tripadvisoris reliable all four zoos get good reviews, so you can't just say your idea of visitor experience is the only valid. Not every visitor in Masoala may see a lemur (though a majority must), but every one that does has an amazing experience much better than looking at some Guenons in a cage in Gondwanaland.

 

'That's just my opinion.' The thing is, that opinion then shapes the categories you choose which essentially decides what kind of zoo comes out on top. I believe that a specialised collection could be considered the best zoo in Europe. Therefore, when designing an analysis or ranking system I would make sure that it was designed in such a way that it didn't penalise those zoos with narrower collections. Similarly, and this is something I've been thinking about for years, any such system needs to be able to handle the fact that, in my opinion, a small zoo with fantastic exhibits is much better than a comprehensive ABC collection in crappy exhibits. Those are just my opinions, but they would ensure that my categories would look very different to yours.

Your bias is very clear: you think that a zoo like Nuremburg which is heavily focused on large Mammals is 'very complete', whereas a zoo like Walsrode which is (even more) heavily focused on Birds is 'not a real complete zoo'. That 'classist' attitude is going to ensure that you will meet a fair amount of opposition on ZooChat. Your opinion isn't in alignment with most zoonerds, but, as some people have been at pains to point out politely, that doesn't matter. To each their own et cetera et cetera et cetera. I think people just want to see some acknowledgement that a ranking based on the evaluations of three people can only ever be seen as almost as subjective as a ranking based on the opinion of one person.

I would add, having finally been drawn to make a point that I thought others would make for me, that whilst this tread has been at times very entertaining and interesting, it has also been fairly painful to watch so many members who I respect needlessly attack other contributors. It's been like watching a pool of sharks, or maybe dolphins, rip into each other for absolutely no reason. ZooChat is usually a sanctuary from the cesspit that is 'The Internet Comment Section'. It's very unclear to me why this particular thread is bringing out the worst in us.

(In the spirit of that, @ANyhuis, I should point out that I haven't bought your book yet, but it sits comfortably on my wishlist, and when I do buy it I'll be sure to do so in a way that remunerates you and not Mr Bezos.)

 

Let's just agree to disagree then. You keep on pointing out that your study is objective (for ex. using IS as if it was scientifically proved), when it is not (as shown by members above).

One last point though, as other have pointed out, ranking zoos just by using what you THINK is better for regular visitors is definitely not a good way to do it. Even regular people's opinion are different, you seem to take them all as the same people that enjoy the same animals when it is not at all. My father for exemple is not a zoo-nerd at all, yet he's been to a few zoos with me and since he's already seen elephants and all the highly-praised bonus animals in your post, he couldn't care less about them. My mother is not a zoo-nerd either, yet the only thing she cares about is whether the zoo is good for the animals and whether it is visually attractive (which is why she really like a lush Tierpark Berlin in summer). She was more excited when seeing a beautiful Himalayan monal than when seeing the African elephants at the TP. Last exemple, even though Walsrode keeps on losing visitors from what I'm aware, they get 300.000 visitors per year. You may think that is not a lot when comparing it to San Diego or even Miami but the point is Walsrode is in the middle of Lower-Saxony, a town of 23,000 people, do you think then that they don't attract visitors from all of Germany and even from the rest of the world? I do.

To summarize it, although all your points were kindly corrected by the members above, I wanted to point out that even regular people, as you call them; have preferences and that's it not only reserved for zoo-nerds to prefer seeing a new species or a species of bird over an elephant.

 

You cannot be serious with this.

And you complained about someone else belittling yours and others opinions in the same post. Oh, the irony.

 

Btw, considering the fact police came out strong against me for saying it's a fact that July and August are better for cold weather species due to an average of it being 9 degrees lower with much less humidity in San Diego compared to NYC...

I hope they do the same for Thylo who is claiming that unverified numbers are facts (they may be, but it seems like we're just taking his word for all these numbers unless I missed something) and then also saying that The Bronx has better rated exhibits as fact. They may have better rated exhibits, but for that to be considered fact, it needs to be backed up by a lot.

 

Quickly pulled up the Bronx Zoo collection numbers from the 2016 annual report.



https://c532f75abb9c1c021b8c-e46e47...7/06/23/92qyj61oww_2016_WCS_Annual_Report.pdf

 

I'll chime in on this debate of if some species should basically give a zoo more points towards their ranking than others.

To me the answer is obviously yes. I think that's definitely the case for the vast majority of zoo goers, but I'd guess even for most zoo nerds. An elephant or giant panda or polar bear or orangutan compared to some random small bird or reptile or fish. Hmmm.

So I don't think every species should be counted as equal.

 

I feel that people are taking ANyhuis’ analysis WAY too seriously. He has stated that it was just for fun and that there wasn’t any other analysis like it so they took a crack at it. I applaud them for trying to objectively analyze something that is clearly subjective in nature. Nobody else has put the time in to try it. Of course this doesn’t exclude the study from criticism. People are saying that this study’s methods would prevent smaller collections from ranking high. Well the point of the study was to compare 5 of the biggest, and most popular zoos in the US. I think it does a good job of that. Not because I agree with the findings, but because trying to quantify something like exhibit quality is very difficult.

It seems a lot of people here are attacking those who think SDZ is a better zoo than Bronx when it is very clear that both zoos have amazing collections, animal care, exhibits, conservation, and visitor experience. The heat in this thread is making me question the whole point of ranking zoos if it only is going to hurt people’s feelings because someone likes one zoo better than your favorite. This brings up the concept of favorite vs best. I think if this thread was “why is SDZ so many people’s favorite zoo?”, the discussion would probably be a lot more civil.

Many opinions are being shared here. And even if you bring up facts such as exhibit size or collection size, that’s not going to influence many people’s opinions to sway your way. In fact, this usually makes people more defensive (look at the flat-earthers and anti-vaxers) and less open to changing their minds. Nor do I think that these facts make a zoo objectively better because it is clear from this thread that objectivity and zoos are not good bedmates.

It seems every time someone says something positive about one zoo, someone comes back with “But this zoo has this and this and this! What does your zoo have to beat that?” or “that doesn’t matter because of this and this”. It’s happened to me when I’ve had a positive opinion of SDZ or Omaha.

I also find it interesting how there aren’t any people claiming Omaha, Columbus or Saint Louis are better than San Diego. Just Bronx people. Why aren’t these other zoos under the microscope and being criticized for ever piece of trash on the road or penny spent on admission?

All in all, you guys are taking this way too seriously and it’s sucking any fun the discussion could have had.

 

I'm not belittling anyone's opinions. Sooty and SL are free to believe whatever they want, I never told them they were wrong, I only ever asked them to explain their reasoning beyond "SDZ is great because it is". They have done so to varying degrees and now seem to have abandoned this thread. That's fine, but it's very different from "proving" that one zoo is better than the other, which is also fine as that was never the intention of this thread. The only thing I ever belittled was the climate argument. I do agree that climate plays some role in a zoo's quality, but as I've shown it has little to no bearing on whether or not one zoo is better than another. That was purpose of that giant climate rant and I've not seen anyone insist otherwise since posting it.

Surely no one counts every species as equal, no, but you are again applying your own opinion to everyone as a whole. To you maybe an elephant or bear is worth more than a small bird or fish, but I'd take a Javan Green-Magpie or a Great Hammerhead Shark over seeing an Asian Elephant or Polar Bear any day of the week. That is not because I do not like these species, I love them very much, but I personally give more value to the rarer taxa in this instance. Casual zoo-goers may not think this same way, no, but I've still seen visitors get more excited over a genet or a galago than a rhino and they don't even know what those animals are, so that argument doesn't hold much weight imo.

~Thylo

 

Of course people are taking his analysis way too seriously. He's attempted to soften his message and the conclusion of the analysis multiple times and has been remarkably kind in doing so considering how people are treating him.

 

The last two comments by funky and echo, certainly reflect my (and I suspect many other readers) view on this topic. These two zoos and Cincinatti are my favourite US zoos, but I don't know which is the best. Normally my 'best' zoo is the most recently visited good zoo. I do think that the Bronx tv series is brilliant, unlike most of these type of series which imo are repetitive and dull.