What I would do for Tropic World would showcase various ecosystems throughout the world. (Different types of jungles, such as a Lower Montane Jungle for Gorillas, Lowland Evergreen ot Swamp Forest for Orangs, etc. I'd raze the concrete flooring and the plastic plants, and heavily plant all exhibits. The Orang exhibit would be an open canopy, same with the South American Monkeys. (See Woodland Park's Trail of Vines for a stellar outdoor habitat)The Gorillas would rotate with Bonobos in a new indoor habitat, and the outdoor area for the Gorillas/Bonobos would extend all the way to the first Okapi exhibit seen in Habitat Africa: The Forest. It would be a mixed species panorama, and an opportunity to showcase African Elephants in a forest setting. The Elephants would be in a lower forest floor while the Apes would have access to a canopy habitat. (The rest of the Elephant facility would take up the entire Hoofstock Row area as per the original master plan, and Holding could be in another location near the last Okapi Yard in the Hoofstock Row). The Outdoor Orang exhibit would take up the old Baboon Rock, and showcase them in another Canopy Exhibit. An outdoor trail system connecting Clouded Leopard Rain Forest to this new outdoor yard could create immersive predator/prey opportunities in which Clouded Leopards and Orangutans would be separated by either glass or mesh. I know this sounds quite extensive and impractical, but hey: a man can dream.
You can't have living foliage indoors with great apes, nothing grows fast enough under these conditions to survive the damage.
I can't believe I'm saying this but I think Tropic World needs to be torn down and that Brookfield needs to start from scratch. The long-term zoochaters will know I have generally been apologetic about the exhibit, and have emphasized that it was revolutionary for the era it opened and a massive improvement on Primate Houses that were still present at zoos in the same decade, and do feel the exhibit was an incredibly worthy concept that has simply fallen out of date. I have for many years advocated here and elsewhere that simply modernizing the existing complex and believed that relatively small changes could save the facility for years to come. Add substrate, add outdoor yards, and so forth. It pains me to say this but the exhibit's notoriety has built up too much in the last decade to rehabilitate. The existing building is too massive to house smaller species like sloths or tamarins and isn't suited for larger animals any longer, and if it was just a question of adding substrate, I feel this would have been done so many years ago. Clearly it cannot happen in the existing facility. Who wants to be known as the worst zoo in the United States for gorillas? In addition, the zoo now has almost a half-dozen rainforest habitats in different exhibits and locations, undermining the biogeographic master plan they have been trying to lean towards for years. Close Tropic World permanently, construct a new gorilla habitat near Habitat Africa, and possibly a new gibbon/orangutan habitat by the Fragile Rainforest building, which is already based around Borneo. If we can fit primates anywhere else, by all means go ahead, but I don't even feel like the zoo's visitors will notice the non-apes' absence.
