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USA Today Best Zoo, Zoo Exhibit, Aquarium and Safari Park Polls 2019

Discussion in 'North America - General' started by SharkFinatic, 25 Mar 2019.

  1. SharkFinatic

    SharkFinatic Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    It's that time of year again: the USA Today Reader's Choice polls for the best zoos, zoo exhibits, aquariums, and safari parks in North America.

    Best Zoo Nominees:

    Vote- Best Zoo Nominees: 2019 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Awards

    Best Zoo Exhibit Nominees:

    Vote- Best Zoo Exhibit Nominees: 2019 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Awards

    Best Aquarium Nominees:

    Vote- Best Aquarium Nominees: 2019 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Awards

    Best Safari Park Nominees:

    Vote- Best Safari Park Nominees: 2019 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Awards
     
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  2. Arizona Docent

    Arizona Docent Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I have only looked at the first link (Best Zoo) so far. It also includes their panel of "experts" (as I imagine all the links do). Two of the seven people work in the zoo profession (though neither are zoo directors or curators). The remaining five are women who write articles or blogs on family vacations or things to do with kids. Seriously? These are their "experts"?

    The zoo list is not that bad, though I do shake my head at the inclusion of Audubon Zoo (even though I have not been there myself). Bronx and San Diego are there and some others I would consider top notch (Dallas, Houston, Living Desert). However I am disappointed my local Arizona Sonora Desert Museum did not make it this year as they have the last couple years. This is almost certainly due to the panel being made up of moms with travel blogs and not zoo professionals. In recent years the panel has been made up exclusively (I think) of zoo professionals and they recognize how innovate Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is.
     
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  3. snowleopard

    snowleopard Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    North Carolina Zoo, Sedgwick County Zoo and Zoo Miami are major zoos that take all day to see and they are each packed with high-quality exhibits. I would personally put all three of them into my all-time Top 10 zoos and so those ones are notable omissions. The three zoos that I'd name as the weakest selections would be Cheyenne Mountain, Indianapolis and Riverbanks.
     
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  4. SharkFinatic

    SharkFinatic Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    If it's any compensation, the ASDM's Arizona Trail is a Best Exhibit nominee.
     
  5. Arizona Docent

    Arizona Docent Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    No it is not. Arizona Trail is at the Phoenix Zoo!
     
  6. SharkFinatic

    SharkFinatic Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    My mistake.
     
  7. SharkFinatic

    SharkFinatic Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    On a side note, I'm surprised Pittsburgh Zoo's Jungle Odyssey exhibit got nominated, since a lot of people found it underwhelming, if I'm not mistaken.
     
  8. Pleistohorse

    Pleistohorse Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I voted Bronx (although I leaned hard towards Dallas).

    I voted Mission Everglades at Miami.

    I voted The Wilds. Although Northwest Trek and San Diego are impressive. I probably should recast that vote for Northwest Trek.
     
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  9. Arizona Docent

    Arizona Docent Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    @Pleistohorse Yes Northwest Trek all the way! It is the most underrated zoological park IMO and in my top five. It's the one I voted for.
     
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  10. ThylacineAlive

    ThylacineAlive Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Bronx, MOLA, Tennessee Aquarium, The Wilds.

    ~Thylo
     
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  11. Coelacanth18

    Coelacanth18 Well-Known Member Premium Member 5+ year member

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    Currently the highest ranked aquarium is Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies o_O
     
  12. Batto

    Batto Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I agree with you, but this once again illustrates the point I made at the thread "Stupidest Exhibit Ideas Ever" (and others): that the factual qualification (or rather, the lack thereof) of the reviewer to evaluate a zoo or exhibit greatly influences the quality of such ratings.
    However, the editorial department probably critiqued the panel selection of previous years (i.e. the zoo professionals you mentioned) for being too "nerdy" to appreciate the wishes of said moms with travel blogs... Whether the latter have any significant factual knowledge regarding animal welfare, (zoo) biology, enclosure design / building, zoo keeping, conservation, zoo veterinary medicine etc. is a different kettle of fish.
     
  13. Echobeast

    Echobeast Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    The experts chosen for these polls shows that USA Today values the opinions of family travel experts greatly. This is not a bad thing. It just shows what the pool is about. It’s not about which zoo is the most inovative, or has the most species, or largest exhibits. This poll is designed for the average zoo goer and their families and what they value in a zoo. These families are majorly important to a zoo and basically the life blood to keeping the zoo running. USA Today is a very generalized publication that needs to reach out to the widest demographic possible. Zoo nerds on this forum are not who they are thinking of nor are they thinking about zoo professionals. These are about families which make up the overwhelming majority of the attendance at zoos. So the experts are looking at different things than we usually do when we review or visit zoos. They look at overall experiences, staff friendliness, attractions, and potentially look at exhibits a fair bit less than we do. These polls are always scoffed at by users here because of this. Especially when the final tallies come up.

    I’ll make a few points about this poll from the perspective of a zookeeper who’s zoo is nominated. This poll every year is a point of pride and we strive to rise in the ranks every year by making small changes to make our zoo a bit better. Things like picking up that piece of trash in the road, taking the extra time to ask that family how their visit is going, or taking pride in the zoo’s accomplishments and messaging that to guests. I assume it’s the same for employees of other zoos on the list. I’m sure the higher ups at these zoos want the highest ranking possible because of marketing, but to the employees, it’s a badge of honor.

    You should not look at this poll as a true top ten. San Diego Zoo was nominated last year but didn’t crack the top ten after voting and it’s my personal number 1. But this poll does have value to the zoo’s that are nominated and the families that visit. If you are walking and interacting with the visitors at a zoo, you will notice that they value very different things than us zoo nerds. Doesn’t make their opinions wrong.

    So take this poll with a grain of salt. If you want to make your own top ten go ahead. Although those threads tend to lead to large tangential arguments here.
     
  14. Arizona Docent

    Arizona Docent Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    What? :eek: Arguments on ZooChat? :eek::eek::eek: I am shocked!!!
     
  15. Yi Qi

    Yi Qi Well-Known Member

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    I intended to vote on Sedgewick's Zambezi Elephants, but I accidentally selected OCZ's Expedition Asia.
     
  16. SharkFinatic

    SharkFinatic Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Unimaginable, I know.
     
  17. Batto

    Batto Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    That's what I somehow doubt. And I wonder whether this current panel is really representative of the diversity of zoo visitors, nerds or not.
    Once the wellbeing, health and safety of the animals and fellow human beings is impaired, they are wrong.
     
  18. Echobeast

    Echobeast Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    @Batto My post was made to put the poll into perspective because every year, I see people complaining about this particular poll. Every time a "Top Ten" thread is made, inevitably it becomes a big argument. I wanted to calm everyone down and make sure people don't overreact. Looks like that didn't work lol.

    Let's look at the "experts" that did the nominating in the Best Zoo category:

    You are going to tell me that all of these people and one media company are not qualified to nominate 20 of the best zoos in North America? They are all writers, bloggers, and guide book creators specifically for traveling families. Many of them are award winning. Maybe if only one of them was nominating the whole list you could say they aren't qualified but it is absurd to say that 5 independent entities that are considered experts in their field (and one mom who gives a grounded, first hand perspective of family travel values) can't represent the average zoo guest when the average zoo guests are families.

    Let's look at the zoo professionals that also helped make the nomination list:

    I feel this guy's resume speaks for itself. He clearly has the expertise to know what makes a great zoo when it comes to animal exhibits, conservation, and accredidation.

    Do I even need to say anything more about Debra Erickson?

    These two experts should represent what all guests value in a zoo.

    I find it insane that anyone would find these experts unqualified to nominate zoos for this particular poll (the point of which I explained in my previous post).

    You seem to like to take my quotes out of context. Let's look at my quote again:

    The point of that paragraph was that other zoo guests are going to like and dislike different things at a zoo than you are. Of course animal welfare and guest safety are going to be near the top for nearly every one of those guests. I never said or implied that it wasn't and none of these nominated zoos are even questionable in that regard. They are all AZA, ZAA, or WAZA accredited (or a combination of multiple accrediting institutions) which puts them in the top 10% of licensed zoos in the USA when it comes to animal welfare.

    You continue to imply that I do not care about animal welfare which couldn't be further from the truth. This is not the thread to discuss that and we had a pretty unhealthy discussion about it previously. I believe you posted this reply only to get at me.
     
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  19. Batto

    Batto Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    And I wonder how you appear to take personal offence in any of my replies to the arguments you bring to the table. Could you please point out where did I explicitly write that all panel members are unqualified?
    Your very country is the one currently lecturing the rest of the world about the power of diversity. So were the PoC, the Asians etc. among the panel members? What about the gender ratio? You can't tell me that just white women visit zoos.
    But on a more serious note: I do think that ArizonaDocent has a point in wondering whether this is a representative panel or not.

    The point of my initial post was that a not too insignificant number of visitors knows little to nothing about animal welfare or guest safety. Which explains the reckless and harmful visitor behavior frequently scathed among zoo staff and in this very forum. So if I state that, say, the enclosure for a coastal taipan should provide apt retreats for the animal and safe handling options for the staff (i.e. trap box etc), but the majority of the visitors thinks that such an animal should rather be presented in a bare small fishbowl of an enclosure so that they can spot it more easily, I'd dare to say that I know better than the visitors how this should be done.
    And you continue to take everything personally. Once again: where did I explicitly state this? And I thought our previous discussion was rather interesting in regard to the very different povs.
    As stated in past threads, I always wonder about the American (and Canadian) enthusiasm to put everything into a rating system, no matter how inept the qualifying factors and the evaluation are. But maybe that's another cultural difference. Granted, the local media try to do the same, but it's not half as extensive.
     
  20. Pleistohorse

    Pleistohorse Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    “Only Americans could turn Birding into a competition!” *Huffs in European*

    “That’s right and you don’t want to miss this one.” ;)

    Getting a little tightened up about it ain’t ya?