Visits to zoos that don't exist anymore

Catskill Game Farm & SeaWorld Ohio/Six Flags Worlds of Adventure

 

Maple Lane Animal Farm in Indiana

 

Out of the 50 zoological facilities I have visited so far, there are six that have since been closed - although two of these were connected to other kinds of facilities (nature reserve and museum) that have remained open and continue without the captive animal holdings and displays.

Vogelpark Zwin (Knokke-Heist, Belgium): This was a small and pretty outdated/worn-out bird park with mostly birds native (or previously native) to Belgium and Western Europe, next to a large nature reserve. The bird park has since closed and been demolished to be replaced by a new education center and the "Zwin Nature Park", a nature experience park with small-scale replicas of tidal and dune landscapes. The nature park does still house the European white stork colony that was previously part of the bird park, but all captive birds were moved to other zoological facilities. The nature reserve still exist and has in fact been substantially expanded recently.

Vlindertuin Knokke-Heist (Knokke-Heist, Belgium): Butterfly garden in Knokke-Heist - Het Zoute. I don't remember very much about this place to be honest as the visit happened quite some time ago and there isn't that much information about it that I could find. It was kind of nice, as butterfly gardens usually are, but it wasn't anything more and it was pretty small, so I would say it wasn't all that much to speak about and not really a loss, especially considering butterflies are now sometimes part of the collections of zoos.

Aquatopia (Antwerp, Belgium): Aquatopia was located within the massive Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel Antwerp, which is in fact located on the opposite side of the square (Koningin Astridplein) that also houses the entrances to Zoo Antwerpen and the magnificent Antwerp Central Station. The aquarium was closed because of declining visitor numbers and revenues and disinterest of the new owners of the hotel chain. Aquatopia's former location has now become a chocolate museum/experience center named "Chocolate Nation" (I do like chocolate, but I still think an aquarium was better use of the space).

The aquarium was actually quite nice with a decent collection that also included some herps. But in places it was also rather tacky - I mean, a Maya temple themed area with piranhas, or an escalator passing through a huge mock-up of a great white shark's mouth while the (in)famous music from "Jaws" played, anyone have another term for that than tacky? And while it was nice, a visit there never lasted all that long, even if one tried, and it was quite expensive for what was offered, certainly when one compares it to aquariums within zoos. Some areas of it were also a bit cramped and possibly noisy, especially on busier days.

I do however think it was a loss to Antwerp and the zoological world to see Aquatopia closed and I do slightly regret not paying a final visit before its closure.

Museum Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen (Brussels, Belgium): Museum of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, our national natural history museum, located in the European quarter of Brussels, not far from the European Union and European parliament buildings.

The museum very much still exists, but to my knowledge and research there are no living specimen exhibits currently. It used to house some aquaria and a vivarium room with mostly invertebrates in their entomology and malacology halls, but these have been definitively closed as part of the museum's ongoing renovations and re-developments. With this and the ending of a temporary exhibition on poisonous and venomous animals including living specimens, they don't currently display living specimens, although they likely do have some, somewhere, for research purposes.

The living animal exhibits were small and modest but interesting nonetheless. I'm not sure whether the museum will have any living specimen exhibits in the future after the re-developments, and while living animal exhibits would certainly add something to the museum and be helpful to its educational mission, it could still function very well without.

Dierenpark Emmen - Emmen Zoo (Emmen, the Netherlands): The old Emmen Zoo that was replaced by the controversial Wildlands, which I haven't visited yet. While the old Emmen Zoo had its issues and downsides due to the constraints of being on a relatively small space within city limits, it was still a fairly nice zoo with some pretty nice exhibits that I really did enjoy during my visits. I also had my first visit to a very young baby elephant at Emmen.

I liked the old zoo and hearing what's happened to the location since has been a bit disheartening (decay, vandalism, demolishing of building, new developments lagging). Wildlands is very, very different to the old Emmen Zoo and I think it's kind of regrettable that some of the old flavor and characteristics of the Emmen Zoo went lost in the new concept, which seems to not have worked out all that well so far, or at least not as well as hoped or expected.

Dierenpark Wissel Epe (Epe, the Netherlands): This place was closed after the 2015 bankruptcy of the Zodiac Zoos organization. It was taken over by Libema (owner of Safaripark Beekse Bergen and Dierenrijk that took over Wissel, Zoo Parc Overloon and AquaZoo Leeuwarden after Zodiac Zoos went out of business), but Libema saw too little opportunities to expand the small place and found the size and quality of the exhibits too low to continue, so the animals were moved out and the place closed, while Overloon and Leeuwarden did continue to exist and have substantially developed since.

Wissel did have a nice collection with some interesting and rare species, some of the exhibits were definitely not ideal or great (although some were okay or quite nice too). It's sad that plans to expand and improve the place that once circulated could never be realized, and it's a bit of a loss that the place is no longer there. However, the Dutch zoo landscape is still very well filled and the place as it was isn't missed all that much amongst all that is still there. Even if the place had been given a future, who could say it would actually have worked out in an already very full market?

 

The closed facilities that I visited are:
The Netherlands:
- Dierenpark Emmen: moved and changed to Wildlands
- Retielenzoo Serpo: closed in 2009, still waiting to be re-opened in Rijswijk
- Vogelpark Oisterwijk: I was very young when I visited, the park closed in 1993. I don't have specific memories other than that I liked to visit.

Spain:
- The Arc Animal Sanctuary: closed in 2008 after a women lost her arm to a tiger.

 

National Zoo (Washington D.C., U.S.A)

 

Stanley Park Zoo in Vancouver, BC. It wasn't much of a zoo and the voters rejected a plan to improve and expand it.

 

?

I have visited World Aquarium in Saint Louis, Missouri, which closed yesterday.

 

National Aquarium, Washington D.C., United States

 

Gosh dang it! I meant National Aquarium

 

The ankara zoo/Ataturk forest farm zoo. I went there at least five times as a child and it was so bad that I was anti zoo until I was 9 years old and went to the Bronx. The city neglected the zoo until it was closed and demolished to make place for Erdogan's palace. I have seldom information about the what happened to its residents. :'( .

 

1. Parrot Jungle, FL, USA (Haven't visited "Jungle Island" at the new location)
2. Catskill Game Farm, NY, USA
3. Dierenpark Wissel, Epe, The Netherlands
4. Rare Species Conservation Centre, Sandwich, UK
5. Shadow Nursery, TN, USA (Private Collection)
6. Dusit Zoo, Bangkok, Thailand

Plus 2 that have closed and re-opened with different names:

1. Marine World Africa USA, CA, USA
2. Buenos Aires Zoo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

Mole Hall, Scarborough Zoo & Marineland, the RSCC, Lowther Wildlife Park, Oban Rare Breeds Park (which had a few wild taxa and so probably counts), and Argyll Wildlife Park both when it was a fascinating collection owned by a protege of Peter Scott and when it was a dump owned by people only interested in making money.

 

Forgot Indian Boundary Park Zoo in Chicago

 

In New Zealand, I technically visited Marineland and the Napier Seahorse Farm (does that one count?) before they both closed down, but I was very young at the time.
The only thing that I remember seeing at Marineland in any detail was a seal foetus that was preserved in a jar.

 

Had an email notification for this thread and it reminded me I visited a zoo that no longer exists recently, Beaumaris Zoo at the Queen's Domain in Hobart. I did have a good look at the original Battery Point location too but you can't get near that now without prowling, plus the relevant part has been built over.

I was really lucky to have had the place to myself and two friends on the first day I went to the Domain. There's a fair bit left, the polar bear pit is a bit crumbly but essentially still all there, the pond is largely intact but the islands have collapsed, the top wall of the lion terraces is sticking out out the ground, the foundation of the sun bear enclosure is still there, as is the foundation of a large aviary that ran parallel to the perimeter fence on Lower Domain Road. Best preserved is what I believe to be the black leopard enclosure, which although minus its original bars is otherwise completely intact. Sadly, there's no trace of the base of the thylacine enclosure remaining, I think this was demolished before the Zoo itself closed on November 24th 1937.

The northern end of the site, which once housed the elephant house and some of the paddocks is fenced off for some reason, I think there are significant Indigenous sites in that part, there are definitely some on the old Zoo site somewhere.

One thing I'd say to anyone who is familiar with the place from photos but haven't visited is that the site is tiny.

 

So far I've only visited one place that's closed permanently and one with an uncertain future that's closed now.
- Aquatopia (closed permanently)
- Noordzeeaquarium Oostende (closed, not yet decided wether it will be renovated and reopened)

 

Marineland Napier (species included Common dolphin, California sea lion and New Zealand fur seal). CLOSED 2008.

Cairns Wildlife Safari (species included African lion, Sumatran tiger, Syrian brown bear, Southern white rhinoceros, Common hippopotamus and Pygmy hippopotamus). CLOSED 2013.

Was your visit to Marineland post July 2006? Cody, a female California sea lion died of a uterine infection in July 2006 after her unborn pup died. I suspect the pup you saw was hers.

0.1 Cody
Born at Marineland 17/12/1991
Died at Marineland 21/07/2006
Sire: Pepe; Dam: Lady

 

The Bat Zone at Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

 

Unfortunately, it was a New Zealand fur seal pup. I was able to find a photo of it that was taken during my visit (which I think was in 2007), and a partially-visible informative piece of paper that is next to it has Arctocephalus forsterii [sic] printed on it.

 

Maple Lane Wildlife Topeka, In
Indian Boundary Park Zoo Chicago, IL
Special Memories Zoo WI. All three were horrible.