Hey ZooChat a group of us were talking tonight and we were wondering who has the largest free flight aviary? We did a few google searches but the ones that state been the biggest are smaller than our's. Now we are not saying we are the biggest (far from) but just wondering if anyone had more info. One in Canada clam to be the biggest but it is about 1/2 acre, Kuranda is just over 1/4 acre, Kalbarri is less again we are just over 2 acre. The one I have found is bird of eden which seems to be about 5 1/2 acres and upto 50m high in spots . Look forward to your feed back. Matt
Kuala Lumpur Bird Park (21 acres) is completely covered by net and some birds can roam free inside, thus it could be the largest free-flight aviary in the world. Jurong Bird Park has it´s 5-acres Waterfall Aviary. Doue la Fontaine claims to have the biggest aviary in Europe - but only 2,5 acres...
both KL Bird Park and Jurong claim their walk-through aviaries as the largest in the world. The KL one is actually a series of connected walk-through aviaries so in my opinion cannot claim the title
Birds of Eden in South Africa also claims to be the world's biggest, at 23,000sq metres. edit: Sorry, should have read your post more carefully!
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I was wondering where the world's biggest aviaries are currently. Can anyone elaborate on the list above? What about San Diego's aviaries, or Selwo Aventura? Sizes and rough numbers of birds would also be interesting.
This isn't much, but the Simmons Aviary at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo claims to be the second largest free-flight aviary in the world, probably after either Birds of Eden or one of those two places in Southeast Asia that Jana and Chlidonias mentioned. It is 4 acres and their website claims it is home to over 500 birds.
Perhaps the meaning of "largest" may also vary from facility to facility. eg. one park may claim the title on the basis of area of the ground covered by the aviary whereas another may claim in based on the total volume of the avairy
Using the usually used definition of area of one aviary it may be third after Birds of Eden (5.7 acres) and Jurong (4.9 acres), but at 4 acres it isn't second. Regardless, Simmons Aviary is certainly huge. San Diego's are large, but considerably smaller than those. I've never been to Selwo Aventura and can't find numbers for their aviary. HD have pushed for several of these "largest" claims for years, then sometimes repeated by others, even when not entirely accurate. However, they're far from alone in doing this. Many zoos and aquariums do it.
