The topic? Tropical forests. Remember: off-display animals count, if their presence at the zoo can be verified. Exhibits that are not yet open do not.
Zurich have Masoala, which is purely dedicated to the tropical forest biome. The exotarium is predominantly focused on tropical forests. Sangay (spectacled bears & coati) and the Kaeng Krachan elephant park represent biomes at the borders of this competition's categories, tropical cloud forests for Sangay (tropical forests // mountains - i.e. 'temperates') and a tropical forest riverbed with clearings (tropical forests // savanna - i.e. grasslands & deserts). Both arguably lean more heavily into the tropical forests category. Gir for asiatic lions and small clawed otters is also at the borders of the tropical forests and savanna categories, though arguably leaning more strongly into the latter. Finally, if the monkey islands in the Pantanal did not count for the 'aquatics' category, then they should count now. Masoala would arguably already merit a 3-0 score on its own. In addition to this, both Sangay and Kaeng Krachan (indoors) are also top-in-class exhibits with frequent mentions as the best in class. The exotarium is still excellent despite its age. Also excellent are the monkey islands of the Pantanal area (as well as the Gir lion and otter enclose, which marginally apllies to this category). A decisive 3-0 for me. Why disadvantage zoos that emphasize exhibit quality over species numbers in such an arbitrary manner?
Why assume that this is the objective and result of that rule? Look at it this way; if one hypothetical collection had two onshow amphibian species, but kept and bred a dozen critically endangered amphibian species behind the scenes, and another had four onshow species but did no such work, without this rule the latter collection would be automatically deemed the better "for" amphibians. With this rule such work can be taken into account.
Oh well, Beauval is unlucky yet again. It is even more unlucky that they don't have their tropical dome open yet. Think it is 2-1 though. Beauval have the gorilla house, which is really quite nice, some nice big cat exhibits, the bird house, the okapis and the other great ape exhibits which are also quite nice.
Indeed luck is not on Beauval's side. Although it is very strong in this category I have to give it to Zurich for now. Next month, when the dome has opened, I would probably have gone with Beauval. Since the videos so far make it look amazing.
It doesn’t. The intention behind the rules is to keep the range of potential perspectives as open as possible. As yet unopened exhibits are excluded because I don’t think debate should focus on that which isn’t known: nobody has seen Beauval’s equatorial dome, so any voting on its quality would be driven only by speculation and marketing.
I was going to vote 3-0 based on Masoala and he Elephant house, but given that the Ape house also counts, I am switching to 2-1. Zurich is still well ahead though.
We definitely cannot count any enclosures from the dome, but given this is a photo and not a artist's sketch, this might be able to be counted? If not, @CGSwans will correct me but could we in theory add it as a rainforest area but not a series of rainforest exhibits?
I don’t think so, sorry. I see your reasoning, but I still don’t consider an overview photo to be enough. Obviously people aren’t required to have visited a collection to vote, but an informed debate does require that at least *some* people have visited, so that they can provide first-hand context rather than everybody working off photos. That photo does tell me that Beauval have created an attractive indoor rainforest to look at, but that’s all. Are the enclosures themselves any good? I don’t know and nobody can actually tell me until after it has opened. We will be able to debate the virtues of Beauval’s new dome at length, but in the next Cup, not this one.
It appears that the mere mention of Zurich's ape house - which dates back to the 1950's and 1980's, and which is scheduled for replacement within the next five years - has sufficed to let many revert their votes from 3-0 to 2-1 Zurich. While criticism may be warranted, personally I do not see how the ape house would diminish how Zurich interprets tropical forests throughout a multitude of newer enclosures and buildings on its grounds - in the enclosure and visitor area designs, but also in the educational displays (which incidentally are excellent in the much maligned ape house), as well as in their conservation cooperations (the Masoala tree nursery for example). Moreover, the ape house at Zurich is a relic from an earlier epoch in zoo husbandry. And upon its inception, in that epoch it was at the forefront of zoo enclosure design (at least according to the zoo itself), apparently pioneering the holding of gorillas and orang-utans in groups. Conversely, based on discussions here and elsewhere, I do not see any comparable dedication to representing tropical forests as a 'biome' at Beauval. Indeed, Beauval is only weeks away from opening a 'tropical dome' which, instead of following a naturalistic 'ecodisplay' vision laid out by the likes of Burger's, Zurich, or Bronx, seems more dedicated to a 'postage stamp under a glass dome' philosophy, where the tropical forest theme appears as more of a superficial gimmick, to be implemented with potted palms and houseplants (ok, this sentence sounds like more of a rant, than actually intended). What I intend to highlight is that a) the category of this match is 'tropical forests' as a biome, b) Zurich, for the past twenty years, has been at the forefront of redefining how tropical forests can be interpreted and represented in zoos - not just with Masoala, but also with many other developments, while c) Beauval seems to have entirely different interests and ambitions than a complex, naturalistic interpretation and/or simulation of the tropical forest biome, which d) is nicely illustrated by their most novel development, the tropical dome.
Interpretation of tropical forests at Zurich: Outdoors Tropical cloud forest Tropical dry deciduous forest
