Alright everyone let's bring back this thread in preparation for my recreation project of 2024!
The zoo will be restarted completely with my knowledge of recreation building being transferred from the failed attempt at conquering the San Diego Zoo, the mighty california zoo with over 100 habitats is simply impossible to tackle in any way at least in this version of the game, who knows maybe a planet zoo 2 may make large recreations possible.
So let's start again shall we?
The zoo is split into 2 distinct portions - The North and south, like 2 islands for the zoo. To take advantage of this, I am actually going to split the zoo across 2 maps allowing for great attention to detail and able to maintain high performance for me (less chance of ruining another computer
). The way this will work is using those bridges to my advantage. Both sides of the river are covered in a good layer of foliage which obstructs view in the other so the split between maps will naturally flow.
The North
Lets talk about the north of the zoo first. This is the main entrance with the large parking lot, space on the map will allow me to build the connecting road, parking lot entrance, parking lot and the full entrance into the zoo under a highway. Building a full highway is going to be a challenge but a fun one nonetheless. The entrance for guests goes under the highway and leads into the North portion of the zoo.
The north portion has an impressive penguin complex for the entrance habitats. This includes an outdoor habitat for warm climate penguins and an indoor building featuring cold weather penguins. This will be a standard north american 'walkthrough' penguin habitat where we can see penguins on both sides of the guest path.
We will also see full utilisation of the gift shop features with the large gift shop and cafe beside the penguin habitats. Past the entrance habitat area, we will enter the newest area of the zoo that just finished construction this month! The new wild canada habitat area is the sole habitat complex of the north and an exciting one at that.
Polar bears have finally returned to the zoo after a long absence. Wild Canada has been redesigned with the polar bears in mind, there are no longer bison or prairie dogs in this area but instead a very large Polar bear habitat with deep diving pools, running water streams, and lots of viewing areas for the guests as they travel around the habitat. We will also come across bighorn sheep, mountain goat, reindeer, musk ox, river otter, a walkthrough owl exhibit, gray wolves, moose, whooping cranes, bears, cougar and even porcupine. A large area with iconic animals to represent Canada at its best.
The other portion of the north is the prehistoric Park. Here there are no animal habitats but instead a walking trail around the 'badlands' of Canada. These badlands were a major source of Dinosaur discoveries, just about an hours drive from the city of calgary. So naturally Dinosaur heritage is quite strong in the region and dinosaurs are always a successful way to make kids excited. Ingame of course, we will see Dinosaur fossils instead of cast statues like in the real zoo since I can't build those, and the workshop is full of lovely Fossil statues.
The South
Now onto the actual island of the south, as already mentioned this will be on a second map to take full advantage of details while not being overly concerned about piece count. This can be views as the bulk of the zoo as we can find roughly 30 habitats dedicated to africa and eurasia. Yes eurasia! What a great time for a eurasia pack to come out, although funnily enough only one animal is featured. Starting out in the south, the african area is dominated by 2 very large buildings to keep these animals nice and warm in the rather cold winters of canada.
Mixed savanna habitat with giraffe, ostrich, zebra and others, indoor crested porcupine habitat, hippopotamus habitat, lions and a lemur walkthrough are the core parts of Africa. A typical savanna display just with a very large indoor building to change it up. The second indoor building features an african aviary (pretty much the only bird heavy area of the entire zoo) and habitats for primates - Mandrill and Gorilla are the key habitats. The primates do have both good sized indoor and outdoor areas next to a dirt yard featuring some red river hogs.
The Dorothy harvie gardens is the central portion of the south. We will find simple grassy habitats for rhea and alpaca along with a peccary habitat and some flamingos. The main attraction here is the butterfly gardens - indoor walkthrough exhibits can be used for these greenhouses featuring tons of different butterflies.
The final area of the zoo is called exploration asia, this is our eurasia section. The first section is the old elephant turned old giant panda house now a mixed habitat for malayan tapir and lar gibbons. Komodo dragon and bactrian camels can be found nearby.
The second part of exploration asia features a great mix of hoofstock and typical Asian animals in average habitats - we can find the only Japanese serow in North america, siberian musk deer, wild boar, markhor, Japanese macaque, snow leopard, red panda, pallas cat, and siberian tiger. Here is also the smaller West entrance which allows guests to enter and exit from two directions of the zoo.
Let's aim for first progress in early January of next year which will start around the north entrance and my first video of showing how a recreation actually starts from a blank map. A early next year estimate allows me time to plan the zoo thoroughly including gather references on the very new wild canada and acquire a new computer in time to start building again!
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