What are your favourite zoos in reallife?

Hugo98

H
The local zoo thread inspired me to create this thread. I'm very curious to hear about your favourite zoo(s) that you have visited so far. Is your local zoo also your favourite one and if not why?
And what makes your favourite zoo so special for you that it is your No. 1? Maybe you even have more than one favourite zoo, so write them down as well.

So I have three favourite zoos and I can't really decide which of them would I rank on No. 1:

Zoo Leipzig, Germany (my current local zoo btw):
It's often ranked as Germany's best zoo and one of the best in Europe. And I would agree with it. There aren't many outdated enclosures and mostly they are really well designed. My personal highlight is the "Gondwanaland", one of the biggest of not the biggest tropical halls in Europe and with an indoor boat ride. "Pongoland", the world's largest great ape exhibit complex is absolutely fantastic, too. Special fun fact about Pongoland: the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology sponsored a majority of the exhibit and use the monkeys for social experiments (no harmful experiments!) and if you are lucky you can watch the researchers doing some things with the monkeys (visitors can see the examionation rooms through glass windows). There are many more geographical areas like a large African savanna exhibit, an East Asian area or a South American enclosure. I think the zoo is very modern with a great level of animal welfare.
poi-detailseite

source: https://www.leipzig.travel/de/poi-d...a42f7aa6744547de64121fab0&ts=1623767917&w=650
pongoland.jpg

Pongoland, source: https://www.seepark-auenhain.de/img/zoo/pongoland.jpg

Zoo Zurich, Switzerland:
Also one of the top zoos according to experts. They have very detailed areas with great theming and just very awesome, unique enclosures. For example, there is a replica of an Andean clouded forest, a large tropical hall only for free-roaming Malagasy animals (!), an amazing Asian elephant house and - very new - a large African savanna exhibit based on the Lewa Reserve in Kenia, and many more exhibits. What I really like are the conservations efforts Zurich put in. Many of the exhibits like the Kaeng Krachan elephant habitat, the Masoala tropcial hall or the Lewa Savanna are not only based on those reserves, Zurich even financially supports those reserves. I think Zurich spends like one third of the whole income of the Masoala Nationalpark and a majority of Lewa's income. I think more zoos should follow Zurich's ideas.
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source: zoo.ch

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source: zoo.ch

Burgers Zoo Arnhem, the Netherlands:
I was really blown away when I was there a few years ago. Although already 20 years or older, the big indoor ecodisplays are still very cool. The rainforest hall maybe is not that unique because many zoos have such a hall nowadays, but the Sonoran desert hall is still a very unique exhibit. Relatively new is a Mangrove hall (which I haven't seen yet unfortunately), also not common in zoos. In addition, there is a large aquarium, a safari area, a South East Asian animal area and more. I think their concept is great, so Arnheim deserves a spot on my short list as well.
1200px-Burgers_Zoo_Desert_Overzicht1.jpg

Burger's desert, source: Wikipedia
20180610_115549_18_medium.webp

Burger's mangrove, source: https://www.freizeitpark-welt.de/zoo/burgers_zoo/fotos/2018/20180610_115549_18_medium.webp

So what about your favourites? Can't wait fpr your comments.
 
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Aidan635

Aidan635
I havent been to many zoos around the United States (and Canada). For reference, here are the ones I've been to...

  • ZooAmerica: Hersey, PA
  • Bronx Zoo: New York City, NY
  • Queens Zoo: New York City, NY
  • Prospect Park Zoo: New York City, NY
  • San Diego Zoo: San Diego, CA
  • Smithsonian's National Zoo: Washington, DC
  • Toronto Zoo: Toronto, Ontario, CAN
  • Busch Gardens Tampa Bay: Tampa, FL (If you count that as a zoo)

As you can see, I haven’t been to many zoos (yet). But, my favorite has to be the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, DC. This zoo is FREE (excluding parking), which is pretty awesome. The zoo is a mixture of old and new, which I quite enjoy. For example, the North American and Asian areas are relatively new while the older buildings and big cats area seem older. Speaking of the North American area, it is my favorite exhibit in the zoo. It was recently built in 2012 and has animals such as otters, sea lions, bald eagles, and wolves. The zoo is also very walkable and all of the exhibits are pretty close together. The San Diego Zoo and even more notably, the Toronto Zoo, we’re humongous zoos and they were a lot of walking to get to certain animals. So yeah, I would definitely recommend the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, DC and I would recommend you check it out if your visiting the area.
 

PaulaM

PaulaM
My favorite zoo is the Jersey Zoo on the island of Jersey in Channel Islands. They were called the Durrell Wildlife Conservation park for a while, when then word "zoo" had such bad connotations. They were founded in the 1960s by Gerald Durrell. If you have ever read the book "My Family and Other Animals" or saw the TV series "The Durrells", those are about his life. Being on an island, they are a small zoo, with the largest animals being the lowland gorillas, Sumatran orangutans, and Andean bears. But they have locations all around the world where they work on saving species like the pink pigeon, mountain chicken frog, and pygmy hog, to name a few. The staff is incredibly devoted and passionate about the animals and give them every possible thing they can to keep them happy and health, even having a farm where they grow a lot of the food they feed.


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Birini

B
San Diego is justifiably famous. I also really like Cincinnati for their hippo enclosure and Columbus “Heart of Africa” exhibit.
 

Aramar

Aramar
This is a difficult question for me, because I've visited several zoos, but only one time each, as part of my trips. There's only one zoo that I've visited more than once: Helsinki zoo, my current local zoo.

I imagine that I should say that San Diego or Bronx Zoo are my favourites because the huge amount of animals displayed, but I can't say that. My visits to those zoos were exhausting due to how large they are, and I missed lots of the animals because they were hiding or sleeping. You can't handle a zoo like that in 5 or 6 hours. Actually, I don't even remember many things about those zoos, just the polar and panda bears from San Diego and the amazing gorillas in the Bronx, and a lot of walking. I've learned that to enjoy a zoo you have to visit it multiple times and one day you will enjoy some animals and in the next visit you will enjoy other animals, but never all the animals in a one day visit.

That makes Helsinki zoo my favourite zoo despite it being more modest. I can go there several times and enjoy in a relaxed way my visits, not worrying if I don't see an animal. I am even learning about the animals, which are males or females, how old they are, from which zoo did they come from, etc.

As a final note, a zoo that I haven't visited yet, but that I think that could easily become my favourite one ever is Bioparc in Valencia (Spain). I can't wait to go there!
 

Veah

Veah
PaulaM said:
My favorite zoo is the Jersey Zoo on the island of Jersey in Channel Islands. They were called the Durrell Wildlife Conservation park for a while, when then word "zoo" had such bad connotations. They were founded in the 1960s by Gerald Durrell. If you have ever read the book "My Family and Other Animals" or saw the TV series "The Durrells", those are about his life. Being on an island, they are a small zoo, with the largest animals being the lowland gorillas, Sumatran orangutans, and Andean bears. But they have locations all around the world where they work on saving species like the pink pigeon, mountain chicken frog, and pygmy hog, to name a few. The staff is incredibly devoted and passionate about the animals and give them every possible thing they can to keep them happy and health, even having a farm where they grow a lot of the food they feed.
Click to expand...

I've always been impressed with how can such a good zoo exist in such a small island. I mean, all the other great zoos of the world are in very populated areas (or very near to), because good zoos need good numbers of visitors.
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
I have 2 favorites:

Houston Zoo - I grew up here, my whole life, the past 20 years going here. As I've stated, the last few years they've really been renovating it; the new CEO has this big plan to make the zoo more educational and fun and interactive, instead of just "stand at cage, observe animal sleep, move on, repeat". He's added lots of things that really make the zoo stand out. As part of the 100 year anniversary next year, the zoo will be opening Galapagos Islands and feature, for the 1st time, penguins (Humboldt, to be exact)

The 2nd one is a small zoo in a town in Mexico called Zoo Ira (Irapuato Zoo, in Irapuato, Guanajuato, MX). This is a very small zoo. In the last 10 year's it has improved so much; they now have a proper entrance, and many areas have been repaired, including the shops, the playgrounds, and the train (it was super rundown). I won't be going to Mexico for a while, though, but I can't wait to see how much has improved since I last went 2 years ago
 

coatifan

coatifan
I've actually only ever visited 5 major zoological facilities, plus one or two museums with live species and the DC and Glen Echo "aquariums" which are sweet but maybe a room each in terms of size. With that said, it's a hard choice between my local Smithsonian, with more rarities and some of my favorite species, and Audubon, which is themed wonderfully and has some ABC's which the Smithsonian is lacking in. It's not helped by the fact that Smithsonian has some poorly-aged low points, like the Great Ape House, Small Mammal House, and (arguably) the Big Cat Hill, whereas Audubon feels like it takes few risks, with your standard Asian temples, Mayan-themed jaguar jungle, pampas/pantanal mixed exhibit, open savannah, etc. National Aquarium is super wonderful but I haven't been in ages (though I'm glad that they finally got rid of their bottlenose dolphins, whose exhibit was at best uninspiring and at worst poor husbandry).
 

abigenius

abigenius
My favorite zoo on the Earth it's absolutely the Guadalajara Zoo, I love it, it's so big , personally i think that's the best Zoo in Mexico and Latin American in general , also that zoo have one polar bear, and a huge African safari habitat with almost 15 different species of animals, really i enjoy stay there , I'm studying for be a Zoology Veterinarian and my big dream it's get a job there, I visited a lot of zoos on my life but the Guadalajara zoo has a special place in my heart ❤️🦓
 
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