Zookeeper's Lounge

Jay wrote:

jwa1107 wrote:magnets from every zoo/aquarium I go to!

I didn't start until about 1995, so many from my childhood I have no record of, but since then I have magnets from over 20 zoos

I'm interested in hearing your ranking of the zoos/aquariums and what you found memorable from them.

by request I'll post reviews of the zoos I've visited and memories of them...
first off, though I'll give you a list of the zoos themselves (in no particular order, and including aquariums):

USA
Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle
San Francisco Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago
Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa
Jacksonville Zoo
Oklahoma City Zoo
Brevard Zoo, Melbourne, Florida
Seattle Aquarium
New England Aquarium, Boston
Mote Marine Aquarium, Sarasota, Florida
Parker Manatee Aquarium, Bradenton, Florida
Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay
Disney Animal Kindgom, Orlando

TEXAS!
Dallas Zoo
Fort Worth Zoo
Houston Zoo
San Antonio Zoo
Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, Glen Rose
Moody Gardens Rainforest, Galveston
Dallas World Aquarium

International
Calgary Zoo, Canada
London Zoo, UK
Menagerie aux Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France

the most recent of those zoos was the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

it has a nice collection of animals, but the layout is not very browser friendly.
i like to see all the animals at the zoo, and i try to plan the easiest way to do so...
well, the woodland park zoo is set up so there is one big circle around the zoo and then paths to the animal branch off from it. the major problem: you cannot see any exhibits at all from the big circle

even though this was a big detraction, they had some great exhibits.

the most notable was the new jaguar exhibit - glass on two sides for prime feline viewing in a large space with plenty to climb on and places to lie in the sun or the shade

i also liked the snow leopard exhibit, very bitg hilly with lots of gray rock terrain {seriously} but no snow, and unfortunately no visible snow leopards

they also had the second best set of exhibits for native NA animals I have seen; you can get pretty close to mountain goats and inside an aviary with bald eagles and just across a small brook from grizzlies.

but the premier exhibit was for orangutans - almost a 360 degree path to follow the exhibit which had two different outdoor areas and several smaller indoor areas. with some happy orangutans who were eager to play on their big jungle gyms (no, none of them had razors, Wally ) and the vantage point to the open sky exhibits is from a wooden boardwalk about 15-20 feet from the ground in a heavily wooded section of the zoo, so you feel like you are walking amongst the tree tops.

overall it was an enjoyable visit, but if you go be prepared to walk without seeing any animals on the big circle (we all know what that does to guest happiness in ZT!)

no, none of them had razors, Wally

WHAT?
WHAT KINDS OF ORANGATANG DOES NOT MURDER PEOPLE WITH RAZORS!
(as seen in Murders at the rue morgue by Edgar Allan Poe)

Wow, you've been to a lot! That is pretty neat, to have traveled to all those different zoos.

the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida is a small zoo on the east coast near Cape Canaveral. But small does not mean bad! I thought the cost was kind of steep for general admission based upon the animal collection and size, but luckily I have reciprocal admission to almost all AZA facilities and did not have to pay.

The African animal collection was very small, but the highlights of this zoo lay in the Latin American collection, Australian collection, and a playground.

The entire zoo is situated next to a swamp/wetlands, so every pathway is an elevated boardwalk, sometimes only inches above the ground, other time 10 feet r more.

In the Australian collection I rally enjoyed the up close views of the dingoes. Plus there was a wonderful walkthrough avaiary with two parts - birds in the first and bats in the second! But not just ordinary bats - flying foxes with 4 to5 foot wingspans! these guys were huge! it was very cool to be able to get so close to them with no cages or nets between us.

The playground was well designed for really young kids - right next to the petting zoo. It incorporated the boardwalks and wooden playground materials seemlessly and I was sorry i could not fit in some of the fun looking tunnels and such - like the blue whale mouth!

The Latin American collection included Central and South America. If you like coatis and anteaters and capys and sloths and the rainforest monkeys, this is a good place to go for sure. My favorite I think was the prehensile-tailed porcupine from Venezuela. It looks just like a 'regular' NA porcupine, but no spines are on the tail, which is prehensile or possessing the ability to grasp.

Also interesting was some of the spider monkeys reaction to the natural habitat. As I said the zoo was on/next to wetlands. So we see the monkeys begin to "freak out" - screaming and climbing high and hiding behind branches and each other. They are all looking at one corner of the cage closest to the boardwalk path. We look down and see a king snake, who has slithered through the cage opening into the enclosure and is on his way, passing through (he eventually wen under the boardwalk and we lost sight of him). The spider monkeys' reactions were a wonderful and rare moment for us to behold - the reaction to the snake as a whole begets several ideas and conversations about what the reactions could mean, and why they did what they did, etc.

Good but small zoo overall and if you go, watch out for snakes

you shure travelled a lot