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October 1, 2005

The Zoo Report Card

I love going to the zoo, especially to practice my wildlife photography in times where I can't leave home and travel into the wild for one reason or another.

I've been to zoos and aquariums all over the world - the US, Europe, Africa... Some were fantastic. Others were only ok. My opinion of a good zoo/aquarium is based on several simple factors: animal health, cleanliness, knowledge dissemination, and lastly, my visit can sometimes be colored by some negative experience with crowds or weather, but generally I'm pretty laid back about this kinda stuff.

Zoos and aquariums are expensive endeavors. It's very challenging to keep animals - especially exotics - healthy and happy in captivity. The San Diego Zoological Society has the well-deserved honor of running the best zoo system in the United States. They run the San Diego Zoo (click to see pics) in downtown Balboa Park as well as the San Diego Wild Animal Park located about 30 miles outside of town on a much larger plot of land. The Wild Animal Park is by far my favorite place to see animals - they've got huge enclosures which make them harder to see "up close and personal" but the animals are clearly well cared for as evidenced by the sheer number of baby animals one can see there as the animal park also serves as a place for stressed out downtown zoo animals to go for some private time as well as a major breeding facility.

But an excellent facility need not be large. Some of the best zoos and aquariums in the world got there by specializing in a certain area of zoology in order to provide the care and funding needed to maintain the best exhibits possible. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great example of this: they leave the "show" animals to the theme parks like Marine world and focus on the smaller animals of the Monterey Bay and beyond. You won't find the normal aquarium fodder of whales, dolphins, walrus, or seals here. Instead, you'll find windows into the bay - a kelp forest teaming with wildlife, frisky sea otters at play, and the mysterious deep open-water community in the one-million-gallon Outer Bay exhibit.

Another great example of a zoo specializing is the Jersey Zoo in the British Channel Islands. Run by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Jersey Zoo focuses on primates - everything from the smallest lemur to the western lowland gorilla. Frankly, I've never seen primate exhibits that could rival this zoo, even in much larger facilities.

Some of my least favorite zoos? Well, I was very unimpressed with the National Zoo in Washington DC. I liked the price (free) and the escaped golden lion tamarins living in the trees and stealing people's food was amusing, but half the exhibits were empty and closed off. Hard to enjoy a zoo without any animals. Perhaps next time...

Posted by sorsha at October 1, 2005 1:17 AM