Tell us your favorite zoo and why

I am very interested in the global response of people's favorite zoo. If possible, pls include a link to the website or photos if you have have them!

My favorite has to be the San Diego (CA, USA) Zoo and Safari Park. The diverity and amount of animals at the Zoo is fantastic. I really like the Safari Park (seperate from the Zoo) becasue it includes acres and acres of roaming herds that are divided into continents, or continent parts (i.e East Africa, South Africa). A monorail takes you around as you come into view of all wild animals from all around the world seemingly roaming free. We went when it had just rained and was cloudy/cool out. You may think that is bad weather for going to the Park but on the contrary--the animals are so active because it was so cool, and the sun was not beating down on them.

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Other notable zoos:

Disney's Wild Animal Park and Wild Animal Lodge

Miami (FL, USA) Zoo

Lion Country (FL, USA) Cool drive through animal park with herds roaming free around ur car.

Never been to a zoo though outside the USA.



--Shawn

I've been in very different parks. I've been in the zoo of Berlin once. It's very big!
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Most of the times I've been in Burgers' Zoo in the Netherlands.
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I've been in a park once with ony wolves and birds like owls and falcons. It was like magic. The wolves were howling!
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Personally I really love Paridaisa in Belgium. It's soo beautifull !
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Look I'm on a turtle (my little brother is the turtle :) ) Old picture though, I changed a lot!
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Many years ago I was attending a business event on the island of Jersey.
Forunately I was able to stay on an extra afternoon, and went to see the zoo that was founded by Gerald Durrell :
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It was not a large zoo, and it was clear that they were not rich, but there was a special atmosphere.
When I payed the entrance fee, I said that I was sorry to have forgotten my camera, and the lady selling tickets said that I could borrow hers !
And like her, everyone was extremely kind and helpful and obviously very proud of the animals

If you do not know about Durrell, you can read a little here :
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I visited Zoo Dresden, Zoo Leipzig, Zoo Berlin + Tierpark Berlin, Tierpark Zittau, Zoo Decin, Zoo Usti nad Labem, Safaripark Dvur Kralove, Safaripark Hodenhagen and the Palmitos Park Gran Canaria.

Of this zoos are my favourites Berlin, Leipzig and Gran Canaria. But i wish to see the San Diego Zoo.

Throughout my whole life I've only been to 2 zoos the first one I can hardly remember and the second wasn't that amazing.

JackyLovertjex wrote:

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I find this picture rather disturbing

Very funny photo

SUSANNE wrote:

Many years ago I was attending a business event on the island of Jersey.
Forunately I was able to stay on an extra afternoon, and went to see the zoo that was founded by Gerald Durrell :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

It was not a large zoo, and it was clear that they were not rich, but there was a special atmosphere.
When I payed the entrance fee, I said that I was sorry to have forgotten my camera, and the lady selling tickets said that I could borrow hers !
And like her, everyone was extremely kind and helpful and obviously very proud of the animals

If you do not know about Durrell, you can read a little here :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Great stuff, Susanne. When I was a young lad, I remember reading "My Family And Other Animals" which was an account of Gerald Durrell's childhood growing up on the Greek island of Corfu. His brother Lawrence was a well-known novelist.

I haven't been to many Zoos. Only three I think. The favorites of those are Ölands Djurpark were they have variety of exotic animals, and Skånes Djurpark were they only have Nordic/Scandinavian animals.

I've been to moethan 200 Zoosa nd Aquariu8ms through the world. All of them have good good and bad things and they are all to diffrent in amny ways, so its impossible tome to say, which one is my favourite.

In general I prefer Zoos which give their animals the best possible living conditions and welfare, which means, they keep not large collections of many diffrent species like Berlin. Both zoos there collecting animals like stamps, which is totally outdated nowadays. In was good for the 60ty and 70ty years, but the times of collecting animals are over-but not in Berlin, so many of the exhibts there are small,bad, outdated...To many animals in to small places.

Of course, the Tierparks has 160 hectares, but nevertheless, to small, in many cases TINY exhibits and still CAGES for elephants, rhinos, monkeys, birds and big cats, so that place belongs to the most bad zoos in germany.

I like SanDiego WAP, the anmials there have a lot of space all the year round, they can be kept all the time OUTDOORS in their social herds, never seperated, never in a barn, so this park gives them the most possible natural living quality in a zoo I know.

schleich61 wrote:

SUSANNE wrote:

Many years ago I was attending a business event on the island of Jersey.
Forunately I was able to stay on an extra afternoon, and went to see the zoo that was founded by Gerald Durrell :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

It was not a large zoo, and it was clear that they were not rich, but there was a special atmosphere.
When I payed the entrance fee, I said that I was sorry to have forgotten my camera, and the lady selling tickets said that I could borrow hers !
And like her, everyone was extremely kind and helpful and obviously very proud of the animals

If you do not know about Durrell, you can read a little here :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Great stuff, Susanne. When I was a young lad, I remember reading "My Family And Other Animals" which was an account of Gerald Durrell's childhood growing up on the Greek island of Corfu. His brother Lawrence was a well-known novelist.

He wrote another book about the construction and opening of the Zoo in Jersey, it's called the the stationary ark (A very good book).
My favorite zoo is probably Taronga Zoo, because it is the closest and it has a variety of different animals.

I have a weak spot for Amsterdams zoo. It has developt throughout the years, from a quite conventional innercity-zoo to a place better suited for the animals.

All zoos located inside towns have limited space and thats a problem. but Amsterdam has bit by bit made the best of it. The new savanna on an island in one of Amsterdams canals is nice and the rest it beautiful.

Another zoo which has been modernised very well is Copenhagens zoo, nice savanna with hippos at the end, a big new elephant house and many other good enclousures.

These two zoos has been much more sucesfull in adapting to modern standards tha for example Londons zoo.

In Sweden I think that Kolmården is the greatest. Lot's of animals in large paddocks.

Other ones well worth seeing is Skånes djurpark, scandinavian animals in quite natural surrondings, Borås djurpark, like Kolmården but a bit smaller but actually nicer and Nordens ark which is specialized in breeding rare species that are on the verge of extinction.

Berlins both zoos are good, and, and and.... :-)

Lennart
Stockholm

I have not been to many different zoos but I always go to the North Carolina Zoo which is on the list of some of the best zoos! They also have a program called the Zoo School, that I plan on entering in next year when I am a sophomore!