As several people know I’ve been watching Animal Planet a lot here lately. One of my favorite shows is Ultimate Zoo. I’ve got to thinking about how many I’ve seen and how many I want to see. So I’ve developed this post:

What I have seen in person

• Zoo Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia, USA 1.25 acre exhibit Chinese Giant Pandas at the cost of $1.7 million. The third zoo in the US to receive pandas. They’re only here until 2009. They suddenly had to build the habitat in 7 months. They had been negotiating with China for years when they were told that they would be receiving them in 9 months. (The construction people had said build time was 12 months.) Well, China sent them early and the construction crews rose to the challenge. Also the whole state of Georgia has individuals throughout the state raising and donating the bamboo for the Panda’s diet. Currently only 4 zoos in the US have Giant Pandas.
  1. National Zoo
  2. San Diego Zoo
  3. Zoo Atlanta
  4. Memphis Zoo
• Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, USA 3 acre exhibit Primate Canyon at the cost of $5 million. Primate canyon is home to Western Lowland Gorillas, Orangutans, Siamang, and Mona monkeys all call Primate Canyon home. Construction began in 1987 and the exhibit opened in February of 1995. One of the most famous inhabitants in the zoo is Chicky a female orangutan who paints for fun. An original Chicky painting sells for $500-$1000 each. Also among notable benefits is the high tech nursery which has allowed Indah a baby orangutan born to Tombak & Puti to thrive despite a heart birth defect which would not have been able to survive with in the wild. She is afforded the best medical care available.
• Chattanooga Zoo in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA 9,000 square foot Himalayan Passage exhibit at the cost of $568,000 features Red Pandas. This is an extremely small zoo (only 6 acres for the whole zoo) that Ultimate Zoo refers to it as a boutique zoo. The loft in the gift shop is the zoo director’s office. The red panda exhibit, which opened Aug 2004, is the largest indoor red panda exhibit in the country despite the fact that Chattanooga Zoo is one of the smallest zoos accredited by the Amerian Zoological and Aquarium Association (AZA) and they are participants in the Red Panda Species Survival Plan. Thier annual budget is about $750,000 per year. Other zoo’s budgets can be in excess of $65 million per year. This is one of the best segments I have seen produced by Ultimate Zoo.

• Nashville Zoo at Grassmere in Nashville, Tennessee, USA Gibbon Islands exhibit. Opened in 2001. All that separates visitors and the animals is a 13 foot moat. This zoo is only 8 years old and is already AZA accredited.

• Nashville Zoo at Grassmere in Nashville, Tennessee, USA Meerkat exhibit. Opened in 2002.

What I haven’t seen in person

• Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota, USA 5 acre exhibit Tiger Lair at the cost of $1 million. This habitat for Amur Tigers closely mimics the Tiger’s home range. The zoo has also successfully hand raised 2 cubs that thier first time mother abandoned.
• Columbus Zoo in Columbus, Ohio, USA 23,000 square foot exhibit Manatee Coast opened in 1993 at teh cost of $10 million. Features include an opening roof and rehabilitating and releasing manatee back into the wild.
• Palm Beach Zoo in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA 5 acre exhibit Tropics of the Americas at the cost of $18 million. Featured the rescue of Muchacho a jaguar in Peru that was scheduled for euthanasia. And the Mayan temple nighthouse that surrived Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.
• Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia 37 acre exhibit Wild Asian Wetlands at the cost of $2 million. This zoo has had success with white and black rhinoceros breeding programs and is now the home of the largest number of black rhinos outside of Africa. The Wetlands area was built for thier endevor into thier third rhino species the Indian Greater One Horned Rhino. Thier first male obsessively groomed his horn and wore it down.
• Bronx Zoo in New York, New York, USA 6.5 acre exhibit Congo Gorilla Forest at the cost of $43 million. This project took them 10 years to achieve. It opened 24 June 1999 and won the 2000 AZA Exhibit of the Year award.
• Bronx Zoo in New York, New York, USA 3 acre exhibit Tiger Mountain at the cost of $8.5 million. Houses Siberian (also known as Amur) Tigers.
• Underwater Adventures Aquarium in the Mall of America Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA 500,000 galllon exhibit at the cost of $28 million. This shark aquarium features a touch pool where visitors can touch smaller sharks and rays, the world’s longest aquarium tunnel, shark dives for certified divers, a sleepover program, an outreach program to children’s hospital, and an extremely successful breeding and export program. Segment also focused on Gus Martinez, his love of sharks and his family’s donation of Gus & Peanut (2 baby sand tiger sharks) in June 2004.
• Zoo Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland 29,000 square feet exhibit South American Clouded Mountain Forest at the cost of $5.5 million. Has a mixed species exhibit featuring 2 competors for food, the spectacled bear and coati mundi
• Louisville Zoological Gardens in Louisville, Kentucky, USA 4 acre exhibit Gorilla Forest with Gorillas in the Round at the cost of $15.2 million. I have been at this zoo, but it was in the 1980’s before this exhibit was built. They sort of built it on a “Build it and they will come” philosophy. They begun construction on this state of the art gorilla exhibit in 2001 without any gorillas. This exhibit allows 3 diffrent gorilla groups to migrate in the circular exhibit. But Lincoln Park Zoo loaned them thiers while they were rebuilding thier exhibit. This exhibit won the 2003 AZA Exhibit of the Year award.
• Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, USA 13,600 square foot exhibit Regenstein Center for African Apes at the cost of $26 million. Home to 8 gorrillas and 12 chimps this facility built for animals, public and researchers. Opened July 2004. This exhibit gives the chimps choices to control thier environment. First it gives the chimps the choice to be inside or outside. One of the stumps has a fan built in that chimps can control. The termite mound has small holes that chimps can figure out how to get thier treat out of using a tool (thier treat is yellow mustard). And chimps can trigger an air blast that blasts and startles visitors.
• Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, USA 2.1 acre exhibit Regenstien Wolf Woods at the cost of $2.4 million. Due to plans to release these Mexican Grey wolves into the wild they can only see visitors from 25% of the exhibit so the exhibit makes use of one way mirrors and wolf cams to allow the visitors to view the animals. These animals are also not named, instead they are refered to by their studbook number.
• Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, USA nearly one acre exhibit Kingdoms of the Night at the cost of $31.5 million. This is below the desert dome. It features a 16 foot deep pool with blind cave fish, bat cave with a river floor to keep the exhibit clean, a desert outback, South American exhibit with owl monkeys, prehensile tail procupines, sloths and Tamandaw anteater, as well as a Louisiana swamp with racoons boping alligators on the head. They reversed the animals days and nights in order to have animals active when visitors are present during the day. Bright lights are on during the night and low lights are on during the day so visitors can see the animals.
• Saint Louis Zoo in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA 14,650 square foot exhibit Penguin & Puffin Coast at the cost of $8.3 million. The Humboldt Penguin exhibit was an old 1920’s bear grotto that they added the pool to. Indoor they have the artic Puffin, Rockhopper Penguin, Gentoo Penguin, and King Penguin. Simulated lighting for breeding and molting cycles. Clean air was a problem and they installed a cold air blower at the entrance.
• Detroit Zoological Garden in Detroit, Michigan, USA 4.2 acre exhibit Artic Ring of Life at the cost of $14.9 million. Has three distinct polar bear exhibit environments: the grassy tundra, the pack ice, and the artic ocean. They hunt live trout. Also they can see seals in the same tank but are separted by acrylic and simulated iceburgs.