If there is one constant among zoos and aquariums, it is change. Exhibits that were once state-of-the-art are years later considered obsolete and pulled down to make room for new habitats. Species that were once so plentiful you couldn’t give them away become virtually extinct in zoo collections year later, while others which were once considered impossible to keep, let alone breed, suddenly begin to flourish. Sometimes, entirely new facilities open. I have both versions of Allen W. Nyhius’s “America’s Best Zoos” on my book shelf – one from the 1990’s, one from 2008 or so – and in many cases, the zoos described in them are almost unrecognizable today based on their written descriptions.
That’s why I was so excited last year to see the announcement about a new work, America’s Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums by Tim Brown and Scott Richardson of the International Zoo Enthusiast Society. This handsome book, full of color photographs, documents what the authors have dubbed to be the most important (often the biggest) zoos and aquariums in the country. Each zoo is given a few pages, which includes a history of the facility, a description of its exhibits and animals, a summation of what conservation projects it is involved in, and of its top exhibits. As the book was written for zoo enthusiasts, each entry is also accompanied by a list of the animals that the authors feel that a zoo-lover must not miss; lots of these zoos have lions and gorillas, for example, but the authors want to make sure that you know that the Fort Worth Zoo, for example, has pallid bat and lesser bird-of-paradise, among other rarities.
Neither of the authors is American – Mr. Brown is British, Mr. Richardson Canadian – so they bring a unique perspective that an American zoo-goer might not have. For example, they highlight species which aren’t uncommon in American zoos (Panamanian golden frogs, for example), but which are entirely absent in European collections, while also noting species which are plentiful in European collections but are not commonly seen here. They also offer some insights into differences between European and American facilities. Walk-through lemur exhibits, for example, are far more common in the Old World, while they are largely absent here. In contrast, the authors can barely keep themselves from rolling their eyes and sighing every time they mention a kangaroo walk-through exhibit, which they seem to view as a trite American cliché.
The authors definitely know their zoos, having been to over a thousand between the two of them, and definitely seem to have firm ideas of how things “should be.” Sometimes, it’s a little wearying as they harp over a few things over and over again. I lost track of how many times in the book I came across them sniffing with disdain over how this zoo or that had the poor taste to substitute an Amur leopard for the African subspecies in a geographic-themed exhibit. Other times, what I’m going to unfairly assume is Mr. Brown’s acerbic British wit elicited a muffled chuckle from me. Speaking of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s reptile house, the Scutes Family Gallery, they opine that it “[presents] living herpetology as modern art… it is quite as bad as it sounds!” Ok, I’ll agree with you gentlemen on that one…
Unlike the Nyhius book, this work also pays in depth (pun unintended) attention to America’s aquariums, profiling 16 of them, in addition to a few hybrid facilities and the SeaWorld parks. In those passages, still, the focus is perhaps more heavily on the mammal, bird, and reptile components of the collections, though the fish get tolerable mention. At the end of the book, an additional 20 facilities are given brief mention. I feel like there are a few facilities which were maybe unjustly left out – Newport Aquarium? Fossil Rim? - but overall is an enjoyable, comprehensive overview of many of America’s greatest wildlife collections.
And it’ll probably be out of date within a few years…
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