Specialty of the House

Tim Brown and Scott Richardson's America's Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums, reviewed yesterday, is a good introduction to one hundred of the country's most interesting zoological collections, and is well-organized for both a casual reader and a zoo enthusiast.  If I were to redo it for a second addition, there is one tweak I would make, however.  With each zoo or aquarium listed, the authors give a brief history.  They also list the species that are most interesting to a zoo connoisseur, mostly consisting of those that they are unlikely to see elsewhere.  I wish that they had combined those two to create a subcategory of "Must-Sees for This Institution."

Many zoos have a species or two (or, in the case of the very big ones, several) which are very intertwined with their history.  Maybe it has something to do with the zoo's history, or perhaps it has something to do with its conservation efforts, or maybe it's just an animal that this particular zoo is very well known for its success in breeding and rearing.  Most zoos and aquariums have some animal that, for whatever reason, when I think of that zoo, I think of that animal.

Some examples:

• Toledo Zoo - Hippopotamus.  Toledo was the first zoo to provide underwater viewing for hippos in their Hippoquarium on their African Savannah, and it revolutionized how zoos displayed these giant mammals.  Hippos went from being sedentary blobs peering out of their bathtubs to graceful behemoths that visitors could admire, in their element, from inches away.  Many zoos decided that the only way to exhibit hippos properly was with this set-up, and many hippo exhibits closed, while other zoos opened new facilities to highlight the underwater world of hippos.  Still, Toledo did it first, and that's why this was one the first exhibits I headed to when I visited for the first time.  I'd seen hippos underwater at other zoos before, but here is where it began - including the first time visitors witnessed the birth of a hippo - underwater - before their eyes

• Phoenix Zoo - Arabian Oryx.  The Arabian oryx exhibit at Phoenix isn't too impressive.  Arabian oryx exhibits tend not to be - they are a desert animal, and Phoenix is a desert already, so their habitat was a simple pen.  Still, there was no animal at the zoo that I was more excited to see.  Phoenix was the site of the World Herd - the collaborative, international conservation breeding program which pulled together the world's last oryx and created a sustainable population which has since been used to reintroduce the species back into the wild.  I'd served as a keeper for Arabian oryx at another zoo years earlier, but seeing the species here, at such a critical place in the history of the species, was very cool.  I felt the same way about seeing California condors at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park or the National Zoo with golden lion tamarins

• Brookfield Zoo - Western Gorilla.  Like Mr. Brown and Mr. Richardson, I'm not too impressed with the gorilla exhibit at Brookfield Zoo, located in the cavernous Tropics World building.  Still, it was neat to walk up to the railing, look down into the moat, and recall the story of Binti Jua, the female gorilla who saved a small child who had toppled into her habitat years ago.  This simple protective act helped change the image of gorillas in the public eye (and possibly caused some unrealistic expectations during the Harambe incident years later).  Such was the impact of this incident that, if the gorillas are every relocated to a new exhibit, I hope the zoo leaves the old one there just for the history.